Rage is a hell of an anesthetic

kaidanalenko:

Kaidan glanced at Shepard, frowning as he heard first Thane’s words about bugs, straining to hear the assassin’s low tones, then Shepard’s reply about trusting EDI to remove any devices that may be on board.

Certainly his first judgement was to trust Shepard’s words, but his…

Zaeed kept his head down, chewing carefully at his slab of roast.  As much as he wanted to join in to the discussion, Shepard had already been very clear with him about voicing his opinions on Cerberus.  Besides, he didn’t feel like vocally supporting Alenko.  Still too much bad blood for them to start getting all buddy-buddy.  Instead, he carefully interjected, without looking up, “I’ll help out with the search, Shepard.  I’ve done a few ops in the past with this sort of thing.  Might be able to figure out which nooks and crannies would be the most likely hiding places, that sort of thing.”  He speared another piece of the roast on his fork, but set it down rather than eat it.  ”Assuming Lawson is OK with it.” 

janeshepard-:

Shepard gave Garrus a friendly slap on the shoulder after he’d wished her a happy birthday, congratulating him on a job well done before sitting down with her piece of cake. It might not be a masterpiece, but after exerting so much of her energy through extensive use of her…

Zaeed waved a hand at the younger thief.  ”Nah, keep it.  You spilled first blood with it, so it’s not gonna work right for me anyway.  Besides, I’m getting too old for goddamn knife fights.”  Zaeed eyed the “cake” that Gardner had thrown together with mistrust, eventually deciding to take a pass.  He was dinged up enough without adding food poisoning to the mix, and judging from the faces Alenko was making, that was where this story ended.  Instead he dropped into a seat and listened to people volunteer to go with Shepard and Kasumi.  He kept his mouth firmly shut.  He needed some time to recover, some time to rest, and maybe some time to spend by himself.  Or with Jack, unless she volunteered for something.  Either way, he wasn’t going off the ship until he had a new sniper rifle.

(Source: garrus-vakarian)

janeshepard-:

mordin-solus:

Checking his gun he noted exactly how many heat sinks he had and took a soft breath, well it was a relief to know the others were not doing too badly since he had left them to themselves whilst he treated the marines.

Shepard barely had time to regain her composure after…

Zaeed snorted at Shepard’s bravado.  ”Let’s face it, Shepard,” he grunted into his mic.  ”It’s been a while since you used grenades.  You’re out of practice.  I’d expect one of my green goddamn recruits to do better with the mass chaos.”  His Mattock spat little burps of flame as he picked off a few of the injured husks.  He spotted one of the goddamn dinosaur Reapers trying to circle around to Shepard’s back.  He immediately diverted his attention to the new threat.

Keeping it pinned down with a stream of assault rifle fire, he hurled an inferno grenade at the thing, and it went up like it’d been soaked in gasoline, emitting a eerie, keening wail of pain that raised the hairs on Zaeed’s arms.  Zaeed rushed the injured creature, launching a concussive shot as he did.  The force of the blast lifted the still burning monster and flung it against the wall with a crunch of breaking bones.  Zaeed moved still closer, steadily plugging bullets into the thing until it finally stopped twitching and the noise stopped.  He dropped back into cover, jacking a new clip into his Mattock.  ”One down, Shepard.  Three to go.”

(Source: salvationthroughdestruction)

zaeedgoddamnmassani:

Shepard was in the middle of a knot of husks, one of which was trying to get at her exposed back. Zaeed paused momentarily, lined up his shot, and fired. The husk sank bonelessly to the ground. Shepard was clear again. But the pause had interrupted the next step in his…

Granted a reprieve by Shepard’s actions, Zaeed painfully hauled himself back to his feet and reentered the fray.  His Mattock spat bullets into the head and neck of the nearest husk, buying himself a little more time to get his wits back.  Slowly, he felt himself getting more in sync with how the battle was flowing.  ”Dammit,” he muttered, popping in a new thermal clip.  There were just too many of the bastards.  

