I don't own Mass Effect, if I did this would be a novel not a fanfic.
Story Start
"Callum...it's good to see you." said Shepard holstering her gun "Care to tell me what the hell is going on?"
"Hey Shepard its been while." said Callum
"It sure has, nearly year if what I'm told is true. You look good, been lifting weights?" joked Shepard
"A lot of that's the armour and a ton of genetic mods. Bone density, muscle density, rapid recovery plus the ability of internal application of medi-gel plus a few others. A lot of which aren't exactly legal. There are a few downsides though, besides from the hair that is. For one the only thing I can swim better now than is a turian...well asside from that one on the extranet doing laps of a pool, she has me beat."
"That armour certainly looks impressive, I don't suppose you've got a set for me?" asked Shepard. Most armour slowed you down, made it hard to move until you got used to wearing it. Especially when it came to wearing heavy armour.
Callum however had been fighting for who knows how long, wearing armour that was at least as heavy as Hayden's yet was moving around like the armour weighed nothing. His steps and movements were quick and sharp. Gun snapping from one target to the next like he was fully rested, it wasn't stims. If was there would be a jerkness to his movements, like someone had way too much coffee. His eyes would be dialeted as well and though Callum only had one, the other hidden by a meatalic eye patch, it showed no such signs.
"I've got one for you and enough materials for anyone you want with us. As long as you don't include to many that is. The armour itself is impressive, twice as many shield generators as the top tier Collosus armour. An armour so expensive to make that it nearly bankrupted its designers and is no longer being made.
The materials its made of is similar to what makes up the geth tanks but a lot denser. The most impressive part though is the undersuit. It reads and responds to my movements as I make them. Not only does it allow me to wear a suit that would normally be too heavy to use but it makes me punch harder than a gorilla and faster than a cobra. On its own its as good if not better than any medium class armour thanks to titanium being woven into it. I call it Aztec armour, however I still haven't gotten to the best part."
As Callum said this he started glowing. A powerful biotic barrier appearing around him, far more powerful that she remembered him being able to use. It shouldn't be surprising, he's had a year to improve his biotic abilities.
"You can use your biotics?" asked Shepard confused
"Thats not me." answered Callum confusing her even more. "A while ago someone saw how much damage asari commandos could do with their biotics and managed to make a gun that fires singularities. I took the research and took it in a different direction. Throughout the undersuit are hundreds of artificial eezo nodules. That combined with an alternative power supply means a powerful biotic barrier for anyone anytime you want it. And if your already a biotic? Then they will work intandem with them, thanks to that I now have biotics the level of an asari commando. A powerful one at that."
"Impressive."
"It is, it also has cloaking capabilities. The only real downside is the cost. Do you remember that one asshole that had a problem with how much the Normandy cost? Well, I wouldn't want to hear what he has to say about this armour. "
"So how'd you become the ghost?" asked Shepard
"I didn't." answered Callum confusing her
"What?" asked Shepard
"I'm not the ghost, that's her." said Callum looking behind her
"Though technically it the both of us. Callum does the gun stuff and I stick to the sneaking."
Spinning around Shepard saw a small woman was suddenly behind her, judging by the reactions of the others she just appeared in the midst of them. That was some impressive stealth tech. The woman was the smallest person in the room and was wearing a hood that covered her face. The only thing visible was a odd face tattoo and her arms and legs. Which were also covered by the strange muscle fibre that Callum had, abet a lot less of it.
"I'm glad to see that I can still sneak up on people. Callum keeps spotting me and he won't tell me how he does it." said the woman
"That's because I don't want to loose half my shit. Commander Shepard this is Kasumi Goto, Kasumi Goto, Commander Shepard." introduced Callum
"Charmed, the best thief meets the best soldier." said Kasumi
"Best thief? I've never heard of you." said Jacob
"I said best, not most famous. And while you might not know me I know I'm on Cerberus's radar...at least a bit." answered Kasumi "Anyway you have another friend waiting upstairs for another reunion." said Kasumi
"Another? Is there another person here from the original Normandy?" asked Jacob
"You can say that, he wants the Commander and Callum upstairs while I show everyone around." said Kasumi
"Understood. Jacob, Hayden and Forbes stay down here and get yourself situated. The merc gangs won't be happy with us and I'm sure they'll let us know soon." ordered Shepard
Heading up the stairs she and Callum walked through a doorway, on the other was the figure of a turian taking aim at unseen target. Holding up a single talon in the universal 'give me a second.' Going back to aiming the turian fired two quick shots and stopped.
Walking away from the balcony and more importantly, out of sight of anyone watching it the turian took off his helmet and tiredly took a seat one the nearby steps.
