Far From Home// mercergotacold
mercergotacold
Alex continued his overwatch, observing the situation below. It hadn’t taken long for the mercs to get back into action, several more pouring over the wall as they made their assault onto the building, most of them not even making it to the halfway point across the bridge, of course most of that being from the large mech they deployed turning on them and gunning the men down before someone had managed to wirelessly reprogram the machine back to normal. Alex shifted his focus back to the group for a moment, seeing that Shepard was the one holding Garrus’ rifle though all her attention was on the mech while her partners were busy taking care of the few that had gotten through on the lower level. None of it would have really been much concern to Alex but.. he noticed that she hadn’t even taken her attention to the others that were making their way across the bridge, shifting his head away from the scope for a moment to take a brief glance at the entire area before shifting his gaze and setting his sights on one of the mercs, putting him in the crosshairs and squeezing the trigger, a light wisp coming from the rifle, a split second later the merc being hit and giving a cry of pain as the bullet tore through him, the impact knocking him over the side. Using weapons typically wasn’t Alex’s style, but times were different now and sometimes getting up close wasn’t always an option, he had to adapt, which is what he was good at. He took a moment to glance back at Shepard, her concentration still on the mech as she had just taken it down, she hadn’t noticed what happened to the other merc, though Garrus did. Alex noticing the narrowing and shift of the Turian’s eyes, the Turian knew that hadn’t come from one of them.. Good, Alex was counting on it. Shifting back his gaze he managed to dispatch a couple more mercs, all the while keeping it oblivious to Shepard, which to be quite honest Alex found to be odd. Alex had been with her enough to know that she never missed a detail when looking through the scope of a rifle, hell her old one might as well have been apart of her, maybe you just lose your touch after being dead for two years. It seemed to have died down for a moment, but it was short lived. It wasn’t long before a new wave of mercs had made their assault and Shepard soon disappeared down below to one of the lower sections. Where she went off to or why, Alex didn’t know, but now was the time to take his chance. Shifting his position, Alex leaned away from the wall and kicked off with his feet, launching himself through air like a bullet. Biomass shifting around his arm as he reared it back and slung it forward, his arm extending out like a whip and latching onto the building above the window opening where Garrus was focused on the enemies below. With a quick pull Alex yanked himself to the building and through the large window, hitting the floor with a dive and roll before quickly turning around and readying up his rifle and immediately firing upon the other Mercs, Garrus barely even being phased by his sudden entrance. “I thought that was you out there, it’s about time.” He’d say without even taking his sight from the rifle. “What.. I didn’t want to take away /all/ the fun from you.” The two firing off more rounds as more Mercs made their way across. “You could have contacted me about all this ya know.” “Well you were busy off on your revenge vendetta. How’s that going for you by the way?” “You tell me..” Alex would say slowly, turning to glance over at the Turian. “Is it her, Garrus?” “As far as I can tell. Maybe a few extra freckles but, it’s her.” Garrus turning his head to meet Alex’s gaze, the assault seeming to have stopped for the moment as the Mercs regrouped on the other side. “She’ll want to know you’re here, Alex.” “Not yet.” “Stubborn as ever.” “And for good reason. I have to know more. Have to be sure… She’ll probably be back soon, I should get out.” “Well you know where we’ll be.” Garrus would say as he looked back through the scope of his rifle, seeing that the remainder of the Mercs were gearing up for the next assault. Alex leaping out through the window and within a couple seconds positioning himself back in his sniper spot. Under different circumstances he would have taken care of whole lot of them within a matter of seconds, it’s what his gut was screaming at him to do, but his stubbornness and paranoia kept him from leaving any hints to his presence from Shepard. For now anyway.
This was it… Shepard could tell. The Blue Suns were making their final push… and though they were the last obstacle between Garrus, Shepard, he squad and freedom they were also like a wounded and cornered wild animal. They were desperate, angry, and willing to do anything to finish this.
The Eclipse Mercs were taken care of. Blood pack had backed off once their underground infiltration failed and Shepard helped Garrus take Garm out with some distraction tactics that worked in his favor. All that was left was the Blue Suns but they were not lacking in terms of tricks up their sleeves.
Shepard and Garrus had been taking a few moments, during what they thought was a momentary reprieve while the mercs prepared for battle, to strategize. It turned out it was only the minute in between when the Blue Suns leader, Tarak, found out Garm had failed and when he, in a blind rage, ordered an all-out assault on Garrus’s base, hopped in his gun ship and flew to the side of the base. Here he shot out the remaining windows, surprising them and forcing them to dive for cover.