“Alenko,” he called back over his shoulder.  ”Use cryo blast to slow some of these these assholes down, or we’re gonna get overrun!”  He sidestepped a charging husk, the knife in his offhand flashing out almost contemptuously at the clumsiness of the attack, and the husk faltered, a huge gash across its face.  Zaeed executed the stunned creature, turning back towards the main fray, hoping Alenko had heard him, because if he hadn’t, this was going to get messy in a hurry.

(Source: salvationthroughdestruction)

janeshepard-:

Shepard was quiet for about a minute, thinking back. Zaeed had a point; before all this - before she’d set foot on the original Normandy - she’d just been a regular soldier. Well, perhaps not regular, what with her being an N7 graduate but it had still just been a matter of…

Battle was a kind of dance.  Zaeed had noticed the similarities years earlier.  The importance of footwork, the need to constantly know where your partners and the other couples were, and how, from the outside, it could be almost beautiful to watch a master at work.  Zaeed floated through the battlefield like water flowing down a hill, always seeking the path of least resistance, but never stopping his movement forward, keeping Shepard and Kaidan in view in his peripheral vision.  

Three shots from the Mattock sent one husk crashing to the ground, most of its face simply missing.  The butt of the rifle swung in an arc that ended with a crunch in the face of another husk, knocking it to the ground.  His off hand flicked a knife through the eye of a third, slowing it enough for him to shoot out both its knees, dropping it.  As he passed, he dropped another bullet between its eyes, almost an afterthought, already moving on to the next target.  A concussive shot flung another husk against the wall with bone-crushing force, and two more shots finished it off.  He jacked another clip into the Mattock, checking Shepard’s progress as he did so.  

Shepard was in the middle of a knot of husks, one of which was trying to get at her exposed back.  Zaeed paused momentarily, lined up his shot, and fired.  The husk sank bonelessly to the ground.  Shepard was clear again.  But the pause had interrupted the next step in his dance.  Already off rhythm, he was too slow as he turned the Mattock towards the husk rushing towards his left.  Rather than cleanly killing the monster, his shot simply took a chunk of flesh out of the thing’s arm, which didn’t even slow its approach.  It swung the other arm at Zaeed, broad and clumsy, but terribly powerful, augmented by Reaper tech.  Zaeed was able to duck and catch most of the blow on his shoulders, but it was still strong enough to lift him off his feet and throw him back into the wall.  He hit hard, grunting as the air whooshed from his lungs with the force of the impact, and dropped to one knee, the husk already moving closer, sensing weakness.  

(Source: salvationthroughdestruction)

kaidanalenko:

Kaidan watched Shepard as she grabbed Blondie, instinctively training his eyes on the other two Cerberus men, just in case they saw the move as an outright attack. His body moved without his consent, positioning himself halfway between the two parties. There had been a while,…

As the group turned to head deeper into the ship, Zaeed casually positioned himself slightly behind Shepard and off her left shoulder, directly between her and the remaining Cerberus men.  They had done nothing yet to endear themselves to him, and he still didn’t trust them.  He gave the front one (already the man’s name had escaped his memory) an unfriendly smile and a small salute with his assault rifle, akin to the salute a duelist would share with his opponent before blows were exchanged.  Petty games and oneupsmanship aside, however, there were bigger problems to face, so he turned back away from the other merc to follow Shepard.  

“This takes me back,” he mused aloud.  ”Not the husks, obviously, those are new.  But just clearing out a ship, one asshole at a time, until there’s nobody left breathing but you and your guys.  No earth shattering revelations about galactic history, or political bullshit, or any of that.  Just you, your team, the bad guys, and a ton of goddamn bullets.”  He gave Shepard a wry smile.  ”Don’t you miss when things were simpler?”

(Source: salvationthroughdestruction)

salvationthroughdestruction:

The Alpha staggered backwards, leaning heavily on its over-muscled arms to do so, then smashing its fist into the ground.

“THIS TEST SKIRMISH IS OVER. YOUR DEFIANCE IS USELESS, SHEPARD. IT SERVES ONLY TO EMPOWER US WITH FURTHER KNOWLEDGE. RELEASING CONTROL.”

The light emanating from the Alpha fades, and it slumps backward, its spinal column giving an all-too audible crack as the husk slumped to its knees, its chest thrust into the air.

