I do not own Mass Effect or any of the characters.
Supporting
David watched the explosions wash over the barrier. It flickered for a moment before stabilizing. At the front of the barrier, Alliance troops were readying themselves for the barrage to end so they could return to fighting back. Finally, the Reaper Forces paused their assault and the barrier dropped.
Instantly, Jack sent out a Shockwave as David's students sent a volley of Incineration Blasts and Overloads, sewing general chaos among the Reaper Forces, for what little good it did. The Alliance troops began to fire instantly, mowing the Reaper Forces down in a wall of gunfire. A Brute, a combination of a Turian and Krogan Husks with a massive, lobster-claw like right hand, stepped into view and roared, charging, only for a half-dozen Warps to slam into it, killing it instantly.
David fired his Locust, picking off a Marauder, a purely Turian Husk, then dropped just as a spray of gunfire from a group of Cannibals, a variant of Human Husks that grew stronger by consuming dead Husks, slammed into the wall where he'd been. A Harvester, the Reaper-mutated version, not the normal insect one, flew over, dropping what looked like a meteor. As the object exploded, it left behind a small swarm of basic Husks, which charged the Alliance instantly. Then, the Harvester landed, turning its head, and the heavy cannons attached to it, toward the Alliance as well.
"Octavia!" David shouted.
"Got it!" Octavia shouted back, less than a second before her perfected barrier generator activated.
The barrier flashed into existence over the entirety of the Alliance's position just in time for the Husks to crash headlong into it, then be slaughtered by the Harvester's explosive rounds. The Alliance quickly reloaded as David and Jack's students prepared the counter bombardment. As soon as the Harvester stopped firing, Octavia deactivated her barrier, the projector steaming from stress. Instantly, a half-dozen Warps slammed into the Harvester, followed by a half-dozen Biotic Throws. The resulting explosion blasted the Harvester into pieces as David's students rained Cryo Blasts on the Reaper forces, some of which shattered from the biotic combo's concussion.
The Alliance opened fire instantly, slaughtering the frozen targets in seconds, just before a Reaper deployment pod slammed down behind them, in the center of the position, leaving a pair of Brutes behind. David shouted in surprise, flickering rapidly, but before either could do anything, a gunship the Alliance had just finished repairing lifted into the air and swung around lighting both up with its main gun, slaughtering them. David sighed and turned back to the front just as the Alliance managed to drop the last of the Reaper forces attacking from that direction. David looked around slowly. That couldn't be it. After three straight days of combat, the Reapers couldn't really be done.
"Nothing on sensors!" Isaac called out.
"Evacuation's complete," the Alliance commander they were working under for the mission reported. "All forces, pull back to the shuttles."
Everyone broke down instantly, heading for the shuttles at a run. David glanced around at their kids. Jack's were all exhausted, barely able to run properly and a few being helped along by David's. All of David's, on the other hand, while tired only from being awake for days, had nearly expended their omni-tools' power supplies.
David turned back to the front, climbing onto a shuttle with Jack and Octavia, who had her barrier projector with her.
"Finally done." David sighed heavily. "How long until the next mission?"
"Two days," Jack said.
David nodded. "I figured."
David leaned on Jack's shoulder tiredly, and she slipped her hand into his, giving it a light squeeze. He smiled, squeezing back, and looked out the window of the shuttle just in time to see several Harvesters crash down in the area they'd just left, though they were far enough away now to be safe from them. Sure enough, they made it into orbit and to the Alliance Frigate without trouble.
"Should be a few hours before we get to the Citadel" Jack said.
"Good," David groaned. "I'm starving."
Jack laughed and they headed to the mess hall, grabbing a bite to eat before heading to their room to rest. A few hours later, they left the frigate and headed to their apartment. It wasn't much, but considering how little an amount of time they spent there, it suited their needs just fine.
"That mission was terrible!" Jack complained as they got into the shower together. "I barely got any kills at all!"
"You got some," David said. "I'm pretty sure your kill count was at least what most of the Alliance troops got."
"I know!" Jack said, sounding appalled. "I wasn't allowed to kill hardly anything!"
David laughed. "Considering we're supposed to be support, I'd say you probably exceeded you kill quota anyway."
Jack shot him a dirty look, and he simply smiled sweetly in return. "I hate you sometimes, you know that?"
"No you don't," David smiled, kissing her for a moment before they both finished their shower and began to towel off. "Want to go to that restaurant you like?"
"The fancy one where they make us sit at the back so no one can see what I'm wearing?" Jack grinned knowingly.
"That's the one," David smiled.
"Oh, I am so in," Jack grinned. "I'll go pick out my dress."
She left her towel on the rack, going to her wardrobe, and David chuckled, finishing drying himself before quickly getting dressed in a suit, though he kept his suit's helmet's base so that he could use it if needed. He glanced at Jack, grinning as she pulled on a small, backless, black dress that left her cleavage exposed and had a slit up to her waist, making it obvious she had no panties or bra on. He grinned, kissing her, and they left together. Once they were seated in their cab, however, Jack lifted David's hand and set his Locust in it. He gave were an exasperated look, but then slipped it under the back of his jacket, halfway into his belt. After a few minutes' cab ride, they were seated in the back of a sushi restaurant, far from the view of most of the other customers.
