"Jane-taichou, the sky way is clear of all hostiles apart from 3 of those large walkers and a couple of large groups of infantry, moving on to scout out the alpha varren..." As Naruto's latest report came in Tali couldn't help but question Shepard's judgement regarding the mission, though as she caught sight of her commander's expression from the driver's seat of their Mako Tali realised she might not have had much of a choice in Naruto's tactics.
"Okay Naruto, scout only understand? We will catch up with you shortly." Despite her concern for their blonde haired team mate Tali couldn't help but feel a small amount of satisfaction that her gut feeling had been right.
Naruto had been different since he had woken from the assassination attempt, quiet and driven to the point that Tali was almost concerned it wasn't the same person, aggressively breaking through the Geth blockade around the human colony before going 'scouting'. Though given the number of Geth corpses that were scattered in their path as they advanced, maybe hunting was a more appropriate term for Naruto's actions.
It wasn't to say that the three of them following him had nothing to do, Naruto having left the larger clusters of Geth and reported them in before moving on, and the three Geth dropships in the area provided more than enough opposition to slow them down in their advance towards Exo-Geni's base of operations. Jane had elected to have her and Garrus accompany her, while the others had set themselves up in a forward base in the tunnels they had cleared leading up to the colony. This would help protect the 300 or so surviving colonists from any further Geth attacks whilst they moved on the tower.
"Commander, I am picking up several comm's signals from nearby and they definitely aren't Geth, should we investigate? It could be other survivors..." Garrus' comment jarred Tali back to the present, flushing as she did a sweep of her own and found the signals Garrus was talking about, Keelah, and she was meant to be the tech specialist in the squad.
Thankfully Shepard didn't seem bothered by her failure, merely spinning the Mako in a flashy but skilled turn to avoid the fire of an armature that reared up from where it had been hiding amongst the skyway debris, Garrus opening up with the main gun and the machine gun whilst Tali narrowed down the location of the signals as fast as she could. As the armature collapsed to the ground, one of the cannon rounds blowing off a leg before Shepard charged into the thing at full speed, Tali let out a little triumphant cry as she finished locking down the signal.
"Shepard, the signals are human in origin, I have decrypted them and they are from that service area I think."
"Good work Tali, let's go investigate, Naruto will just have to be patient... If that is even a word in his dictionary." There was a grumble over the comms a moment later, making Tali giggle slightly.
"I can still hear you guys you know... Fine, I will loop back and meet you after I have scouted the tower, don't be too long." Tali couldn't help but chuckle at Naruto's childish complaint, even when the young man was being all dour and serious he still managed to improve her mood somehow.
"Shepard, do you know what is upsetting Naruto at the moment?" Surprisingly, it was Garrus that voiced her thoughts as they pulled the Mako to a halt, the Turian sounding concerned despite the obvious attempt he made to sound casual with his question.
"Something with this mission is related to his past, he thinks there is an item of personal significance here and the sooner we eliminate the Geth the sooner he can try and find it." Tali's eyes widened at this revelation, given the manner of her original rescue she had been 'briefed' regarding Naruto's true past, unlike the other non-human members of the strike force it meant she understood the significance of a possible link to his previous life.
"And he still focusses on the mission first? Commendable, especially seeing as he has almost no personal items that he keeps on the Normandy, would he like help?" How much the offer from Garrus was genuine and how much was related to his curiosity about the young enigma on their team Tali wasn't sure, but thankfully Shepard's reply was cut off as they approached the entrance to the service area and the voices from the comms became audible through the entrance of the service tunnel.
Tali's mind was elsewhere as the two leaders of the survivors started a conversation with Shepard, wrestling with the desire to try and contact Naruto privately. It was only because she wanted to help if she could, or that is what she told herself as she activated her internal comms and taking a couple of steps back to gain a little privacy.
"Naruto, Shepard's just told us about what you think might be down here, is there anything I can do to help?" There was a moment's pause before she heard a small sigh and Naruto responded.
