Post by iamseph on Jul 8, 2012 0:39:40 GMT 1
I just felt like writing a fight scene. It isn't really connected to anything, anywhere. Maybe I'll add context later. I suppose enemies and the limited armaments place it it early in the ME3 period.
Lots of violence, quite a bit of swearing.
Kerrigan Shepard, Renegade Vanguard.
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"Well this is fun." Kerrigan muttered. She kept her head tucked down and shotgun clutched close as she crouched behind the pockmarked concrete wall.
Cracks and prangs hammered around her as gunfire was levelled on her position. Chips and shards of concrete flew around Kerrigan in clouds of dust which reminded Kerrigan of an important lesson from basic training. Cover would only protect until it fell apart. Even concrete wouldn't last forever.
With the number of Cerberus troops out there, the concrete would crumble long before they ran out of thermal clips. Kerrigan couldn't just wait around.
"Supressing fire." One of the Cerberus troops growled. The platoon continued firing on Shepard's position. That also meant to Kerrigan that they had split up. Some would be working around to her position soon to get a clear shot at her while the others kept her pinned down.
To stay there and wait for backup was guaranteed to get her killed. Cerberus troops knew exactly what they were doing. Kerrigan needed a plan, and fast.
Kerrigan took stock of her situation. She had two thermal clips; probably enough to kill five Cerberus troops or ten at a stretch if she could make every shot count. She was pinned down in a ruined concrete building with a lot of broken rubble and pillars providing cover. That helped but also gave the Cerberus flanking team plenty of angles they could come at her from. There were at least twenty Cerberus troops left.
A cloud of chips and debris rattled against her armour, which broke her out of her evaluation and reminded her she didn't have time. But it also gave her an idea.
She took a quick glance around the cover to get an idea of the situation and spotted the group of troopers laying down supressive fire. She couldn't see the flanking group, but couldn't see more than ten in the supressing group. They were forty metres out; good range for their rifles but lousy for her shotgun or her biotics. There was only one thing she liked about the situation and she didn't have time to waste wondering if it would work.
Kerrigan shot out of cover at a sprint straight for another cluster of concrete rubble. It wasn't good cover she was headed for if she did get flanked but it was a hell of a lot closer to the supressing team. A fusillade of bullets zipped past her as she sprinted. Kerrigan strained to keep her biotic field up to stop the shots that are on target. A couple of shots made it through and she felt the clunks as they glanced against the steep surfaces of her armour. She knew the armour wouldn't stop the bullets on clean hits though.
In a scrape and grind of debris Kerrigan slid behind a small block and tried to make herself as small as possible so it would protect her. She just needed a few seconds to get her strength back and get her shields up. Bullets hammered against the boulder and the ground and zipped past her constantly.
Hunkered down behind her inadequate cover, Kerrigan turned her head from side to side to keep track of the situation without moving too much and exposing herself. She swore could feel some of the bullets moving past her as she built up her biotic fields again.
Suddenly one sound stood out against the background noise of gunshots and ricochets. A combination of clicking and scraping. A grenade was rolling towards her slowly. It turned her new cover was just about close enough for the Cerberus troopers to land one on target.
"Well fuck. Now or never." Kerrigan muttered. She was already leaving cover by the time she had finished speaking. She ran towards the supressing team and slightly sideways to pose a harder target. Again she sprinted, head down and gun held close, to close the distance quickly. The thump of the exploding grenade was far enough behind that she barely even felt it.
Suddenly she stopped and dropped to one knee. With a growl she thrust out her left hand towards the group of troopers firing on her, willing a shockwave to blast in that direction. Half of the Cerberus troopers were thrown to the ground while the others continued firing. The troopers weren't the intended target though, the unstable rubble around them was.
With a creak and crack of concrete grinding together a precarious boulder the size of a Yahg shifted and fell. Four of the troopers were crushed to death under it, their armour no protection against so much weight. The other six scattered away from the massive chunk of concrete, while the cloud of dust and debris thrown up disorientated them and hid Kerrigan from their view.
Kerrigan was already on her feet again by the time the boulder had landed. She sprinted straight for their position in a hurry to get there before they get their bearings again. The two nearest ones that could see her through the dust recovered quickly and raised their rifles. Kerrigan felt the bullets clank against her N7 armour as her biotic field barely stopped them, weakened as it already was.
