John only stared at the woman in front of him. He knew that he was going to have to face her at some point, but figured that that particular meeting was down the line. Reality, however, seemed to have different ideas. He swallowed as he looked at her demonic form, wanting to hold her tight and cry but held himself back. Now was not the time for not letting all those wounds that had yet to heal open even more. Taking a deep breath, she stood and looked to her.
"Thanks, for the help," he said. "You said you are here to help?"
"Yes," she nodded. "My master…." she began but was cut short by a loud crack of air.
She fell backwards as her left arm went flying. John moved to arch her before she landed and held her as she clutched her wound. All eyes turned to Saren as he stood holding a smoking pistol. Silence filled the air before John handed Ashley over to Miranda and Jacob.
"Take care of her," he said calmly as he stood and stepped forward.
Shion and Yasuke stepped forward next to him dropping their guns. Yasuke drew his sword while Shion adjusted her sonic speakers. Saren looked between the different Shepard with a raised eye. Tossing the weapon to the side he drew two curved blades and smiled.
"Dishonourable to a fault, why am I not surprised," he asked.
"I am going to rip those mandibles off and shove them up your ass," John said as he activated his omni-blades.
Shion screamed into her mic trying to stun Saren, but the Turrian moved at a speed that was unnatural for his race. The three Shepards moved back-to-back while Miranda and Jacob pulled Ashley out of the room so that they wouldn't be targeted. But that wasn't the case as Saren appeared before them both swords raised. Both blades descended with him aiming for the demon. All three of them tried to react but there wasn't much time, so they braced themselves for the blades cutting into their skin or worse, death.
A metallic ting echoed in their ears making them open their eyes to see Yasuke standing in front of them blocking the blades. The 6,2 samurai seemed to stand taller then normal as Saren growled in annoyance as he landed backing away. Yasuke's blue-black blade shimmed her in the light as he spun it before settling into a ready position, breathing lightly. Time seemed to slow between the two as they just stared at each other for a moment, sizing each other up, judging each other, seeing who would make the first move.
Saren then reacted to the attack. Not from Yasuke, but from John who came in with a flying kick. The Turrian reacted by moving out of the way and helping John on his way to the opposite wall. The commander slammed into it but quickly picked himself up while Yasuke moved quickly with an overhead strike. Saren deflected it and swiped at the Samurai who backed up quickly, but not withing the blade nicking him.
Shion screamed into her mic once again, but failed as Saren moved out of the way, vanishing once again. John stood and looked around.
"Where did he go?" he asked.
"Saekki, he's probably using some kind of magic," Shin muttered.
Yasuke nodded while John frowned. "What make you say that?"
Shion gave him an unimpressed look. "Because he's a knight, or whatever the Turrian equivalent is," she said. "It's likely comes from a…." she tried to say before Saren appeared behind her and slashed with his blades at her.
Shion reacted quickly and dived into a roll. But the attack managed to cut her bun and damage her sonic weapons. Looking to them she cursed and detracted them from her armour before activating her own omni-blades and charged in. Saren reacted quickly to the attack by stepping back and accepting the attack with a block and deflecting forcing the Idol to adjust her stance. With that he pressed the attack, pushing the idol back with each strike but was cut off when John charged in to try and tackle him.
Saren pushed away from Shion to try and avoid the attack and almost made it. John, however, managed to use one of his omni-blades to cut deep into Saren's leg. The turrian grunted as he backed up and blocked an attack from Yasuke who came in quickly from the side. The Samrai's black blade managed to chip Saren's own blade. The Turrian growled with annoyance and kicked Yasuke back before making a slashing moved that managed to cut the Samurai across the face.
Yasuke growled and backed up quickly rubbing the blood off of his face. The cut was a clean and left a bloody line that started from the left of his head to the right of his jaw. Saren smiled for a moment before Yasuke applied medi-gel to the wound and seemed to stand taller as he pointed at the Turrian with his sword.
"Scar's on the back are the shame of a swordsman," he declared.
Saren forced wondering what he was talking about, before a spark of pain alerted that he wasn't paying attention. Looking down he noticed a glowing blade sticking out of his side. Looking behind him, he could see that Shion took the opportunity of Saren being distracted to make her move. Moving forward, Saren pulled the blade out of his side before slashing at the Idol who backed up. Dropping his second sword and grasping his side, he raised his sword aiming it at the three Shepards, eyes narrowed.
This was a problem for him. He had thought that he would be able to take all three of them, but it seemed that the three of them knew what the other was going to do before they did it despite their varied skills. They seemed to read each other, maybe because they were effectively the same person but he wasn't sure. Either way, he needed to fall back and re-evaluate the saturation. But they weren't going to let him leave, there was one option left. Taking a breath, he raised his hand and began to mutter something.