"Unless you can sense chakra Tali-chan I don't think you will be able to, though given the amount of residual chakra that seems to be filling this area I might need some extra eyes as I cannot sense anything specific here. How are the survivors?" Looking around at the mixture of researchers and bureaucrats who were huddled in every alcove and sheltered spot of the service area, Tali could feel the nervousness in the air even as Jane continued discussing with a human man and woman, though some of the guards seemed more nervous about them than they were about a possible Geth attack.
"Frightened, but that's not surprising given most of them are civilians, though the guards seem more concerned with us than they are with the Geth." There was a chuckle from Naruto, and Tali couldn't stop a small smile crossing her face at the sound, she didn't know what she had said to prompt the improvement but she almost didn't care.
"Aww, little Tali-chan is all grown up thinking of other people as defenceless civilians, next you will be drinking and shouting out rude songs with the rest of us..." Tali blushed, not having realised she had subconsciously made the distinction that way, but then there was the sound of barking and howling from Naruto's end of the line.
"Several Varren here, should be a good warm up before we make a move on the Geth, one minute Tali-chan." With Naruto busy, Tali started paying attention to the conversation in front of her again, though it seemed more of an argument between the two now identified Exogeni employees.
"That's my daughter you're talking about so dismissively, I knew you were a pain in the ass Jeong but I didn't realise you were this much of a..." The woman seemed very tempted to switch from words to action as Jeong just shrugged uncaringly, but thankfully Jane stepped in before the sources of information tried to kill each other.
"Where is your daughter Juliana? Over by the tower?" Juliana nodded and then sighed in an obvious effort to calm herself down.
"Yes, she was working late when the first attack came in, but she knew that place like the back of her hand. She's still alive, I know it..." Even Tali could tell that Juliana was holding onto hope as much as she actually thought her daughter was still alive, but to her credit Jane only smiled reassuringly.
"If we can find her, we will keep her safe Juliana, you have my word. In fact, I have a scout out ahead of us that may well find her first, and I can arrange for the rest of my team to come escort you to Zhu's Hope." Jeong stuttered excuses about how it wouldn't be possible to move to Zhu's Hope, which made Tali suspicious, were only weakened by his body language practically screaming out that he was hiding something.
"It is up to you, feel free to stay here whilst we clear out the Geth, though when I come back you will be answering my questions and telling me what the hell it is ExoGeni are trying to hide here..." Jane had noticed as well, not surprising given her thus far superlative choices in character for companions, though obviously she was as much angry over Naruto's distancing of himself from them on this mission in her response.
"Naruto, do you copy?" Jane trying to contact Naruto over the comms made it clear that they were moving out, though Tali stayed half facing the Exo-Geni staff as they walked away and was happy to see Garrus do the same, it wasn't just her bullshit sensors that had been going off.
"Here Commander, I am not going to be able to make the rendezvous as planned, I have found a survivor and I think you are going to be very interested in what she has to say..." Huh, well that didn't sound ominous at all...
!"£$%^&*()_+
"I would really advise that you think your actions through here..." Looking down the barrel of Jeong's gun Jane had to say she wasn't surprised by the ploy, the man's desperation had been almost nauseating when they had returned after clearing out the Geth from Exogeni's tower.
"Why, what are you going to do Spectre? We have you outnumbered and none of you have..." Ethan's attempt to point out that neither she or the other two members of her team hadn't drawn their weapons was cut off as an armoured figure dropped from the roof above them and roundhouse kicked him in the head, already moving to take out the two nearest guards before they had even realised what was going on.
Stepping forward as Garrus and Tali drew their weapons to stand off against the remaining guards, who were looking distinctly uncomfortable as Naruto snapped an assault rifle in half with a single movement, Jane put her boot rather forcefully on Jeong's chest as he tried to recover from the surprise assault.
"As I was going to say before you so rudely interrupted, my team mate here is already wanting to feed you to a krogan for hiding the information about the Thorian from us, and he would have given you far more than that light tap if not for me ordering him not to harm you too much..." Even as he struggled to focus on her, no doubt suffering from the beginnings of an almighty concussion, Jane turned her attention to the remaining half a dozen guards.