“Damn it!” Garrus said angrily as he fired a desperate shot at the gunship and dove behind a couch “I thought I took that thing out already!”
“They fixed it.” Said Shepard, grimly. “But not completely. I made sure of that.”
“They’re offloading troops!” Garrus warned. “Watch your back, Shepard.”
Shepard recognized the people that dropped off the gunship. They were some of the higher-ups in the Blue Suns command. Jentha In particular was Tarak’s right hand. Shepard decided to make a bit of a statement: She was done with this shit.
Before Jentha could even move forward Shepard leapt out of cover and used a biotic charge to warp across the room and send Jentha flying backwards.
Shepard seized this moment to pull out Garm’s shotgun that she nicked from his body and blast the woman. The look of shock on her face almost made Shepard feel bad for her as she fell backwards out the window into a bloody heap on the street.
“You Bitch!”
Movement beside her… Shepard whirled around and another shotgun blast sent a Blue Sun Merc hurling into the wall.
She was beginning to like this weapon… it was ridiculously heavy and made her arms quiver which was bad for accuracy but who needed accuracy at this range with a damn shotgun?
She ran back to her squad, jumping over all the furniture she had apparently warped through when she charged over to that side of the room. She could still hear the engines of the gunship outside, it was hovering… waiting.
“They’re swarming in downstairs!” Miranda exclaimed.
Shepard looked and sure enough, the gunship had provided ample distraction for a cluster of mercs to get across the bridge and inside the base downstairs.
“We’ll take care of it.” Shepard said to Garrus, loading another thermal clip into her new pet weapon and cocking it with a grin.
Garrus’s mandible’s twitched in that odd way that indicated a Turian smirk.
“Now I know you haven’t changed.” He said.
This time… Shepard could feel he meant it. She winked at him and motioned for Miranda and Zaeed to follow her. They hurried downstairs, dodging shots, firing back, Miranda and herself adding a few biotic attacks to the mix.
Things actually got a bit amusing when Shepard realized she could use her biotics to turn inanimate objects in the room against their enemies and took down a blue sun merc by hurtling a couch sectional into him.
One down
Two down
Three down
There were a lot but they were no match for Shepard and he squad.
This new chaotic form of combat was beginning to get easier and easier for Shepard. Close combat with a shotgun was the exact opposite of what she was used to. It was risky at best… and at one point she ended up with a pistol buried in her back. If Zaeed hadn’t fired at that moment she would have been dead all over again.
Shepard nodded to Zaeed who shrugged and kept shooting.
It only took a few minutes for them to clear out the lower-level. On her way back upstairs Shepard heard the railgun from the gunship and Tarak screaming over a loudspeaker.
“ARCHANGEL!”
Shepard picked up her pace. Her heart pounded in her throat. Something bad was about to happen… Garrus needed her help.
“YOU THINK YOU CAN SCREW WITH THE BLUE SUNS?!”
The corridor from the stairwell to the room Garrus was holed up in never seemed so long. Shepard heard Garrus let out a few cries of pain. He must have been hit by the railgun!
“THIS ENDS NOW!”
The second Shepard reached the door something in the room exploded and she doubled back, shielding her face from the blast. Tarak did NOT just fire a rocket in there… he couldn’t have…
The instant the heat dissipated she ran in and took cover.
“GARRUS!” She cried out, looking around, praying he was okay.
Her heart stopped. He was laying on the floor, just a few yards away, unmoving. A strange blue liquid was oozing out from under his face. Shepard felt like she had just swallowed ice. That was blood, Turian blood… He was laying, unmoving in a growing pool of his own blood.
No… Not him… Not now… Not when she needed someone like him on her side in this uncertainty…
At that moment she felt white hot rage suddenly burn through her, from her fingertips to her toes. How dare that sonofabitch! How dare he take away her one fucking friend that she had in the galaxy right now! HOW FUCKING DARE HE!
“TARAAAAAAK!” She bellowed.
Her body lit up a brilliant blue, positively on fire with biotic power surging through every pore, through every nerve.
She leapt over her cover and charged straight through the air, landing on the gunship with a blast that had such force it rippled through the station’s atmosphere around them and cracked the gunship’s windshield.
The already damaged shields on the gunship sputtered and died… but Shepard was not done. She balled her hand into a fist, her biotics still flaring, and punched straight into the gunship’s cockpit. Tarak shouted in rage and the gunship began to swerve around and jerk violently. He was trying to throw her off. She clung to the side of windshield with one hand and pulled out her shotgun with the other. Tarak swung the gunship out across the bridge and over the gaping abyss below. Shepard didn’t care where he was taking them, all she cared about was killing the bastard. She violently pushed the shotgun into the hole she made in the windshield and pulled the trigger.