"Shepard, its been a while." said the now revealed Garrus
"It certainly has, how have you been Garrus?" asked Shepard
"Good be better, could be worse." said Garrus "Callum?"
"Siri?" asked Callum out loud as glowing red omni-tool appeared over his wristh
"I detecting no bugs other than Ms Kasumi's which have already been jammed." came a robotic voice. "Also light mechs are being moved to your location while a large mech is being loaded."
"Who's that, another person on the team I should meet?" asked Shepard
"In a way yes, allow me to introduce Siri." said Callum, instead of a new person appearing he just gestured to his armour
"It is nice to meet you Commander Shepard." came the voice from the omni-tool
"Okay I'm lost, your teammate is your armour?" asked Shepard
"Close, Siri is the collective name of all the geth programs inside of it." answered Callum
"You have geth...inside your armour?" asked Shepard surprised
"It's the only way the suit will be able to work, especially the muscle fibre undersuit. The geth read and copy my movements, give me updates, tell me anything I missed and help run everything else the suit can do."
"That suit really is impressive." said Shepard. The geth could communicate all sorts of information to each other in seconds. It's what made them so hard for most people to deal with. They could see and then tell every other geth what strategy was being used against them in moments and then form their own strategies to deal with it.
"Now that we can talk privately I can tell you that I ripped the idea of Halo, a Spartan Mjolnir Armour." said Callum
"Halo?" asked Shepard, Callum was trailing off. He stopped doing that sometime ago. He must either be happy to see her or more tired than she thought
"Another game, the main character is a Spartan. A heavily augmented soldier wearing a Mjolnir suit that could increase speed and strength dramatically, I figure something like that would come in handy. Though if I'm honest a bit of a Crysis nano suit also made it into the design."
"An you were able to replicate it?" asked Shepard, ignoring the mention of a second type of armour and getting a snort from Callum
"Not even close. With the armour I could take out a Spartan 4, maybe even put up a decent fight against a Spartan 3. But a Spartan 2, an unarmed Spartan 2 would take me apart." said Callum
"Their armour is that immersive?" asked Shepard
"Commander...in the case of the Spartan 2's I'm not sure I could beat a Spartan 2 that was in their underwear." answered Callum
Now that got her attention, looking at his armour Shepard didn't think that anything other than a krogan could take him out and certainly not a unarmed and undress one...she just pictured what Wrex would look like naked...it wasn't pretty.
"On a whole this armour is nothing to it, Aztec does have a few advantages though. Self repair, automated application of medi-gel, cloaking, biotics and the ability for anyone to use it." continued Callum
"Only Spartans could wear the armour?" asked Shepard frowning, that was odd
"Only Spartans could survive wearing the armour. They dialed it down I assume for the Spartan 4 but the Spartan 2 suits needed superhuman relexes. They tried putting a marine in one and his first punch broke his arm as it hyper-extended. The pain from that caused him to writhe in agony, that writhing either killed him or crippled him for life. The Mjolnir armour could allow the wielder to dodge bullets, nearly catch them realy, take hits from a tank and then flip it but only a Spartan had the reflexes to stop the armour before it killed them."
"I'm hoping that won't be a problem with this armour?" asked Shepard
"This armour works differently than the Mjolnir, I couldn't remember how they improved speed and strength so I used geth muscle fibre instead to try and get similar results. Thanks to the geth I'm far stronger and faster than I should be. Also thanks to them they can stop the suit before it hurts me, they know the breaking point of my bones and joints so they can stop the suit from going further, or faster than I can handle."
"So I'm guessing the geth are on our side?" asked Shepard "How'd that happen?"
"It's a long story, you thank Tali when..."
"Small mech have made it to the bridge." interrupted Siri
Getting up Garrus went to check.
"She's right, looks like Eclipse are sending their mechs over first." said Garrus checking his scope
"The bulk of the Eclipse will arrive shortly before the heavy mech will touch down." added Siri
"How do you know that?" asked Shepard, pulling out her mattock and taking aim at the mechs.
It was almost easy to take them out, they were walking in a straight line, right into the line of fire and the few shots they returned were missing by a mile.
"Kasumi has put dozens of camera's and mics all over the place. We know every movement and plan they're making as they're making them." said Callum "Saw that you did some messing around with the mechs by the way. Thanks for that."
"Anything to help, so what's our plan?" asked Shepard as she gave the rifle a moment to cool. The mechs were still far off, and only a few Eclipse members had joined them.
"First we need to take off as many of the gangs as we can. Partly so we can get away and partly to fulfil an agreement with Aria." answered Callum firing his own gun in short, controlled bursts. It certainly sounded powerful and it looked just as sturdy as her Crusader if not more so. Down below she could hear the rest of her team open fire.