"And if any of you have your weapons raised in five seconds I will let him take his full annoyance out on the lot of you, Naruto why don't you give them an example of why this would be a bad idea?" It was a credit to the young man that he was keeping his anger at Exogeni's deception so under wraps, especially as this Thorian was probably the reason that he couldn't get an exact fix on whatever it was he had sensed down here from orbit, but the professionalism faded a little as his face morphed into a feral snarl before burying his fist into the ceramite of structure they were in with the blue/red glow obviously meant to disguise his strength as biotic power.
"Now, you are going to tell me everything you know about this Thorian and what the hell it has done to those colonists, any objections?" Much to her slight disappointment the guards quickly lowered their weapons, Jane did want to see Naruto go to town on these mooks as much for the passive venting of her own anger at this mess as to test his skills a little further.
A short and rather mood lifting reunion of Lizbeth and Juliana later and they had the answers they needed, though the news that the Thorian was based underneath Zhu's Hope made it no easier to strategise how to go after it. After communicating with the other members of her team, and finding them now besieged by the very colonists they had been protecting, Jane knew the time for subtlety was over.
"Naruto, I need you to head back ahead of us and take care of the colonists attacking the rest of the team, go all out if you need to as we don't have time to waste in an attrition war. Just remember they are..." Naruto cut her off with a wave of his hand, already turning to the door in an obvious hurry to get moving himself.
"Hai taichou, no killing, easy enough given that these guys are all civilians. You guys head for the Thorian, I will clear a path out for the others and then go deal with any stragglers that may try and attack us in the back when we go down to meet this giant vegetable." Naruto giving the orders was slightly annoying, but what he said made sense and Jane didn't want to slow things down with an argument, that could wait until after the mission.
"Wait, if you are going to..." Juliana's call was ignored by Naruto as he took off at what seemed to be a sprint, though Jane knew that he was slowing himself down due to the witnesses at the moment.
"If he is going to knock out the colonists, isn't he going to need some of these grenades? " Seeing her hold up some of the grenades she had mentioned should knock out the infected colonists, Jane merely shook her head before gesturing to the other two.
"Don't worry about him, he is more than capable of taking care of himself. Now you two, let's grab these grenades and get back, otherwise Wrex may well lose his temper..." The Krogan warlord had already taken out two assault groups of colonists almost by himself, utilising his regeneration and brute strength to 'pacify' the attackers without killing them, though several would not be walking anywhere for the next few weeks when they woke up.
The lack of killing would put Wrex in a bad mood, making Jane hope the Thorian had other things to throw at them rather than colonists, the bill that Wrex had created after their leaked raid on the Citadel in damages was quite substantial...
!"£$%^&*()_
"Die for the Th..." Whipping round as a aged male colonist started trying to gun him down, Naruto was glad that this seemed to be the last of the colonists guarding the causeway to the Normandy, the other dozen or so having been taken care of easily enough in the opening moments of his leap into combat.
"Not today Ji-san, now why don't you take a nap..." Shifting to avoid some of the bullets that came his way, Naruto let his shield absorb the rest of them as he rushed forwards, knocking the man out as gently as he could manage.
"Taichou, that's the last of the colonists on the outskirts, how are you guys doing?" Even though the colony had been in it's infancy there had been over three hundred colonists that would have been infected by the Thorian, so even with the 70 odd that Naruto and his clones had dealt with in the tunnels and blockading the others it wasn't going to be an easy fight.
"Things will be going better when you get down here Naruto, we have managed to deal with the first line of defences without any permanent casualties amongst the colonists, but between us running low on those grenades and these Creeper things we might struggle to keep it that way." Doing a last look over the area, Naruto left a clone to watch over the colonists whilst he shushined back towards the colony.
It only took a minute to cover the distance, and arriving at the battle site Naruto found himself just in time to help deal with an assault of half a dozen Creepers who shambled up behind a wave of charging colonists. Realising that the Thorian had understood their intent of not killing the colonists and was trying to use it against them, Naruto quickly came up with a plan to show it the error of its ways.
"Wrex! With me! Kaidan, Liara lift!" His barked order came as he reached where the team had taken cover, and to their credit none of them so much as paused before following his orders, the two biotics lifting the two leading colonists helplessly into the air as Wrex hurdled over his cover and activated his barrier.
