Lights were shot out to shroud them in darkness, and there were distant screams as something sounded as though it shattered in the floor beneath them. Sylvia swiftly worked with the fire extinguisher and de-pressurized it so that it wouldn't shoot around everywhere, but function as a smoke screen for them. She engaged her omni-tool to materialize into a shield as she'd exposed herself in the hallway, grunting and groaning as she dragged the weight of the extinguisher. The bullets that impacted her shield had flared warning hazards immediately. She had to toss the extinguisher forward before the shield broke, and dove into one of the rooms on the side for cover.

"We need to get out of here!" Sylvia announced. "There's no way that sniper is working alone - we'll be trapped and screwed if they flood the building with reinforcements."

Silence, and she stole a look around the corner. She was forced to take cover when the sniper was blindly shooting through the smoke screen regardless, and counted the shots until there was a pause for them to reload.

"Liara, are you okay?!"

Nothing.

Panic threatened to take her mind, trying to rationalize that Liara wouldn't have gone ahead if she didn't think she had a clear opportunity. Right? Two more years of... Whatever she had been doing in them... Should've bolstered her capabilities even further than what Sylvia had witnessed last - and the asari was fully capable already.

Something wouldn't quite fuck right off in taunting her that they weren't going to make it out of here alive, least of all if she didn't escape right now. She tore apart the room she was in - an office of sorts - as she collected things in a pile in a desperate attempt to brainstorm what else she could concoct.

"Note to self: Illium requires one to be equipped in their full arsenal 24/7, even to a damn restaurant."

Shots that sounded different from the sniper's calibre reached her ears, and she slid over to the corner as her finger rested on the trigger. She glanced quickly and caught sight of T'Soni taking cover behind some kind of pedestal, and immediately hid when those blue orbs zeroed in on her. She tried to suppress the shudder that shot down her spine over how terrifying those wrathful eyes looked.

"Priority note to self: never piss Liara off."

"Commander, we need to get out of here already," T'Soni growled in between return fire. "Are you able to devise another smoke screen?"

"I got nothing in here to work with unless-" Sylvia looked around, rolling her eyes as sarcasm took the reins. "I turn your pens into piercing bullets or something."

"Good, do that!"

Uh huh.

"Note to - I need to start writing this in my omni-tool or I'm going to forget all my notes. No more suggesting blatantly stupid shit around Liara when she's stressed, either."

New sounds erupted and Sylvia's heart sank. She forgot she was playing with the alarm clock in the kitchen, uploading songs in the system in hopes of injecting some cheeriness to lighten the archaeologist's mood and ease her tension a little, whenever she'd set herself an alarm for something. Shepard swore she heard a harsh suck of breath, crystal clear, even among the hail of gunfire. It was quite positively the worst timing ever, playing some cheeky electronic swing about being a magic man, in which Sylvia wished her hands were imbued with some kind of magic to invent something with stupid pens. At least Liara wasn't sayi-

"We are going to have words later, Commander!"

"Note to self redacted. Already pissed Liara off."

Sylvia waited until there was the pause in the sniper's shots, pocketing some pens before she rushed down the hallway to go shut the alarm off. She ripped the clock out the socket and ran as far as she could before she was forced to take cover again, nearly tumbling in her scramble to get behind another pedestal across from Liara.

Glass crunched beneath her boots, and she carefully collected shards of those too. All she needed was a container. She religiously avoided those vengeful blues staring expectantly at her, analyzing what contents these pedestals even contained.

Her heart sank when she recognized her N7 helmet.

"It'll have to do for now."

Another pause, and the engineer sprinted to grab her helmet, never stopping as she'd loaded the clock, glass shards and pens inside of it. She ran up to the broken window pane and glared at the sniper at the door of the sky-car, rifle aimed at the ready with a new heat sink fed in. She cocked her arm back and planted her foot forward as she torqued, lobbying her helmet as far as she could as she shouted.

"Get out of here Liara, now! I'll catch-"

Doors had already hissed shut. She missed the sniper's panic to avoid her helmet as she looked behind her, her heart decimated by realization.