With a scream, Kerrigan focused all her power into throwing herself forwards. She smashed into the trooper on the right, sending him flying back into the cloud. The other trooper tried to track her, but she had moved too quickly for him to keep up. Before he could bring his rifle around, she fired her Katana shotgun into his stomach and blasted away half of his armour and intestines. He stumbled and fell backwards but feebly held on to his rifle in one hand. Kerrigan didn't give him a chance to recover and fired again, removing his head in a spray of blood and gore.
Kerrigan took a mental note: Four troopers, three shots left. Two more came out of the cloud of debris in moments following the sound of her shots. The first one caught a blast from her shotgun which ripped his arm off leaving him crippled and disarmed. The other one had time to attack and Kerrigan's fields were too weak to stop it. She grit her teeth as the bullet punched a hole in her side and she barely managed to stay on her feet. Using her biotics Kerrigan threw herself at the second trooper even as she stumbled from the hit. The impact threw him back against the wall with a crunch of armour and bone, and with a scream of anger Kerrigan smashed the handle of the Katana shotgun into his helmet to finish him off in a shower of teeth and armour shards.
Limping, Kerrigan span quickly to take stock. Two more troopers, two shots left. They hadn't found her yet, but she could hear them approaching and blindly firing in her direction. One unlucky bullet and she was dead. Rather than risk being hit by blind fire she thrust forwards with her mind to send a shockwave in the direction the shots were coming from. It hit one of the troopers and she heard him cry out as he flew back, but the shockwave also caused the cloud of dust to scatter. The dust was dispersed enough for Kerrigan to see the two other troopers approaching her and for them to see her.
In a moment of confusion, Kerrigan wondered why there were two on their feet rather than one. She didn't have time to work it out, and immediately opened fire on the first of them. He was too far away for the pellets to hit in a tight group, and he staggered back with cracks in his armour but was still standing. The other trooper dropped into a crouch and returned fire, snapping off shots from his rifle quickly at Kerrigan. Kerrigan had had just enough time to get her biotic field started. One shot landed squarely on target and ripped apart what little field strength she could muster but was slowed enough that it bounced off her breastplate harmlessly.
With her defenses down she couldn't waste an instant, and Kerrigan immediately ran towards them. She fired her last shot at the one that just shot her which ripped open his leg and distracted him from firing again for the moment. The other trooper was recovering from her first shot and Kerrigan fell back to slide on her backside towards him. The risky move threw his aim off and he fired above her, then she kicked up as she reached him to knock the gun from his hands. She threw herself into a forwards roll after the kick, bowling him over by colliding with his legs. He tried to get back upright and ready his shock baton, but with a scream Kerrigan mustered a field around her fist and swang at his head. His helmet shattered and his face imploded as she drove the biotic strike down on him.
The other trooper was recovering from being shot and readying his rifle again. The other trooper that Kerrigan had sent flying only moments earlier was back on his feet as well and trying to find his rifle. Kerrigan was on the ground, unshielded, shot and didn't have time to reload or recover her energies. She rolled sideways while holding the corpse of the Cerberus trooper she had just killed, so she could hold it between herself and the wounded trooper. The trooper fired without hesitation, and the body of his dead comrade sprayed blood and organs as the bullets ripped it open. That gave Kerrigan a moment to brace herself though, and she threw the mutilated corpse at the trooper with his rifle. With his leg injured the impact knocked him backwards with a grunt and his gun got caught up in the body.
Kerrigan shoved herself back to her feet and dove over to him before he could get back on his feet. Screaming with bloodlust and anger she smashed her empty shotgun into his chest. His armour cracked and he flopped backwards but tried to reach his rifle anyway, forcing Kerrigan to attack again. She brought the shotgun down on his head, knocking it to the side as the impact glanced off his helmet. Kerrigan struck again and again, the second hit cracked his helmet and the third sent him limp with a squelch. Blood leaked from cracks in his faceplate.
The last trooper gave up the search for his rifle and drew his stun baton, with which he advanced on Kerrigan. He was too close to have time to reload and Kerrigan couldn't really defend herself while on the ground.
"Fuck it." She muttered, then dropped her shotgun and drew her Predator pistol instead. It was a minimally effective weapon, but the best of a bad situation.
The first shot hit the trooper in the shoulder, but he kept coming and roared as he raised his baton. Kerrigan kept firing shot after shot as he charged. Some missed in her haste but shots hit him in the stomach, side and then knee. He crumpled and slid to a halt beside Kerrigan. He didn't seem to be moving, but Kerrigan put the gun to his helmet and fired again anyway. The Predator steamed and beeped as the thermal clip ran out of coolant. Blood poured from the wide hole in the trooper's helmet.