"She said she would let you know she was coming." said Shepard
"She did, she also told us to make sure each of the gangs lost their higher-ups. Doesn't want any of their second-in-command or lieutenants causing problems." answered Callum.
"And then?" asked Shepard taking out an engineer attempting to boost the shields of one of the nearby mechs
"We've got a way out. We've destroyed most of the tunnels underneath this one except for one. We'll make it look like we died in one of the waves and head on through." answered Callum
"Good, you can fill me in after we deal with this lot. But I have to know...how much do the geth know? Since they're in your armour I figure it's hard to hide anything." asked Shepard
"They know everything." responded Callum "And I do mean everything, it was the only way to get them on our side and get everything ready."
"Does anyone else know the full truth?" asked Shepard
"No one but the ground crew of the old Normandy. Hackett and Anderson suspect that more is going on, they've asked me a lot of questions over the years. They've also talked to the others, Kaiden and Ash especially are uncomfortable lying to them but they know there's not much choice."
The Eclipse started coming in more heavy, the bulk of the light mechs were dealt with leaving only a few medium thrown in with the rest of the Eclipse. On occasion Shepard could see Forbes's drone start to make it's way across the bridge. It never made it very far or did any actual damage but it made a nice distraction as the Eclipse kept pushing.
Unfortunately, for the Eclipse that was, they were dropping nearly as fast as they were coming across. One individual made it further than the rest, an asari with tech armour and a biotic barrier strong enough to stop a spike Callum sent her way.
Putting down the batarian sniper he just fired Callum switched back to his assault rifle. The asari, whoever she was, was an exceptional biotic. The amount of fire she was able to take was remarkable, but fire from both Callum and Hayden caused barrier to break and then it was over for her.
"Heavy mech is being deployed." advised Siri
Sure enough a crane started carrying a large mech over the barricade
"I guess Jaroth got sick of us not dying. That asari you took out was one of the most powerful on Omega, she was on loan from the Illium faction and those above him aren't going to be happy." said Garrus
"Everyone hold fire, I don't want a single shot to go off until the mech starts shooting at them." ordered Shepard, an order that everyone followed.
Without fire to stop them the Eclipse started to make progress taking the bridge, slowly at first. Then faster when they realised that for some reason we weren't shooting back.
"Ahh Commander? They're starting to get awfully close." asked Hayden worriedly
"Pull back if you have to, I don't want to give that mech any reason to think that we're shooting at it." ordered Shepard
"Understood ma'am." answered Hayden
"If need be I can use my cloak and take them out as they enter the compound." offered Kasumi "Just don't expect me to take all of them. I suggest Callum get down here before they push too far." came the voice of Kasumi over comms
"Good idea, Callum head down there and take them out silent if you can. You still have your sword?" asked Shepard
"Not on me, thought that the sword and the bow might get me recognized. But don't worry I've got some new blades." as Callum said this a flat rectangle blade popped out his forearm.
"That armour is full of surprises." said Shepard
"You got that right and I'm looking forward to seeing how they fair against the Collectors." said Callum jumping over the railing.
Thankfully the Eclipse didn't make it much further over the bridge. It seemed that a certain, rude, red skinned salarian got sick of the heavy mech just standing around doing nothing. Which is all it had been doing since the moment it activated.
After a few seconds of trying to fix it with his omni-tool the skinned salarian got fed up and hit the mech physically.
That turned out to be a mistake, while it was incredibly doubtful the slap did anything it did get the mechs attention. Instead of scanning it's surroundings it's head snapped to the salarian. Then, before he could realise something was wrong the mech reacted with a speed that betrayed its size, grabbing and then crushing his skull with it's pincer-like hand.
It could have ended there, the salarian was the only one to show hostile intent on any level towards the mech after all, unfortunately when you see a mech literally crush someone's skull you tend to react a certain way.
"HOLY SHIT!" shouted out one of the Elcipse soldiers, getting the attention of everyone that didn't notice the mech crushing one of their own people's skull as he open fire at the heavy mech.
With a swing of it's arm the mech sent the man flying of the bridge and if the bone crushing force that hit him didn't kill him, the fall certainly would. With that action this cascaded even further within seconds the rest of the Eclipse started shooting at the rouge mech. The large guns and rocket launcher were tearing the Eclipse apart and the few that didn't were killed by her and her team. Soon the Eclipse were all but gone leaving only a damaged mech that was making its way towards the compound. Either it thought more Eclipse were inside or it was labeling everyone a hostile.
It's shields were down and it's armour had taken a beating but it was still fully functional.
"Hey Shepard mind passing me the spare batarian rifle?" asked Garrus "It's on the shelf behind you."