"Did she... Already leave...?"

And...

...without Sylvia?

"What the fuck?!"

There was a dud of a helmet hitting the sky-car before it revved up, though she was still too dumbfounded to realize that it had soared off in it's pursuit of the target, Liara. The engineer glanced in time to catch her helmet falling into the abyss of Illium, her shock swallowing what would have been a smug moment for making the enemy think that she had even concocted something out of sheer stupidity.

Just like that, her treasured N7 helmet earned through a refusal to give up in her rise to attain the perilous rank, was abandoned as if it meant nothing.

Hurt feelings would have to wait - not really from the loss of her equipment since she'd already had to make peace with it all...

But rather, that she'd been abandoned as if she meant nothing.

There had to be a good explanation for this. Yes, of course, it was Liara, she was always too compassionate and headstrong herself to leave behind her comrades. It was enough to compel Sylvia to move through her shock - and for that evil thing taunting her about something she'd already known, weighing her down. She had chalked it up to the importance for the archaeologist's search for the Shadow Broker, to save her friend. Yes, of course, that was all due to her compassion and headstrong will.

Something shook intensely, chased by deafening explosions and more screams. Fear for the asari's safety propelled Sylvia to rush out of there, hitting the stairwell before the denizens of the skyscraper would come flooding out to escape. She heard footsteps echo and pummel down, and she leaned over the railing to see the telltale signs of blue along with the archaeologist's garb.

"Liara, are you alright?!" Sylvia shouted down the stairwell.

"We have to get to Baria Frontiers now!"

"Why Ba-"

"I ran a scan and my apartment was bugged, they'll be heading over there now and I have to get to Sekat before they do!"

Nothing more needed to be said. Sylvia refused to let more innocents get caught up in this insane war between Liara and the Shadow Broker. She turned the corner for the next set of stairs too sharply and lost her balance, stumbling down them. She was caught off guard, and by surprise, when she'd fallen towards a waiting hand stretched out to her. Biotics stopped her and none-too-gently landed her on her feet, where she was grabbed by her wrist and pulled to flatten against the wall. The next doorway to the stairwell had slammed open, where the skyscraper residents poured out screaming, some even trampling over each other in their rush down to escape.

T'Soni erected a barrier to protect them from anyone crashing into them and taking them down, and Shepard was stuck, watching with melancholy as any move to try to help those that had tripped were warded away by the harsh wrist keeping her to the wall. She knew. She knew they had to wait for their own safety, or else they would be sucked into the casualties.

She had to force herself to look away, and looked at Liara for some measure of... Something.

Those blue orbs, once as warm as sunlight kissing skin, were now hardened and cold.

"She's really changed..." Sylvia lamented, drafting a new war within her. "Is the Liara I fell in love with even there, anymore? Or did she die the day that I did?"

Hope didn't have time to remind her of the familiar sparks she'd felt in recent memory, when the way was clear and T'Soni was dragging her again. The engineer didn't have to look to feel the impatience when she'd ripped away in order to pull up a salarian onto her shoulder, carrying the unconscious individual down the stairwell. She tried to help others, pulling them up, but she-

"You cannot carry them all," Liara cut brusquely when she'd grabbed Sylvia's free wrist to stop her.

"I can try, I can't leave them beh-"

"Rescuers will come for them and give them the care that they require. You will harm them further if you carry them without knowing the extent of their injuries. We need to go, Shepard."

Why did logic always have to be so cold?

What was worse was there was a side that agreed with every word, and Sylvia hated that side. It was the side that dictated and ensured her survival on Elysium, too, the only reason why she was able to keep fighting rather than succumbing to the hopeless despair as she watched the civilians she rallied plucked off, one by one. She ever reluctantly laid the salarian back down, feeling the urgency in the hand that was hooked on her shoulder to nudge her faster. She engaged her omni-tool, and immediately Liara knelt beside her to squeeze her wrist, a stern shake of the head. The engineer turned off her omni-tool, bewildered as to what was implied here.