In the distance, Kerrigan could hear the other Cerberus flanking team returning. She had only seconds before they found her. Kerrigan replaced the thermal clips in her weapons while gathering extra clips from the Cerberus troopers. As she did that she noticed the grenades the Cerberus troopers were carrying. Her dark red lips twitched into a smirk.
That might even the odds.
She quickly gathered up as many grenades as she could, four in total, and returned to cover to wait. In that moment of peace understanding suddenly dawned.
Of course, the first one I charged, he got back up after. That's why my numbers were off.
Something else occurred to her as she crouched there, the sharp pain in her side grew stronger as the rush of combat wore off. She glanced down and saw the blood oozing from the hole that the one penetrating bullet had made. A quick application of medi-gel stopped the wound getting worse but she was going to have to go into surgery to get a bullet removed. Yet again.
Kerrigan glanced around her cover quickly and caught a glimpse of the off-white Cerberus armour approaching.
No problem. Lots of grenades and thermal clips. No flanking force to worry about. She thought as she readied her shotgun, but there was a detail that was pushing it's way into her mind. She chanced another glance to see if she could check on her hunch.
At the front of the approaching group Shepard saw the heavy shields of Defenders. Behind them, she caught a glimpse of antennae that suggested Centurions followed behind. It looked like they'd left the weakest of their number providing supressive fire. Now Kerrigan had to face their better troops.
She took two of the grenades in one hand, quickly armed them both and tossed them over the cover. The Cerberus troops noticed the grenades quickly.
"Grenade!" One hissed.
"Scatter!" A Centurion ordered.
Kerrigan had expected that and was already leaning over the cover thrusting forward with her mind. The shockwave shot straight through the middle of the group as they attempted to avoid the grenades, knocking them down or staggering a number of them. The deafening bang of the two grenades killed two Assault Troopers instantly, plus two Defenders that had been unable to raise their shields owing to the shockwave. Seven were left including two more Defenders and two Centurions but they had spread out and taken cover.
After recovering their balance, the Defenders continued their advance. In an effortlessly coordinated action, the two Centurions shot forth smoke grenades. One smoke cloud started to grow around Kerrigan, blinding her instantly, while the other landing close in front of her obscuring the approach that the troopers would take. After that all Kerrigan knew was that she could hear them advancing and firing blindly through the smoke in an attempt to supress her.
With her shields at full strength Kerrigan held no fear for stray shots and quickly broke cover to circle around to the right. Moving blindly, she could only guess where she was going from memory and the sound of the Cerberus troops firing. Suddenly she was out of the smoke and hesitated, disorientated for a moment. She quickly noticed the troopers behind cover watching their perimeter. One Assault Trooper and one Centurion were in cover, sweeping arcs with their rifles. Kerrigan couldn't see the other five and didn't have time to stop and think.
"There! Left! Fire!" The Centurion shouted and pointed then opened fire himself. With a furious roar, Kerrigan plunged forward in a rush of biotic energy. Their bullets were slowed by her biotic field as she charged, weakening it but not breaking it yet. She slammed into the Centurion and sent him reeling but he regained his balance and tried to bring his rifle back up. Heedless of the Assault Trooper firing or the rest of the unit returning Kerrigan poured on the attacks. She smashed aside the Centurions rifle with her shotgun and immediately followed through with a round kick to the knee. The Centurion staggered and fell to one knee with his kinetic barrier broken, but tried to draw his stun baton and fight back. Kerrigan directed all the energy she could muster into one fist which she drove into the Centurion's neck in an uppercut. His head popped off amidst an arterial spray from the body.
"Die, bastards!" Kerrigan screamed as blood hit her in the face.
The Assault Trooper stood his ground and fired rapidly but the body of the Centurion shielded Kerrigan from the shots. With a shout she speeded the corpse to the ground with a kick then fired her shotgun from the hip. The spray of projectiles slammed into the trooper and knocked him down. Kerrigan didn't wait to see if he was finished or not and immediately fired a second shot which ripped holes in his battered armour and left little doubt about his death.
A series of bangs of metal on concrete caught her attention and Kerrigan looked around suddenly to see three grenades rolling towards her.
"Give me a..." Kerrigan started speaking as she turned and broke for cover.
"Fucking..." She reached the cover, planted one hand on it and started to jump over.
"Break!" She barely escaped the heat of the explosion, but the shaking ground and flying debris took away her stability and she slipped and fell face-first to the concrete.