Zaeed slapped at his armor irritably, where some of the linking fabric was smoldering ominously.  ”Christ, Shepard,” he growled, “if this is your idea of a fun outing, you need a lesson on how to show a man a good goddamn time.”  He picked up his sniper rifle where it was lying on the ground, and checked it out, sighing as he saw the kink in the barrel where he’d smashed it against the monster’s leg.  He waved off Shepard as she stepped closer to offer him a hand, slapping some medigel on a small cut near his hairline.  ”I’m fine.  Not going to be as helpful from distance though.”  He collapsed the gun and slipped the rifle back into the magnetic catch on his back, switching over to his Mattock.  He swiped his hand across his face, clearing sweat and blood from his eyes.  ”Alright, fearless leader.  What’s next?”

janeshepard-:

“Oh no, you don’t”, Shepard growled under her breath as the thing in front of her shifted its focus. The particle beam had mostly melted its face away, hopefully damaging the optics enough for it to not see properly. “Focus fire on my target!” she called into the comm,…

“Dammit,” hissed Zaeed as the pissed-off monstrosity turned and lumbered back towards Shepard.  Eschewing any sort of controlled, covered approach, he leapt over the cover in front of him, pulling out his sniper rifle as he did so.  At a dead sprint, he pitched a grenade at the thing’s back hoping to knock it off balance to give him a chance to catch up.  As expected, the grenade didn’t kill the creature, all though by any reasonable goddamn measure it should have.  But in the time it took the thing to regain its footing, he’d quickly closed the distance between them, wound up, and swung his rifle, baseball bat style, at the monster’s knee.  

Heavily augmented by Reaper tech the thing may be, it still was humanoid, and humanoid beings had a hard time with any sort of speedy movement when one of their knees was bent in goddamn sideways.  The thing roared in pain and rage, and Zaeed scrambled backwards, looking for some intact cover.  He’d managed to stop the thing rushing Shepard from behind, or at least slowed it, but his ass was stuck out in the open, and that wasn’t where he wanted to be at all.

averyillusiveman:

averyillusiveman:

Monk heard the moans in the distance, and smiled to himself. “Shiva, goddess of destruction, grant me strength.” he muttered, holding his pistol out in front of him. He did not fear the Reapers, nor their nefarious creations. He believed that death was a necessary act of…

Monk ejected a thermal clip as he listened to Alenko’s orders. He reloaded his weapon and thought for a moment about how best to bypass the husk’s shields. “Driscoll,” he said into his helmet’s communication unit, “I’m going to hit the shielded enemies with a throw field, be ready to open fire when I do so.”
 
“Roger.” Blondie tapped Driscoll on the shoulder and showed him a grenade belt he had pulled out of the duffel bag they had brought with them. “That’ll do nicely.”

A couple yards behind them, Monk popped out of cover, firing a few shots a the legionnaires to get their attention. Once their shields faced him, Monk’s muscular figure glowed blue as he charged up his biotic ability. He thrust his arm out and a surge of energy rushed towards the husks, smashing into their shields and sending them staggering backwards. Blondie used the opening to his advantage, activating one of the grenades on the belt and hurling the entire thing at the legionnaires’ feet. “Fire in the hole!” They all ducked low behind their cover as a massive explosion lit up the chamber.

Zaeed hit the ground hard next to Kaidan, and stars filled his field of vision for a moment.  Shaking his head to clear away the fog, he dragged himself behind some cover, pulling out his sniper rifle as he did so.  ”Fucking biotics,” he muttered, not caring whether Kaidan heard him or not.  He missed the days when hand to hand combat or weapon skill decided fights, rather than goddamn space magic.  Popping up over the wall, he sighted quickly down his scope, and the skull of one of the remaining legionnaires simply exploded in a bloody mist as the bullet sliced through its head.  

He noticed Shepard, out in front of everyone and backpedaling furiously as she fired at the Alpha.  Figuring he could do her some good, he popped out of cover again, firing a concussive shot at the Alpha that hit it square in the chest.  The monstrous creature didn’t fall over, but it rocked backwards, its advance momentarily checked by the force of the blow.  Then it glanced up at him, its four glowing eyes narrowing menacingly.  ”Crap,” gulped Zaeed, ducking back behind the wall again.

(Source: salvationthroughdestruction)