"Liara, the only bug planted on my omni-tool was back when you installed one. I haven't dealt with anybody else on Illium since last I've been here."

"The drell assassin. Highly suspect, no?"

Sylvia bowed her head somewhat and ducked her eyes. "I get how that sounds, but he's not... Like that. He wouldn't betray me. He's on my team now - and he's dying anyways. What would he have to gain by betraying me now, after all the chances he's already had?"

"If you've yet to learn that not everybody's motives are so clear to understand, then Illium will teach you. Circumstances may have changed. He could have been offered substantial reward, a reward that would be well invested in his son's future."

"His... Son?"

Stormy blues scrutinized her, and Liara sighed from whatever she'd yielded from her analysis. "You didn't know." She rose and began to head down the stairwell, prompting the engineer to scramble, though she'd lingered a distance. "In any case, there needn't always be a direct intervention. Since you were last..." The archaeologist trailed off, sighing as she pinched her nose. "Technology has advanced, and there are many alternatives to plant bugs, depending on the depth of programming."

"Then I can run a scan-"

"Don't, it will likely alert them. We can use it to our advantage."

"And if it isn't bugged?"

"There's only one way to find out." T'Soni leaned over the railing to look all the way down, then back at Sylvia. "They had bugged my apartment, so they know about Baria Frontiers. Right now, they know we're both going. They'll likely either try to intercept me, find Sekat before me, or attempt to kill me after I get my information from Sekat."

"What lovely options," Sylvia inwardly grumbled, her concern growing exponentially at the sight of how T'Soni appeared so collected with the malicious idea. She used to freak out over just the thought of husks. "So... Trick them into thinking that we're not going?"

"They need Sekat just as much as I do, so trick them into thinking that I will be alone. The Shadow Broker is betting on his agents... And I'm betting on you."

A distraction was needed, before Sylvia's tongue traversed without true thought. She engaged her omni-tool with a plan to nab two birds with one stone, raising the Normandy to request the team to come to her location to assist her with evacuating the residents and provide relief aid. She couldn't desist the dwelling desolation that threatened to destroy her from within.

"What happened to the things we used to say to each other?"

It siphoned willpower just to look at Liara. All the social blunders, the laughs, the awkwardness that enraptured them and found common ground between them... It died the day Sylvia did. A cascade of emotions threw up in a whirlwind inside of her, where hopes warred with logic. The thought that kept creeping in more often to illicit despair was that, to Cerberus and now this Broker, the engineer was just like her more recent inventions.

A tool.

"Engineered by sheer stupidity."

And sheer stupidity compelled foolish faith to keep on hoping.

"Let me drive if you're going to drive this slow," Liara grumbled, crossing her arms.

Sylvia's head snapped to her in disbelief. "The pedal is touching the fucking floor, Liara. Why don't you tell this damn car to go faster?"

"Can't you do something about that? Re-wire it or-"

"Right, okay, hold the wheel for me while I go pop the hood a million feet in the goddamn air," Sylvia laughed, because what else could one do with such a blasphemous thought?

One look over, and she was utterly terrified that apparently, the sky was literally the fucking limit to Liara, who'd stared at her expectantly as if she could actually pull off such a feat. The engineer shook her head fervently. "No, no, no, see, I was being stupid there. The idea is stupid. Heavy emphasis on the keyword stupid, Liara. Barring safety from falling to my death, nobody in their right mind would ever try to work on a vehicle while it's operational."

All Liara had to say to that was a sigh, and she thrust her gaze out the window. Sylvia continuously had to check in on her jaw and close her mouth back up, staring in a mixture of shock and disbelief. Her brow furrowed with concern, but she kept her feelings to herself. She renewed her focus on their race to Baria Frontiers.

"Feron means a lot to you," she observed quietly, "You'll do anything to get him back."

Silence. There was an icy storm brewing, in the seat beside her. She stole hesitant looks, watching the stiff body in the corner of her eyes. She melted a little when the asari relented.