Passing Garrus the rifle when she found it. "So Garrus...how have things been?"
"As good as you can expect." said Garrus before firing "Families good too, sister gained a lot of influence lately. Does theoretic strategies against the Reapers, a lot of which is based on what Callum told us and a few things that we thought were likely to happen. From what I understand the Reapers like using their own victims resources and allies against them. My father is pretty much the same as for my mother...well she's okay. Which with her disease is as much as I could hope for." said Garrus before firing two more shots.
The first one hit the mech in the head, the next two went into its chest.
"I"m sorry to hear that." said Shepard.
"If Callum hadn't let me know she'd be bedridden or close to it by now. She can't exactly run around throwing a ball but she can still walk, still live a good life. As things go she has it far better than most do and who knows, their making all sorts of medical breakthroughs all the time. If we beat the Collectors, if we beat the Reapers she just might still be here to enjoy it." said Garrus, pain creeping into is voice "Hey check this out."
Press a button on the rifle that looked added on, all three of the spikes denotated. Tearing off the 'head' of the mech and tearing open the chest armour, a few seconds later the mech blew up. Probably due some sort of fail-safe, that or an attempt to kill anyone that damaged it enough to take it out of action.
"Those spikes seems to cause a lot of damage, another idea from Callum?" asked Shepard
"More like a proof of concept. Callum's came up with a few new gun ideas. You saw that assault rifle right? He's packed as much firepower as he physically could into that thing while still making it firable to anyone that can carry it. Callum wanted something that could take out the heavier forces, mainly the giant floating bugs the Collectors use and the Brutes the Reapers will use later."
"That's why they explode?" asked Shepard
"Exactly, from what Callum's said Brutes have armour as thick as a light tank at the very least. We needed something that could puncher and then do more damage. Remember how much damage Callum's arrows could do after they were packed with explosives? He wanted to see if a gun that shot something similar could be just as effective."
"So what happens now?" asked Shepard
"Well most if not all the Eclipse are delt with, glad to see Jaroth's temper finally got the better of him. He was always an ass to anyone he thought he was better than. Any left will be attacking with the Blood Pack or Blue Suns. Their original plan is to have the Blood pack attack from below while the Blue Suns attack from above and ground level after they get us distracted." answered Garrus
"Why didn't they do that before? Eclipse basically just got themselves killed coming at us like they did." asked Shepard
"Jaroth was always an arrogant prick, probably thought he and his men could handle it even with the extra help I've suddenly got. I can only guess that they wanted us to use what we had left to deal with the mechs, or that we'd still be dealing with the Eclipse when Blood Pack started coming through." said Garrus "However without their heavy mech they didn't last nearly as long as they expected, in all fairness however if the mechs were working as well as they should have that fight would have been a lot harder."
"So what's next?" asked Shepard
"First we need to make sure that the majority of the Blood Pack come at us from the front. Don't want them finding our tunnel." said Garrus
"And how can we make that happen?" asked Shepard
"Don't worry, Callum thought ahead." said Garrus before switching to comms "Hey Callum, ready to cue the music?"
(Play Crazy train by Piper Ally(trust me you'll like it))
At once music started to boom from the entire compound. She didn't recognise the main instrument but she did recognise a war tune when she heard it. She wouldn't be surprised if the mere sound sent a krogan or two into a blood rage.
"That's certainly going to get their attention." said Shepard, hell it got her blood pumping!
"Garm's replacement has a lot to prove, this is a challenge he can't ignore if he ever wants to lead the Blood Pack on Omega." answered Garrus as he switched back to his sniper rifle.
"I heard that you and probably Callum took him out." said Shepard
"We did, and it was hard too. Garm took enough damage to kill three krogan before he even dropped to a knee." said Garrus "Worse still he was a biotic, not an especially strong one but enough to course even more problems."
"I heard he had quite the healing rate." replied Shepard
"He did, probably one of the best in fact. He had these four tanks on his back full of this chemical compound that increased it even further, I swear I could even see his skin stitch back together as he was fighting." said Garrus
Before he could say any more his omni-tool activated.
"Mr Valkarian, it is likely that there will be a swarm of Blood Pack and Blue Suns incoming momentarily." said Siri
"Any camera feeds?" asked Garrus
"Putting them on the screen." answered Siri
As the omni-tool turned off, a nearby vid screen turned on. On it was the krogan Keel arguing heatedly with a batarian from the Blue Suns, there was no audio but clearly they were disagreeing about something. In the end they didn't seem to reach an agreement but walked away angrily.