"Good to see you brat, was starting to think you were going to let me win this one..." Following in Wrex's wake, Naruto decided not to mention the colonists he had already dealt with, he preferred a happy Krogan who was mad at the enemy rather than at him.
The two unleashed their shotguns, the blasts tearing apart two of the Creepers even as the colonists poured fire on Wrex's barrier, which wavered and cracked but remained intact as the two covered the last few metres into close combat. From there it quickly became a rout for the colonists, though the Thorian didn't seem to realise the loss of its advantage as Naruto and Wrex sent the colonists who had been acting as shields flying aside, leaving the Creepers exposed as the rest of the team poured fire onto them.
"I'll deal with these two, Wrex!" The Krogan turned to him with an animalistic snarl, obviously annoyed that there was going to be 'strategy' behind the fight, though his snarl morphed into a predatory smile as Naruto pointed at another group of Creepers that were spawning from the ground near the cockpit of the downed freighter.
"Smash!" The Krogan didn't need telling twice, reactivating his barrier as the last of the Creepers trying to attack them dissipated into a gooey puddle with the now familiar crack of a sniper rifle, some kind of dirge on his lips as Wrex rushed forward as fast as he could towards the new enemy.
"Well done Naruto, that seems to have been most of them, the Thorian obviously tried to throw most of them in the front two lines of defence. Kaidan, sweep the area with Garrus and Tali, I want all the colonists disarmed just in case they wake up and no other surprises. I will take Liara and Wrex to sweep the ship, the colonists had access to explosives and we really do not want the Thorian trying anything..." That left him and Ash to move towards the entrance, Ashley knew the layout of the colony which was good as Naruto hadn't even stopped off before moving onto deal with the attacking Geth.
"So my white knight, what's the plan?" Blushing slightly at the exaggerated tone of awe in Ashley's voice as the two moved off at a jog, Naruto gestured round a little confusedly.
"Well, you tell me where this crane is, I crack the skulls of anyone stupid enough to get in our way Ashley-chan. Just make sure that I don't..." Naruto stopped dead as he finally got a ping from his chakra sensing, muffled though it was by the mist of nature chakra that the Thorian seemed to be emitting through it's spores, Ashley looking at him in concern as he pulsed his chakra again to get a fix on the chakra's position.
"Naruto, you okay there?" Getting a response from his second pulse Naruto nodded, pointing over to the left and deeper into the main body of the colony.
"I can sense what I sensed in orbit again, it's that way but down, which given what we were told about the Thorian means that they are down in the tunnels with the damn thing. " Ashley nodded and the two took off again, faster than before as she directed them.
"Well the entrance is supposedly next to the cargo crane, which makes sense given the colonists were very quick to move us on from the area when we were here before, it's not far now..." They found their way blocked by several improvised barriers, the colonists seemingly having put them in place before rushing to the battle, and though Naruto could have just leapt over them that would have left Ashley behind and dangerously alone in hostile territory.
"Do you trust me?" Their eyes met for a moment before Ashley nodded without the slightest hint of doubt in her face, though she did make a slightly disapproving look when he grabbed her waist firmly with both hands.
"Naruto, is this really the..." With a chakra enhanced leap they took off into the air and landed on the other side of the barrier, Ashley making a slight 'shout' of surprise at the sudden change in motion.
"Wait a minute..." Naruto couldn't help but grin as he leapt over the next barrier, being forced to relinquish his grip as they landed, four Creepers shambling from the shadows to face them.
"Did you... Did you think I was making a move on you?" Contrary to popular belief Naruto wasn't clueless when it came to women, okay he had been at the academy but he had grown up a lot since then damn it. Discharging his shotgun and grinning as two of the Creepers collapsed, Naruto saw Ashley turn red in the face even as she 'head' shotted one of the remaining two.
"O-of course not..." Deciding to try out Jane's suggestion of trying to create a new move that mimicked biotic powers, Naruto summoned up some of his chakra to his hand even as Ashley rolled away from the thing's grasping tendrils, concentrating on making the chakra condense to give it some more power.
"This will be good, make sure to put a shel..." The Kyuubi's advice came a second too late, Naruto raising his hand and forcing the chakra out of his body as fast as he could. Agony encased his arm as a blue shockwave shot forth from his hand, the Creeper lasting barely a moment against his power before disintegrating entirely, along with most of the house behind it.