"Shit!"
After a shocked moment she rolled over onto her back and shoved forwards to stand up. The last Centurion and two Assault Troopers were advancing from the smoke behind the two Defenders. They stayed behind the heavy shields of the Defenders, occasionally leaning out to fire shots at her. Taking cover from the grenades had put her directly in their line of sight! Kerrigan immediately vaulted back over the cover she had just crossed to avoid their shots. To buy herself some time to reinforce her shields Kerrigan took the last two grenades, armed them, then tossed them backwards over the cover.
"Scatter!" The Centurion said again, showing how repetitive their ingrained programming made them. The Defenders turned their shields toward the grenades to absorb the impact, while the other three spread out. Again Kerrigan was banking on that, she leant around the cover with her Predator pistol and sighted down on the Defender's back. Not wasting time with precision, Kerrigan hammered out as many shots as she could before shifting back into cover. With a groan, the Defender went limp at the knees as his bullet-riddled body stopped working. The grenades went off a moment later and the shield protected the Defender's dead body from the blast and only knocked it over. The other Defender just staggered back two steps, then turned back towards Kerrigan and continued his implacable advance. The other three rapidly returned to their advance with the Centurion taking precedence and getting cover behind the Defender.
Shots hammered down around Kerrigan's cover, but the delay had done it's job - her shields were back at full strength. The dead Defender was an added bonus. Amidst the hail of gun shots, Kerrigan quickly popped up and let loose another shockwave, which knocked down both Assault Troopers. The Centurion continued to fire from behind the Defender, but Kerrigan stood and steadied her pistol. While the shots from the Centurion and Defender wore down her shields, Kerrigan sighted in the narrow slot in the shield and carefully fired. The first shot clipped the edge of the view slot, and Kerrigan frowned and steadied the pistol in both hands as more shots flew past her. Her next shots were on target, and the Defender stumbled and fell after a bullet punched through the eyepiece of his helmet and into his skull.
Kerrigan dropped back behind cover, giving her biotic shields time to recover while reloading the pistol. She knew the Centurion must have been right on top of her, and the Assault Troopers couldn't be far behind, so she wasn't going to have cover for long. She quickly switched back to her shotgun, then with a determined shout she vaulted on top of the fallen concrete pillar she was hiding behind.
The Centurion was practically right on top of her, and as he saw her rise from the cover he readied his stun baton. Kerrigan grinned and, rather than fighting the Centurion, she leapt up and over him and launched herself towards the Assault Troopers. While the Centurion swang at the air Kerrigan had occupied, she slammed into the first trooper and sent him flying back. Kerrigan fired her shotgun as he flew back, which blew most of his head off. She immediately turned on the other Trooper and smashed her shotgun down at his head in a wide arc. The Trooper staggered back and she followed through, bringing the shotgun back around to catch him in the stomach. He doubled over and fell to his knees, Kerrigan finished him by taking the back of his head in one hand and thrusting her knee into his face. The armoured knee plate smashed against the Cerberus issue helmet, which cracked and shattered the trooper's face.
Kerrigan started to turn around, knowing there was just the one left. But the Centurion had her in his sights and before she finished turning he fired. Kerrigan felt the first bullet slip past her head, only barely deflected by her biotic field. The second shot ricocheted off her shoulder plate, slowed down enough by her field to not penetrate. Kerrigan finished turning and fired back with her shotgun, which did very little as the kinetic barrier of the Centurion stopped it. She tried to fire again, but the hissing and beeping of her shotgun indicated she had miscalculated and given the Centurion another chance. The next shot caught her in the shoulder, punched straight through her armour and shattered the joint. Her arm went limp and her shotgun clattered to the floor.
"Fuck!"
It was the last of the Cerberus troops, and there was no chance Kerrigan was going to let them win at that point. With one arm limp, she plunged forwards in a desperate rush. The Centurion staggered back a step as she coliided amidst a biotic wave. He still held his shock baton ready in his left hand, which he held up to block any attacks Kerrigan attempted. With no shotgun to use as a bludgeon and only one good arm Kerrigan was forced to improvise. She gripped his wrist in her good hand and brought her weight down on it, so she could bring her knee up against the elbow.
"You!"
The Centurion grunted in pain as his joint cracked and he dropped the baton. Without that he instead brought his rifle around and smashed it against Kerrigan's head. Dazed by the blow, Kerrigan wasn't thinking too clearly, she staggered forward against the Centurion and grabbed out for anything she could with her good hand. She found herself holding on to the back of his neck and didn't really know what else to do.