As he did so, the three Shepard's backed up but kept their weapons at the ready. Next to Saren, two portals opened up and several troopers stepped out. While they had similar armour to the Turrian before them, having a medieval like look, but the soft armour flickered with something that the three couldn't identify. More portals opened up and more of these walking sets of armour walked out. All of them armed with guns.
"Oh, shit," John muttered as Saren vanished laughing as he did so.
"Looks like round 2," Shin said and her 'bothers' didn't argue as all three of them grabbed their pistols and took aim.
OOOOO
"SHITTTTT," Garrus yelled as a pair of rockets hit in front of the truck forcing him to weave out of the way.
The truck slammed into a car, crushing it into a wall before they got clear and continued at full speed, avoiding the gunships. So far, they had been lucky with avoiding the three trying to take them on. But that luck was going to last for so long. Ajax wasn't having a good time either as he tried to keep the gun turret on one of the gunships.
"We're getting close to the jump off point," the Cyborg Garrus said pointing ahead. "I can see them now.
"I'll help," Jane said as she unstrapped and stood moving to a short ladder connected to the roof. "Gar…." she started but then shook her head. "You know what, this is going to get too confusing, you are Cyrus," she said pointing at the Cyborg Garrus then at the knight Garrus. "And you are Sir-Gar. Like it, I don't care. Having too many people with the same name is going to get confusing fast," she then looked to the two Miranda's. "You two better pick names before I do," she said before pulling herself up and popping the hatch.
Pulling herself up, she gabbed onto one of the handles on the top to steady herself. A barrage of bullets forced her to moved out of the way however and the truck to move to the side slighting. She grunted in annoyance, tuning to stare daggers at the gunships before an idea formed in her mind. Tapping her ear, she spoke into it.
"Any heavy weapons down there?" she asked.
"Yeah," one of the Miranda's calls. "We've got a grenade launcher,"
"That's one of mine," Cyrus added. "It contains high-explosive homing rounds. They are expensive, so I didn't use it as much,"
Jane looked behind her seeing the two Jacobs getting ready to jump. Behind them there were several bridges similar to the one the two were on. She smiled as plan formed in her mind.
"Ok I have a plan," she said as she told them.
Ajax smiled but the others didn't, but looked to one another with concern. As they approached the bridge with the Jacobs on, Jane pulled out her grenade launcher and did her best to stabilise herself on the roof. Loading a round into the chamber, she steadied herself and aimed before firing a round. The high explosive flew towards the middle gunship before a command caused it to explode close to the cockpit.
That forced the Tarak variant to react and move out of the way as shards hit the glass. The move also forced one of the other Tarak's to avoid the move as well. He moved a little close to one of the buildings, he didn't manage to clip it and stabilised the aircraft. The three then seemed to be arguing with each other as they moved back into formation, but Jane had turned to see the two Jacobs ready to jump. Placing the weapon onto her mag-locks, she turned as the two jumped.
Activating her biotics, she grabbed them and helped them float own to the truck. Once on they grabbed onto one of the handholds to stabilise themselves before quickly moving to the hatch. One of them made it though before Jane stopped the other. He gave her and odd look.
"Pass it up," she yelled.
A second later, one f the Miranda's pass up a grenade launcher. Jane took it and handed it to Jacob before getting her own.
"When I say, you fire at one of the bridges," she said.
Jacob turned to look and nodded readying himself, bracing for the recoil. Jane aimed her grenade launcher and fired three rounds in rapid succession. This time, she didn't detonate them before they landed. She aimed for one of the gunship's turbines in order to disable it, thus reducing its speed and effectiveness. But that was part of the plan. Despite trying to move out of the way, the grenades hit the armour and cracks the glass of the gunship cockpit. That caused that Tarak to move violently to the side and slowed down.
But that slow down forced one of the other gunships to slam into it. The two exploded before the two slammed into the ground while the third kept coming. Jane blinked in surprise as she didn't expect that, but now they only had one more gunship to deal with. It fired at them, but only forced to the two to duck their heads.
"Fire," Jane yelled and Jacob unloaded the magazine into the bridge in front of them.
The rounds hit one after the other, destroying the supports and walkway of the bridge. The truck drove past and under the bridge as it began to fall. They made it passed the bridge as it broke and swung down and slammed into the gunship. But failed to outright destroy the gunship. Instead, it falls onto the road with the canopy opening up. Jane didn't leave it to chance as she unloads all of her grenades at the gunship completely destroying it.
Cyrus slows and stops the truck before getting out and looking at the destruction with Garrus and Sir-Gar joining him. "Well, that's good to see," he said before spitting to one side.
"Yeah, he was a real asshole," Garrus said.
"Oi guys," Jane said making the three look up. "We need to get moving, John is probably going to need us,"
Nodding, the Garrus' climbed into the truck and set off as Jane claimed back inside.