And that’s when the gunship fell.
A squeeze of the trigger and Alex had sent another merc to his grave. It didn’t take long for things to heat up, it was only a matter of seconds before the Blue Sons made their final assault and all hell seemed to break loose. Focusing on another merc, training his crosshairs on the man’s head and letting loose another bullet, the silent wisp of the rifle as it fired, there wasn’t much left of his head after that. It was at that moment that something suddenly obstructed his view in the scope, tilting his head up to look, only to see the Gunship soaring past as it made its way to the building, feeling the heat and blast of the engines propulsion as it went by. Shit, this was getting out of hand now, and fast. quickly shifting his gaze to Shepard, their focus now on the gunship, several more Mercs rushing their way across the bridge as they took advantage of the distraction, along with a rocket that flew by and exploded on the side of the building, just barely missing it’s way through the long narrow window. That’s it, no more playing around. Slinging the rifle onto his back as the mechanical mask formed back over his face, the visor flickering on to a bright blue. Leaping sideways along the wall, his arm shifting into a claw as he scratched the blades against the wall, angling himself down as he gripped into the lip of the edge and swung himself under the wall and into the opening, landing behind the barricade where the rest of the Mercs were at on the opposite side of the bridge from Shepard and the group, his other arm having shifted into a blade as he landed. “Oh shit, is that?…” “Fuck!” a couple of the Mercs exclaimed, the group focusing their attention on Alex now, who had already cut down a few of them. Several of the Mercs cursing as they saw their comrades getting cut down one by one, a few others taking the opportunity to bail over the wall and take their chances across the bridge. Ramming a clawed hand through one Batarian’s chest as he then angled himself and rolled across his back before the body fell, having grabbed his pistol as he did so and fired off 3 consecutive shots as he landed back on his feet. The bullets reaching the heads of three different Mercs that had come from one of the side rooms, dropping them before they even realized what had happened. The next instant Alex cried out as several bullets hit him in his shoulder and back, dropping the gun as ice quickly formed and froze over where the bullets hit. Quickly looking over his shoulder to glare at who shot him. A look of surprise over the Mercs face, was that it? Was ice the trick? But before he could shout out to his partners to switch to cryo rounds he was already being lifted off his feet by a large claw, several tendrils forming from Alex’s arm as they converged over and consumed the man. “Shit! Freeze his ass!” A merc shouted, him and his partner quickly bringing up their rifles to switch them to cryo rounds, though it didn’t make much of a difference as Alex quickly dashed over and before one of them could even ready his rifle already had a claw punctured through his gut, the other getting off a couple shots before he met the same fate. As Alex was taking care of those two a Salarian had ran out, a rocket launcher on his shoulder as he took aim, Alex quickly looked over in the direction he was aiming only to see Shepard atop of the aircraft, a vibrant blue glow surrounding her body. “Shepard!!” He shouted as he threw the bodies aside, leaping through the air towards the Salarian. Alex wasnt quite fast enough, just as he brought the blade down on the mercenary, he had fired the rocket, giving a cry of pain as he was cut in half at a diagonal angle, a plume of smoke making a trail as the rocket headed right for the aircraft which was already spinning out of control at this point. The choice was made, there was no more hiding at this point, cursing under his breath as he leapt through the air, angling his body into a front flip just as he reached the top of the barricaded wall and kicking off of it launching himself like a bullet towards the aircraft. The missle hit the back end of the plane in a fiery explosion just moments before Alex reached it himself. Bursting through the flames as he reached the top of the aircraft, going straight into a front roll as he landed, his momentum carrying him forward as he broke into a run without stopping, wrapping an arm around Shepard, hugging her against him as he instantly leapt from the aircraft, the thing erupting into an explosion behind them, the blast launching Alex through the air, feeling the heat from the fire as it singed his back. Wrapping his other arm around Shepard and twisting themselves in the air, taking the impact as his back slammed into the corner of the top ledge with a loud crack, rolling over the top of it and falling into a roll on the roof of the building, letting his grip go from Shepard as he hit, rolling farther past her before bringing himself to a stop. A slight groan escaped Alex’s lips as he rolled himself over onto his hands and knees, before brining himself back up to a standing position, giving a roll of his shoulder and crack of his neck. “Second time I’ve had to save your ass.” He’d say aloud, turning abit to look over at her, the helmet that covered his face changing and shifting as it folded up from around his face, disappearing under the hood, his blue gaze now locked on Shepard. “Guess some things never change.”