"You should, too," Liara murmured, "He's the reason you're alive today. He didn't know you, and he sacrificed himself for you."

"He didn't know me? I think he did. Through you, perhaps fighting in the way to get me back just like how you are now, for him." Sylvia wisely kept that to herself, too - mostly because she'd felt it was just the machinations of sheer stupidity hard at work, again, fooling hope to spark to life.

"You're a powerful symbol to people, Shepard."

"I'm just one woman," Sylvia protested under her breath. "Too many bets are on me. You're all gonna go broke."

Light pressure slid over her thigh, cupping it. She glanced down, surprised to see a blue hand, and her head whipped so fast up that she'd almost grimaced. Liara's gaze was steady, forward, a determined look on her face as she slightly shook her head. "I never make one if I have the slightest doubt that I may lose. Even if you don't have confidence in yourself, take solace that there is a profound reason that everybody else does."

Despite her cool exterior, there was a brief warmth flickering at points in her tone. But then there seemed to be a sort of conflict marring her distant eyes. Her gaze snapped to Sylvia's and chased it off, where the flustered engineer focused everything into driving, a small sense of dread pooling in her stomach upon seeing the 'Dracon Trade Center' sign that illuminated and adorned the majestic skyscraper. Her heart sank over Liara's words.

"Commander... Please start looking at me differently."

Cryptic, it was, and it didn't take a genius to deduce the implication. Sylvia shook her head sternly. "I can't."

"Then you're only going to get hurt, if you haven't figured that out. You already know that, though, don't you? So spare yourself from-"

"I can't." Sylvia gripped the wheel tightly. "I won't. You're not giving up on me for the same 'profound' reason that I'm not going to give up on you."

Liara sighed. Her hand slipped away, and there was a compelling effort invested to not snatch it back. Her seat creaked as she leaned back. The engineer thought she was being inconspicuous, that she was safe to steal a look again - and was thwarted by steely orbs peering directly back at her. Sylvia shrunk in her seat upon hearing the sharp inhale, watching the slow exhale as fingers came up to pinch the bridge of Liara's nose.

"Stubborn fool," she muttered under her breath.

Sylvia smirked. She pulled the sky-car into the lot and followed the signs that dictated where to park, scanning for clues as she'd leaned into the window to look up at the skyscraper. The trade center was bustling with people in suits outside, and she wondered how many companies had even resided in this building. It was nerve wracking, almost, to realize that Liara had single-handedly built connections with some pretty powerful people. Sylvia looked over when she heard the door open, and began to undo her belt to follow suite. Liara turned sharply and took it upon herself to reach in to click Shepard's belt back, then hovered outside and draped her arm over the car as she peered in, her gaze stern.

"Wait here for me and keep the engine running, we'll need a quick getaway after I get my information."

"Wait, wait, wait," Sylvia reeled back, brow arching with surprise. "Are we robbing a bank here? Where are our cool masks for us to wear?"

Liara rolled her eyes with a shake of her head, and she'd slammed the door on the engineer rather than enable and entertain with a response. But Sylvia saw it. She saw the corners of those lips curled in a subtle smile as Liara strode towards the skyscraper, her calm grace powerful in its own right. Just the way she walked added to the list of reminders of just how much and how many things has changed about her. The engineer couldn't help but take some mental notes, wondering if she could fake such poise herself - perhaps if she were more confident in herself, then Liara would feel more confident with herself, regarding them.

Something rolled in Sylvia's peripheral vision - another sky-car that was kind of audaciously parking way too close. She shot an annoyed look over, further flustered that the windows were dark. It clicked in too late that it could've been the sniper, and she made a mad scramble for her pistol before she'd stabilized it on her inner elbow, aiming at the sky-car as soon as she slid her window down. The other window rolled down hastily, and she was surprised to see Miranda in the driver's seat.

"Put that away, Commander," Miranda scowled.