"What was that about?" asked Shepard
"It seems that the leader of the Blood Pack wishes to do a frontal charge while the leader of the Blue Suns wants to wait until the tunnels are clear. Be warned Tarak is heading towards the gunship." informed Siri
"Most of the Blood Pack are either varren or vorcha right?" asked Shepard checking her guns and clips.
"Yeah, that's right." said Garrus
"Hayden I want you up here helping Garrus, it looks like we're about to have company. A lot of company, Forbes I want you up here too. Kasumi...I'm not sure what you can do so do whatever you can do best. Callum can you and Jacob hold out on your own down there for a bit?" asked Shepard
"I'll be fine, just don't leave us down here to fight everyone that enters the compound on our own." said Callum
"Don't worry, when they start getting close I'll head down. I've got a shotgun that I need to test out a bit more." replied Shepard "I just want to cut down on how many make it through the front door and I don't want Hayden getting too close to any krogan. His gun and gear might be able to do a lot of damage but in close quarters he's going to be vulnerable to a krogan charge."
"Blood Pack forces incoming from the bridge, Blue Suns ready to deploy from above." said Siri as Hayden and Forbes both joined them
"Hayden I want you on the balcony! We've got a lot of hostiles incoming and I want you to thin them out as much as possible." ordered Shepard as she took out a particularly viscous looking varren.
"Understood ma'am." said Hayden moving to the balcony and opening fire.
Even with the overwhelming fire Hayden could dish out thanks to his LMG, the Blood Pack were able to start pushing across the bridge.
At the front of the charge were varren and vorcha. It seemed that for every one that fell there was another to take its place. Their bodies becoming a literal wall of flesh for the krogan behind them.
Even with Forbes boosting his shields Hayden still had to duck into cover to both recover his shields and to let the accumulated heat vent from his armour.
It was during one of these vents that Shepard noticed Keel charging across the bridge. Near him was another krogan and a vorcha carrying a flamethrower of all things.
"Hey Garrus, see the krogan next to the flamethrower? Think you can take him out?" asked Shepard
"Garm's replacement?" asked Garrus "It won't take him out but I've got an idea on how to make it easier on us later."
Firing a shot, Garrus managed to hit the fuel tank on the back of flamethrower carrying vorcha who quickly began to panic. The vorcha however met its end all to quickly, just not in the way Shepard saw coming.
Quick as a varren, Keel pounced on the screaming vorcha and threw him off the bridge and away from everyone else. Detonating a second later in an explosion of blood, gore and fire. Well clear of anyone.
"Well there goes the idea of thinning their numbers that way." said Garrus
"Warning, Blue Suns will be breaching the left most window momentarily." said Siri over comms.
Neither Hayden nor Forbe reacted to the new voice as much as she thought they would. Since Kasumi was wearing a similar undersuit to Callum it only made sense that her's too had geth programs running inside it and that she filed them in while they were downstairs together. She could only guess there was going to be a long conversation after this.
On their far right a window shattered as half a dozen Blue Suns troops broke through. They had barely started leveling their weapons when something hit one of them in the chest before falling to the floor behind a table.
That something exploded in a flash of white and high pitched sound. Flash bang, realised Shepard, but from where?
Near the inside balcony, Kasumi suddenly appeared and opened fire with an smg. Despite being an smg it dealt a surprising amount of damage.
"Hey Shepard, just letting you know Jacob and Callum could use a hand downstairs." said Kasumi. Sure enough, the sounds of gunfire were still being heard from downstairs
"Hey Siri, how many more Blue Suns are on their way?" asked Shepard
"Significant more forces are underway. Also, the gunship will be in firing range soon." answered Siri "It is armed with both a current and is carrying numerous rockets."
"I'm heading downstairs, I want you to focus on making sure the Blue Suns are put down as soon as they breach. Don't worry about the bridge unless you have time, I don't want that gunship to shoot you while your aiming at some vorcha. The Blue Suns and Blood Pack want us to become distracted and overwhelmed by everything their throwing at us so someone gets a shot to take us out. Let's make sure that doesn't happen." said Shepard before heading downstairs
There she found bodies, a lot of bodies. Apparently, a lot more got through than she thought. There were dead varren, vorcha all over the place, even a few krogan. Jacob was fighting defensively. Using both his biotics and N7 Eagle to take out as many as he could. She could see why Jacob wanted one, if the smg Kasumi used could deal more damage than she expected the Eagle did far more. How they packed that much firepower in such a small weapon she had no idea.
Callum however was fighting much more aggressively, putting a round through the skull of a pouncing varren Callum dodged its falling body. Then putting a round throw the tank of a fire wielding vorcha that made it across the bridge Callum then used a biotic throw to sent into a group of its fellows where it blew up taking them with it.