"I gotta say, it's impressive how much of an impression you made on Aria," Jack mused, looking around. "First she gets us our nice apartment for free, about a minute from her own, and then she orders the owners of this restaurant to serve us for free. If I didn't know you better, I'd accuse you of fucking her on the side."
"But that would never happen, so you're not worried," David said pleasantly.
"True," Jack nodded.
When the waiter arrived, they both ordered, then began to discuss more of Jack's tattoos. Even after years together, he still hadn't learned about them all. After a few minutes, their food arrived and they began to eat as Jack continued her stories.
"Hey, did you hear?" one of the nearby customers muttered to her friend. "Commander Shepard cured the Genophage!"
"What!?" the second voice gasped. "But the Krogan will kill us all!"
As if on cue, an explosion rocked the restaurant, then another, and another. David and Jack stood, only for the restaurant itself to explode, throwing them to the ground. Jack pushed herself up, coughing and looking around before seeing David pushing himself up in front of her, flickering so fast she almost couldn't focus her eyes on him. Screams were ringing out outside the restaurant, along with gunfire, and once Jack and David had regained their bearings, they both ran outside, seeing C-Sec fighting against Cerberus. Both of them snarled angrily, but stepped back into cover, David typing on his Omni-tool for a moment before beginning to record a message for all of their students as he slapped his helmet's base on and deployed it.
"Stay hidden!" David ordered, leaving no room to argue. "This is not training, and the order is not up for debate! Stay hidden and stay safe! Jack and I will help C-Sec!"
"New kind of troo-" Jack began, only to be cut off when David tackled her to the ground, a sniper round punching completely through his shields and glancing off his tech armor, also shattering that.
David began to flicker faster as they both scrambled into cover, David's entire body shaking. Jack glanced out carefully, but saw nothing.
"Where the fuck are they?" Jack asked as she hunkered back down less than a second before a second shot slammed into the metal garden bed they were behind.
"Cloaked," David said, vanishing. "I'll try and get close."
Jack nodded and David peeked out, only to yank his head back just as a round glanced off his helmet, shattering it before it reformed in cover, David flickering again.
"Nevermind," David said, typing on his Omni-tool. "Fifty feet, straight ahead."
He hurled a freshly-fabricated grenade without standing up, and when it exploded, they heard a female voice scream. Both stood, David with a Locust and Jack with a Carnifex Hand Cannon, and opened fire on the Cerberus troop in the same kind of armor as David wore, but with the armor mostly black and white with yellow highlights. The main difference was that their helmets bore specialized scopes like a half-dozen eyes. Within seconds, they'd killed her and both sighed, only for another female Cerberus troop to appear in front of David. This one, however, bore gold, pointed, claws on her fingers, and a curved, wakizashi-style sword. She lunged, slashing at David, only for David leapt backward, out of the way, then lunge forward, forming an Omniblade and driving it into the trained assassin's chest, killing her almost instantly. David's flickering slowed a little as he glanced at the corner of the doorway the sword had cut through easily, and he picked up the assassin's sword, scanning it. One thing he'd never succeeded at was getting his Omni-tool to be able to make his Omni-blades monomolecular, like the assassin's sword.
"Finding more upgrades?" Jack asked.
"Sort of," David said, typing on his Omni-tool. After a moment, he shook his head and simply stuck the sword through the left side of his belt for a moment as he used his Omnitool to make a magnet harness for it, then stuck it to his back. "Let's go."
Jack nodded and they both continued toward C-Sec headquarters. Several groups of Cerberus troops moved to meet them, only to all die quickly, and when two more assassins charged them from behind, Jack blasted one's barrier with a Warp before shooting through it and killing her as David used an Omni-shield to block the other's blade before stabbing her in the heart from her left side with his new sword. They made quick progress toward C-Sec headquarters, but just as they entered a long hallway leading to it, they were forced to duck behind a pair of pillars as a pair of turrets opened fire at them.
"I fucking hate turrets!" Jack shouted over the gunfire.
David activated his cloaking tech and stepped out on the side of the pillar not being shot, overloading a turret and making it explode, destroying the other and killing the two Engineers hidden beside the pillars. However, a second later, a red laser found his chest and he barely avoided a sniper shot. He swore and prepared to fabricate a grenade, only for an explosion to go off from about where the sniper was. Jack and David both peeked and saw Kasumi standing over the dead sniper.
"Kasumi!" David sighed. "Nice timing!"
"You're welcome," Kasumi said. "I'd have joined you sooner, but I ran into a bit of Nemesis trouble myself."
"Nemesis?" David asked.
"That's what I heard a Centurion call a sniper," Kasumi said. "And the ones running around with swords are called Phantoms."
"Good to know," David nodded, he and Jack jogging over before David hacked their way through the door into C-Sec.
Just as they stepped into the large open room on the other side, Shepard, Liara, and Garrus spun toward them, only to sigh.
"Glad you three are alright," Shepard said. "We're going to check on Executor Pallin."
All three nodded and followed Shepard and the others further into C-Sec headquarters.
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