"What are you doing here? I thought I said-"

"To track your location, yes. The others are helping relief efforts. I continued to track your location after I found out you weren't there anymore." Miranda's gaze swivelled to the skyscraper. "What's going on, and who in the bloody hell hates you enough to bomb a whole building?"

As if on cue, several floors of windows shattered and deafening explosions roared in the building in front of them. The sheer force of the shockwave had collided into their sky-cars and flung them a few meters back, where Sylvia clutched her head to protect herself as her car rolled. Pure adrenaline was the only reason why she'd been able to act, even though her mind was stunned to death with millions of thoughts. She sliced through her seat-belt with her omni-tool and kicked her windshield out, crawling through, a high-pitched whine settled in her ears from the explosion.

Screams consumed the ringing, and a firm hand pulled her up by her elbow, her dazed gaze combing over Miranda's face and the shards of glass that fell off her. Her mouth was moving, but Shepard still couldn't hear anything. She looked over at the building, watched in horror as civilians rushed out like a tidal wave - just like the apartment. They fell over each other, trampled each other, while others were shrieking with despair as they clawed at chunks of debris where blood pooled rapidly beneath.

"They... Don't care who they kill... All of these people are innocent."

"Commander!" Miranda shook her by the shoulder, "Snap out of it! What's going on?!"

Sylvia surveyed the wreckage. She looked up, saw that some floors were still intact. Then her heart kicked into her overdrive, and her stomach nearly lost its contents right then and there. Her feet powered forward and she couldn't think to explain anything, her mind stuck on one track.

"Liara's in there!"

Having climbed into a vent, Liara observed the Shadow Broker's forces tear the building apart and communicate amongst each other, confirming her suspicions that they were indeed trying to flush her out - and find Sekat. When she saw more devices left behind and armed, she disappeared further into the vent, hoping it would lead somewhere not primed to be destroyed either.

Voices carried in and she stopped often to listen, catching snippets of radio chatter and reports of Commander Shepard tearing through their forces from below. Liara smirked.

"I knew I could count on her. Now I just have to find Sekat and get his data."

Every now and then, she peered through the shafts she crossed. More devices - but they didn't appear armed. Footsteps thundered and gunfire echoed. The radio chatter seemed commandeered by a woman that went by the name Vasir, from what the other soldiers called her when asking for orders. She hailed commands - only to be interrupted by more reports of what the Commander was doing to foil their plans.

≤Just stall her, you idiots! And kill that pureblooded bitch as soon as she's in your sights, I'll find Sekat!≥

"Pureblood?" Liara knew it was her that was being referenced, but there wasn't incentive for other species to utilize or understand that derogatory term. "So this Vasir is an asari."

Focus never faded, though urgency threatened to make her reckless. She had to chant a mental mantra, to keep herself as patient as she could - she couldn't afford to make any rash mistakes, or be goaded into making them. She continued her climb through the shafts and sifted through her omni-tool to see if there were any blueprints she could hack and download, to figure out where she was and where she had to go. Her only comfort right now was that she could always hear gunfire echoing in from somewhere.

That meant the Commander was still alive.

Soon, there was a map alight on her forearm. She used her omni-tool and risked turning on a flashlight to find what section of the shaft she was in, immediately turning off her flashlight as soon as she'd seen she was on floor 3. The Baria Frontiers office was up on floor 5. She needed to move faster and get out of these shafts if she had any chance of reaching Sekat in time.

Liara peered through the first shaft she came across, and saw dead bodies - civilians and Shadow Broker forces alike. She kicked the cover off and waited, holding her breath to listen. To footsteps, no chatter. She dropped down and readied her pistol as soon as her feet touched ground. She referenced her map again and stalked cautiously along the corridors, presuming that these bodies were the Commander's handiwork - as well as the civilians that seemed to be rolled over in their own puddles of blood.

"She must've been checking for their pulses," Liara realized.

Her heart hardened before it had the chance to sink.

"Dare I risk to call her, tell her to wait for me so we can re-group? There's still no way of knowing if her omni-tool is bugged. They knew when I entered the building, though, in order to begin detonating their bombs. They're tracking us somehow."