"Asshole!"
The Centurion staggered back more out of shock than injury after Kerrigan head-butted his helmet with her bare forehead. Dazed and struggling to see straight, Kerrigan whipped out her pistol while the Centurion was confused and started firing indiscriminately at the blurry white shape in front of her, screaming her defiance. She registered the Predator beeping and hissing as the thermal clip ran out, but the white shape was still in front of her. She desperately lashed out with the overheating pistol in a last-ditch attempt to pistol-whip the Centurion, but missed wildly as the Centurion fell backwards. As her vision cleared she could see his body was riddled with most of the shots from the clip. He had just taken a few seconds to notice he was dead and fall over.
"That's it, right?" Kerrigan muttered to herself as she looked around. She managed to switch the thermal clip in her pistol one-handed after a few fumbles. Seeing no immediate threats, she attached her pistol to her armour and clutched her head with her good hand.
"That actually hurt less than headbutting a Krogan."
Lots of violence, quite a bit of swearing.
Kerrigan Shepard, Renegade Vanguard.
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"Well this is fun." Kerrigan muttered. She kept her head tucked down and shotgun clutched close as she crouched behind the pockmarked concrete wall.
Cracks and prangs hammered around her as gunfire was levelled on her position. Chips and shards of concrete flew around Kerrigan in clouds of dust which reminded Kerrigan of an important lesson from basic training. Cover would only protect until it fell apart. Even concrete wouldn't last forever.
With the number of Cerberus troops out there, the concrete would crumble long before they ran out of thermal clips. Kerrigan couldn't just wait around.
"Supressing fire." One of the Cerberus troops growled. The platoon continued firing on Shepard's position. That also meant to Kerrigan that they had split up. Some would be working around to her position soon to get a clear shot at her while the others kept her pinned down.
To stay there and wait for backup was guaranteed to get her killed. Cerberus troops knew exactly what they were doing. Kerrigan needed a plan, and fast.
Kerrigan took stock of her situation. She had two thermal clips; probably enough to kill five Cerberus troops or ten at a stretch if she could make every shot count. She was pinned down in a ruined concrete building with a lot of broken rubble and pillars providing cover. That helped but also gave the Cerberus flanking team plenty of angles they could come at her from. There were at least twenty Cerberus troops left.
A cloud of chips and debris rattled against her armour, which broke her out of her evaluation and reminded her she didn't have time. But it also gave her an idea.
She took a quick glance around the cover to get an idea of the situation and spotted the group of troopers laying down supressive fire. She couldn't see the flanking group, but couldn't see more than ten in the supressing group. They were forty metres out; good range for their rifles but lousy for her shotgun or her biotics. There was only one thing she liked about the situation and she didn't have time to waste wondering if it would work.
Kerrigan shot out of cover at a sprint straight for another cluster of concrete rubble. It wasn't good cover she was headed for if she did get flanked but it was a hell of a lot closer to the supressing team. A fusillade of bullets zipped past her as she sprinted. Kerrigan strained to keep her biotic field up to stop the shots that are on target. A couple of shots made it through and she felt the clunks as they glanced against the steep surfaces of her armour. She knew the armour wouldn't stop the bullets on clean hits though.
In a scrape and grind of debris Kerrigan slid behind a small block and tried to make herself as small as possible so it would protect her. She just needed a few seconds to get her strength back and get her shields up. Bullets hammered against the boulder and the ground and zipped past her constantly.
Hunkered down behind her inadequate cover, Kerrigan turned her head from side to side to keep track of the situation without moving too much and exposing herself. She swore could feel some of the bullets moving past her as she built up her biotic fields again.
Suddenly one sound stood out against the background noise of gunshots and ricochets. A combination of clicking and scraping. A grenade was rolling towards her slowly. It turned her new cover was just about close enough for the Cerberus troopers to land one on target.
"Well fuck. Now or never." Kerrigan muttered. She was already leaving cover by the time she had finished speaking. She ran towards the supressing team and slightly sideways to pose a harder target. Again she sprinted, head down and gun held close, to close the distance quickly. The thump of the exploding grenade was far enough behind that she barely even felt it.
Suddenly she stopped and dropped to one knee. With a growl she thrust out her left hand towards the group of troopers firing on her, willing a shockwave to blast in that direction. Half of the Cerberus troopers were thrown to the ground while the others continued firing. The troopers weren't the intended target though, the unstable rubble around them was.