But there were plenty of hostiles left and as Callum kept firing she joined the fight. Using her Mattock she quickly used up each shot until the heat clip was full. Not bothering to vent it, Shepard holstered the weapon, switching to her N7 Eagle. When Shepard got to the foot of the stairs she holstered that too and pulled out her Crusader and fired at the nearest vorcha. She swore if the gun was any more powerful it would have sent it flying.
As it was, the vocha instantly dropped to the floor, a large gapping wound where it's chest used to be. Meanwhile Callum had started trading fire with a krogan making his way to him. While the krogan's weapon was cool Callum's wasn't, and wasn't long before it stopped firing. Instead of either venting the weapon or swapping out heat clip Callum threw his weapon at the krogan hitting it in the face hard enough to momentarily stun it.
It was then Shepard noticed the second krogan coming in from behind him. It must have circled around and kept close to the stairs to avoid being detected.
Opening fire Shepard tried to either take it out or get its attention only to be ignored as the krogan seemed intent on focusing on Callum as it charged.
Instead of being surprised Callum acted like he knew where the krogan was, when it got close a square blade extended from his elbow and another from his forearm. Spinning 180 the blade cut through the krogan's armour like a knife going through lukewarm butter. When the blade coming from his elbow had finished cutting through the krogan's armour the blade coming from his forearm started. It like both blades were coming from the same piece of armour.
Now behind the krogan both blades extended and sliced across his back.
Shepard gave a wince, even a krogan needed their spinal collumn. The krogan might live, he might even walk. Krogan regeneration was no joke, or he might not. A cut spinal cord was a cut spinal cord after all.
Eitherway the krogan was out of the fight... at least for now. That just left one krogan to deel with, until Keel walked through the door.
"He's mine. You deal with the female and the other one." ordered Keel. Sizing both Callum and her up.
To be fair Callum's armour looked far more impressive than hers and he didn't just spend a year almost dead. If she was Keel, she'd pick Callum too.
Channeling his biotics Callum summons his rifle back to him and opens fire as Keel startd to charge. Instead of trying to maintain his distance Callum closed the gap and a strong biotic barrier appeared just in time to absorb two shotguns that were loud enough to make Wrex jealous.
Sliding under Keel's elbow Callum opened fire on his back. Nearly bringing Keel's sheilds down in the process. Before he could though Keel grabbed the nearest throwable object. Which in this case was a microwave and heaved it at Callum forcing him to do a biotic dodge. Following him Keel fired round after round, each round missing and blowing large chunks out of whatever it hit as Callum kept running.
Getting tired of a moving target Keel let to loose a carnage shot and threw a handful of grenade in his direction, forcing Callum to stop and focus on strengthening his barrier.
As the grenades started going off Keel charged. Taking some damage from the very grenades he threw in the process.
Reaching Callum Keel threw him into the wall, opened his mouth, and immediately fried biting through the undersuit at the point between his neck and shoulder. Outside, the engine of a gunship roared as it opened fire.
As this was going on Shepard was fighting her own fight. Unlike Callum, she and Jacob slowly backed away back up the stairs. Letting the krogan come to them.
Channeling her biotics, Shepard augmented her shields with a barrier. Since the krogan still had his shields and her biotics weren't up to full strength it was the best option. While they might not be up to full strength her barrier was good enought to take a few rounds and let her shields recharge.
Down below a number of grenades went off. Shepard could only hope that Callum was able to hold his own. He had always been quite capable and in the year that passed he likely became even more so and that armour just increased things even further. He should be fine, but a fight with krogan can go south in an instant. Fortunately it was a one on one fight, there were no varren, vorch a or krogan to give Keel an opening he didn't make himself.
Unfortunately for krogan in front of her, there was only one of him and two of them. Getting rid of the krogan's shields they slowly stripped away his armour. Just when Shepard was about his head off with her shotgun he used his arm to take most of the shot.
Raising his bleeding head he grinned...he was able stop most, not all damage. More worryingly his shields suddenly recharged.
Before anything else happened Shepard heard the engine and gunfire that signaled that the gunship had arrived.
"I guess Tarak is going to be the one that gets to kill Archangel after all. Keels going to be pissed." said the krogan out loud before focusing back on her.
As the krogan bowed its head, readying himself for a charge.
"Jacob hit him with your strongest throw!" ordered Shepard.
As Jacob hit the krogan with a throw strong enough to make him stumble even with his shields. Firing a concusive round Shepard turned that stumble into a fall as the krogan lost his footing on the stairs.
Throwing a grenade it landed mere cetermeters from the krogans head. When it went off there was a howl of agony. Drown out only by a bigger explosion from outside followed by the sound of something crashing.