Liara followed the signs, cautiously manoeuvring through the atrium offices before she moved on, stepping over body after body after body. It was a relief to never see Shepard's face among them. Her heart rose and her feet quickened when she'd read the stairwell ahead, labelled as Baria Frontiers.

But there were still bodies equipped with the signature Shadow Broker gear.

"There's no way they haven't already found Sekat. But at least Shepard's there... Maybe she'll also have found him before they do."

As she raced up the stairs and stepped into the large atrium, she spotted a familiar body through a window on the other end, inside one of the offices. "Sylvia!" She whirled about, but before she'd entered the room, she stopped to listen in on the voices. There were two more with Shepard, both women. Liara strained and hoped to hear of Sekat, pressing herself to the wall as she kept her aural close to the door.

And she deadpanned upon hearing Sylvia excited.

"Wow, the only other Spectre I've met was Saren! So what's it like being a Spectre for the Council now? I bet they like you. Or do they not listen to you either? Idiots, aren't they?"

"S-Sylvia..." Liara struggled so hard not to sigh, but her forehead fell in her palm with vigour. As soon as the 'Spectre' spoke, she recognized the voice. It was definitely Vasir - and T'Soni smirked, a little impressed. "The Shadow Broker has a Spectre on his payroll, hm? I can't say I'm surprised. But this certainly complicates things... The Council won't take kindly to the news of one of their own agents killed, unless I have substantial evidence to back me up that she's a double agent."

It became harder to listen to the naive gushing, and she'd already confirmed there was a traitor inside. She didn't think Sekat was alive - and upon opening the door, her suspicions were correct. Her wit wasted no time to lash out and took a bite out of Vasir's question.

"Speaking of, did you ever find your friend's body?"

"You mean this body?" Liara rose her pistol to take aim. Her gaze cut into Sylvia when the foolish engineer walked in her path - then at the other woman that accompanied the Commander. "Ms. Lawson. I should have known I'd see you meddling about, again. Have to play watchdog and ensure Cerberus' investment survives, hm?"

"Liara, wait, this is Tela Vasir. A Spectre. She's on our side," Sylvia rushed, stowing her pistol away as she'd reached to lower the tip of T'Soni's. "She's going to help us."

Liara's gaze fell on Sekat's lifeless body, her blood beginning to boil inside of her as she seethed, "She's the one that's trying to kill me, Syl."

There was a powerful urge to roll her eyes when she'd seen what the tragic mistake of saying 'Syl' had done to the engineer, and brusquely stepped aside as she took aim at Vasir, who'd laughed wryly. "From what I've heard, you've been having a rough day, so I'll let that slide..."

"Liara?" Sylvia whispered, her hand hovering hesitantly over her pistol.

"I've heard you on the radio," Liara revealed, bouncing her head over towards Sekat. "You've got only one option. Hand over his data, or you'll end up like him."

"Hm!" Vasir smirked arrogantly, one of her arms swinging behind her as she taunted and revealed the disc in her other hand. "Cocky little thing, aren't you? The pup has teeth, but no bite. Too bad you'll never see what's on this." The window pane cracked like a spider web behind her, and Liara reacted as soon as that arm began to swing back toward. "You pureblooded bitch!"

Liara sprung forth her own barrier to shield them, but her view was obscured as she was erecting it. She'd stared, stunned for a moment, her heart lurching before anger reprimanded it. Sylvia mindlessly rushed in front of her, seemingly with the intent to play the role of a shield and take the onslaught of shards. Her omni-tool was alight with a shield that had already been fractured back at the apartment. The biotic barrier finished materializing and absorbed the blow with ease. Soon after she watched Sylvia's back as the engineer charged after Vasir, leaping to tackle the Spectre out the window in an attempt to apprehend her. Foolish admonishing curses echoed on the way down as both Spectres hailed immature insults at each other.

And Liara smiled.

"No matter what happens, you'll never change, will you? You stubborn fool..."