Looking at the partially melted and sparking armour that covered his burning arm, Naruto shrugged as he felt his healing factor kick in, turning back to a gaping Ashley with his usual foxy grin.
"Maybe a little too much power... Now, how about we discuss the fact that you merely felt this wasn't the right time to make out, rather than actually protesting at the thought itself?" If looks could kill, the rapidly morphed glare Ashley summoned could possibly have done just that, though the scarlet tinge on her cheeks diminished the effect to the point Naruto felt safe just laughing it off for now...
With the fact that Ashley seemed pissed at him meaning that they couldn't leap over any more of the barriers it took them a little longer than Naruto would have liked to work their way over to the main cargo crane area, approaching only to see Jane and the others in a standoff with a middle aged man with a pistol. Judging by the fact the man was talking to Jane it seemed he was resisting the Thorian's control for the moment, but given what Naruto had seen happen to the man he had rescued down in the tunnels he knew that resistance would not last much longer.
"The pain, it makes it so hard to resist..." Luckily the pair of them had approached from the far side of the cargo crane due to the obstacles put in place by the colonists, meaning that the man hadn't seen their arrival and allowing them to sneak closer to the stand off...
"It wants me to stop you, it wants me to end you... But I won't!" The pained determination in his voice reminded Naruto of something, but as the man brought the gun towards his head Naruto realised what he was going to do. If he had maybe two or three more years practice with his pistols he might have been able to make the shot to disarm the man, but there was no chance of that happening right now. Whipping his hand to his grenade pouch, Naruto made his play, hoping that the new armour wouldn't throw his aim off any more than his old armour had.
"I won' Argh!" The pistol was knocked from the man's hand by the kunai embedding itself into it's handle, though Naruto winced at the spray of blood that came from the finger he had accidentally half-severed with his hasty shot.
"You took your time with that shot..." Jane's comment as she rushed forward to subdue the man was uncalled for, but it was Ashley's follow up jibe as the Commander none too gently clobbered the man with the butt of her shotgun that really pissed him off.
"Messy too, and you call yourself a professional..." As they finished covering the 40 yards between where they had been stood and the now unconscious man, Naruto knelt and jerked the kunai from the man's now probably ruined side arm.
"I didn't see either of you making that shot, so shall we just assume that you would have made an even bigger mess if you had tried?" Point to me Naruto thought, as both women flinched at the riposte, eliciting a deep chuckle from Wrex whilst Liara knelt to apply medi-gel to the man's hand.
"Man's got a point, though why he had to throw that toothpick instead of using a gun I don't know. Now, can we get on with the fighting, from what you guys have told me this thing is going to be the fight of a century!" Typical Wrex, it reminded Naruto of Chouji to be honest, always thinking about his next meal or the next fight.
"We will just shift the cargo container and then we can head down, I want..." Naruto found himself distracted from Jane's orders as he pulsed his chakra once more, the world lighting up to his senses in a totally different way as he focussed on it, breathing deeply as he stretched his senses outwards...
No, no, no, no! eyes shooting open Naruto turned off to the left of the opening and rushed over to where some salvage had been piled up next to one of the buildings, not caring about how out of place his lifting of a boulder almost the same size as he was out of the way was. He hear Jane call out to him but the words were muffled as he found exactly what he feared buried about halfway through the salvage dump.
"Ino..." Looking down, mind still reeling at what he had just unearthed, Naruto felt Jane approach his left side and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Naruto, what is... Oh." Jane quieted as she laid eyes on the lower half of a stone leg, the break stopping just before the knee...
A/N: And cut! Or in this case, snap off at the knee :P Feros is pretty canonical apart from the reaction with Jeong and Fai Dan surviving, but with the added Naruto elements the actual confrontation with the Thorian is going to go very differently...
People didn't seem to like the idea of Naruto finding a person on Feros but unfortunately I cannot please everyone all of the time, so Ino (or at least some of her) has been found. As you can imagine, Naruto is going to be pissed at this finding even more than he already is at what the Thorian did to the colonists, poor poor Thorian...
What do people think?
Defias Out