When Shepard saw his face she gave a wince, one eye was completely gone and skin was literally hanging off of his face in patches. The bone from one jaw was also visable.
Either the grenade blew through his shields or it detonated too close for them to do anything. Perhaps a combination of both?
Giving a bellow of rage and anger, the krogan charged. All the signs of a krogan going full bloodrage were there, readying her shotgun. Next to her Jacob redied his biotics, however in the end neither of them did anything. Five steps away from them a rod suddenly impacted his neck. The shock of it made his eyes widden and drove him out of his bloodrage...a second later the rod detonated and a large chunk was blown out of his spinal cord.
As the krogan collapsed on the stairs, orange blood pooling around him, Garrus called down to her
"You okay down there?"
"We're good." replied Shepard
"Good, heading down now. Let's get out of here before they realise that we beat the Blood Pack and Blue Suns." said Garrus ducking out of sight
"What about the gunship?" asked Shepard
"Took care of that, Kasumi managed to place a few 'additions' when the gunship was being repaired." answered Garrus
Heading down they found Callum and Keel's dead body. The later had a number of gapping wounds on his neck.
"You okay?" asked Shepard
"Prick actually bit me. If it wasn't for the undersuit I'd be missing a chunk of my shoulder if I was wearing any other suit, not much can stop a krogan's bite. Thankfully the suit managed to deal with most of it, I'm still going to have a massive bruise after this. After his bite failed all I had to do is make sure my blades made it to the right spot, something he made as difficult as possible. He literally grabbed the blade and pushed it as far away as he could, it was a struggle but I managed to get it. Now we should really get going. Kasumi is going ahead of us to make sure it's safe." answered Callum "Garrus mind handing over your helmet and rifle?"
"Is what safe?" asked Hayden as Garrus handed over his gear
"Our escape route, you going to be okay carrying all that?" asked Callum looking at Hayden's armour and gun
"You want me leave my gun behind?" asked Hayden
"As long as we can make it to the minimum safe distance we'll be fine." added Garrus "We can you take it slow from there, now follow me."
Taking the lead Garrus took them to a maintaince hatch. Climbing through they quickly put some distance between them and the compound.
"Here should be good enough, Siri send the message." said Callum
"What message?" asked Jacob
"We needed to make everyone think that Archangel died in this raid so they wouldn't keep chasing after him and cause problems laer." answered Callum "Siri play the messageto them."
"...I've got him!" roared a voice that Shepard recognized as Keel. Which should be impossible as we was...well dead. "Archangel is mine!"
"Sorry, but your coming with me." coughed a voice.
It was heavily modulated but it still had the telltale tang of a turian.
A second after the voice spoke, multiple large explosions shook the ground.
"What the hell was that!" demanded Hayden
"That's Callum making sure that no one finds our escape route and to make everyone think I died in the explosion." answered Garrus
"That's why you wanted his helmet and rifle." realised Shepard
"The most people have seen of Archangel is either his helmet or his rifle. When they find the remains of them next to what's left of Keel anyone who was after Garrus will assume he died in the explosion." said Callum
"What if they realise you were the one that killed Keel?" asked Jacob
"Keel was right near one of the charges. Even if they find out he was stabbed they'll assume his healing rate kept him from dieing." answered Callum
"Well krogan are known for their vitality after all. It wouldn't be surprising if they came to that conclusion...as long as no on realises the message was fake." mused Shepard "Or have any reason to look into things further.
"It's not, those are words that Keel actually said. Siri and her friends spent a lot of time making sure there wasn't any signs of editing. They might wonder what happened to me, you and the others but Aria said she she'd stop people from looking too close into things if she could.
That and the number of bodies and body parts they'll have to go through means they are very unlikely to ever know who was in that building when it blew. I'll have to be careful using my stealth tech though, especially in the near futute lest someone connect me with what happened here.
Since no one acually seen me or even my armour I should be fine. Stealth tech as good as mine is rare but not nonexistent, someone could assume that I somehow got my hands on some experimental tech. Say from STG?" suggested Callum
After Callum's explanation they continued on for half an hour.
Eventually Callum popped open a vent to the outside, nearby was a rusty van. Even more so than the one that they used before. Before they got close the door opened on its own and Kasumi suddenly appeared next to the van.
"There you are, I was wondering what was taking you so long." said Kasumi
"Any problems?" asked Callum
"A few, couple people in the wrong place." answered Kasumi "Don't worry their alive, I just knocked them out and put them in a side ally."
"I hope you didn't rob them." demolished Callum
"This is Omega." defended Kasumi "If I didn't rob them they would have known something was wrong...besides I didn't take that much. Now come on before someone spots us."
Climbing aboard the shuttle, they quickly made their way out of the clotted heart of Omega before making their way back to the Normandy. After taking a few detures to make sure they weren't followed of course.
Entering the Normandy Kasumi quickly vanished out of sight. Much to the worry of everyone else.
"Don't worry about her, she's just exploring the Normandy in her own way. That said if someone finds out they're missing something, especially if it's shiny you'll know who to blame." reassured Callum
Continuing through the Normandy everyone entered the Comms room. There waiting for them were Brookes and EDI. Brookes didn't look happy.
"Commander do you know that two of your new teammates are carrying swams of geth inside their armour?" asked Brookes annoyed "I've ordered EDI to bring up her defenses as much as possible."
"It's fine, these geth are on our side." responded Shepard
"It's fine?" questioned Brookes with disbelief "Surely you of all people know what the geth are capable of. What they've done, they helped Sovereign attack the Citadel. Why would you think they would ever be on the same side as us?!"
"I don't like either Commander but you and your old teammates have the most experience dealing with geth on this ship. If you say they can be trusted...well I'll see were it goes. At least for now and until they give us a reason for us to doubt them." said Jacob
"Thank you." replied Shepard "I'll go into more detail later but the geth are divided into two factions, the geth who are on our side, and those they call heretics, the ones on the side of the Reapers. The heretics where the ones everyone was fighting a year ago."
"And you believe that their on our side...just like that?" asked Brookes
"If they wanted us dead we would be dead. From my understanding the armour Callum and Kasumi are wereing only runs because of them. They could have easily put the armour on shutdown or simply blown us up with all the explosives hidden in the wall." remarked Jacob
"You may have a point." admitted Brookes reluctantly "Either way as Commander Shepard is the one in charge she will have the final say. That said I will be bringing this up with Miranda to work out any possible consequences that may result."
"What happens now?" asked Jacob
"First I need to go see Mordin, see if we can get to join us or at least help us out. Jacob, Hayden, Forbes you right to head back out?" asked Shepard
"Ready when you are ma'am." answered Hayden with Forbes and Jacob nodding in agreement.
"Garrus, you and Callum feel free to look around...Kasumi too if you see her. Also find somewhere where you can get some rest, after I'm done on Omega we'll go pick up Callum's stuff, where ever that is. He says he has enough materials to make us our own suits."
"I don't think that's a good idea Commander." adviced Brookes
"I'm inclined to agree, but for a different reason. Your muscles have already atrophied enough, from my understanding the suit gives it's wearer increased strength, but that means your own muscles won't be used as much. It's likely that anyone who uses one for an extended period of time will suffer muscle loss." warned Jacob
"Don't worry, I've got that sorted. While the undersuit can enhance all your movements it can also provide a full body workout by turning the whole suit into one giant resistant band. Just select the resistance and get to work. Even walking can feel like your underwater dragging a bunch of weights. Bonus is that you can get a full workout a lot quicker than you would normally." placated Callum
"Really?" asked Jacob suddenly a lot more interested "Well I can't say I'll be wearing one the next time I head into a fight but I'll use one the next time I'm working out. If it goes well and theres no problems I might think about changing out my armour. You proved how good the armour could be on Omega but I'm not going to jump into new armour that I know nothing about other than it's full of geth."
"That's it for now. Brookes, I want to go over any chatter that's coming from Omega. If people think Archangel is alive I want to know as soon as possible. If there is anything you can do to make any rumours of his survival go away do it. I want you to do everything you can to push people towards believing Archangel died without drawing attention or making it look like some sort of cover up." ordered Shepard "Now there's a salarian I need to talk to. Callum I suggest you and Garrus get some rest, you need it and I'm likely going to need one or both of you on the next mission."
"I'll go do that." said Callum, heading to the door. As he left the room he called back "By the way you might want to see if Kasumi's stolen anything yet. She's behind you in the corner."
"Dammit! How does he keep doing that?" asked Kasumi suddenly appearing in the room, taking everyone by surprise. Including EDI "I went over my systems and there shouldn't have been any sign I was there."
Another chapter down, next one will have a few interesting parts. Meeting Mordin, more weapons and armour etc.
The power suits were inspired by a few things. The main one was Halo, in particular halo reach which is my favorite/best game (despite how I play more of infinite). I was looking at the armour cores and I realised that the Mirage armor set looked like it had synthetic muscle fibre. That combined with geth synthetic fibre gave me the idea.
I then added a bit of Crysis armour, the Locus helmet from Infinite (as Callum's already lost an eye I doubt he wants to use a normal visor). Got the rectangle wrist blades from Deus Ex: mankind divided.
Overall just picture Deathstroke's armour with muscle fibre underneath.