With a creak and crack of concrete grinding together a precarious boulder the size of a Yahg shifted and fell. Four of the troopers were crushed to death under it, their armour no protection against so much weight. The other six scattered away from the massive chunk of concrete, while the cloud of dust and debris thrown up disorientated them and hid Kerrigan from their view.
Kerrigan was already on her feet again by the time the boulder had landed. She sprinted straight for their position in a hurry to get there before they get their bearings again. The two nearest ones that could see her through the dust recovered quickly and raised their rifles. Kerrigan felt the bullets clank against her N7 armour as her biotic field barely stopped them, weakened as it already was.
With a scream, Kerrigan focused all her power into throwing herself forwards. She smashed into the trooper on the right, sending him flying back into the cloud. The other trooper tried to track her, but she had moved too quickly for him to keep up. Before he could bring his rifle around, she fired her Katana shotgun into his stomach and blasted away half of his armour and intestines. He stumbled and fell backwards but feebly held on to his rifle in one hand. Kerrigan didn't give him a chance to recover and fired again, removing his head in a spray of blood and gore.
Kerrigan took a mental note: Four troopers, three shots left. Two more came out of the cloud of debris in moments following the sound of her shots. The first one caught a blast from her shotgun which ripped his arm off leaving him crippled and disarmed. The other one had time to attack and Kerrigan's fields were too weak to stop it. She grit her teeth as the bullet punched a hole in her side and she barely managed to stay on her feet. Using her biotics Kerrigan threw herself at the second trooper even as she stumbled from the hit. The impact threw him back against the wall with a crunch of armour and bone, and with a scream of anger Kerrigan smashed the handle of the Katana shotgun into his helmet to finish him off in a shower of teeth and armour shards.
Limping, Kerrigan span quickly to take stock. Two more troopers, two shots left. They hadn't found her yet, but she could hear them approaching and blindly firing in her direction. One unlucky bullet and she was dead. Rather than risk being hit by blind fire she thrust forwards with her mind to send a shockwave in the direction the shots were coming from. It hit one of the troopers and she heard him cry out as he flew back, but the shockwave also caused the cloud of dust to scatter. The dust was dispersed enough for Kerrigan to see the two other troopers approaching her and for them to see her.
In a moment of confusion, Kerrigan wondered why there were two on their feet rather than one. She didn't have time to work it out, and immediately opened fire on the first of them. He was too far away for the pellets to hit in a tight group, and he staggered back with cracks in his armour but was still standing. The other trooper dropped into a crouch and returned fire, snapping off shots from his rifle quickly at Kerrigan. Kerrigan had had just enough time to get her biotic field started. One shot landed squarely on target and ripped apart what little field strength she could muster but was slowed enough that it bounced off her breastplate harmlessly.
With her defenses down she couldn't waste an instant, and Kerrigan immediately ran towards them. She fired her last shot at the one that just shot her which ripped open his leg and distracted him from firing again for the moment. The other trooper was recovering from her first shot and Kerrigan fell back to slide on her backside towards him. The risky move threw his aim off and he fired above her, then she kicked up as she reached him to knock the gun from his hands. She threw herself into a forwards roll after the kick, bowling him over by colliding with his legs. He tried to get back upright and ready his shock baton, but with a scream Kerrigan mustered a field around her fist and swang at his head. His helmet shattered and his face imploded as she drove the biotic strike down on him.
The other trooper was recovering from being shot and readying his rifle again. The other trooper that Kerrigan had sent flying only moments earlier was back on his feet as well and trying to find his rifle. Kerrigan was on the ground, unshielded, shot and didn't have time to reload or recover her energies. She rolled sideways while holding the corpse of the Cerberus trooper she had just killed, so she could hold it between herself and the wounded trooper. The trooper fired without hesitation, and the body of his dead comrade sprayed blood and organs as the bullets ripped it open. That gave Kerrigan a moment to brace herself though, and she threw the mutilated corpse at the trooper with his rifle. With his leg injured the impact knocked him backwards with a grunt and his gun got caught up in the body.
Kerrigan shoved herself back to her feet and dove over to him before he could get back on his feet. Screaming with bloodlust and anger she smashed her empty shotgun into his chest. His armour cracked and he flopped backwards but tried to reach his rifle anyway, forcing Kerrigan to attack again. She brought the shotgun down on his head, knocking it to the side as the impact glanced off his helmet. Kerrigan struck again and again, the second hit cracked his helmet and the third sent him limp with a squelch. Blood leaked from cracks in his faceplate.
The last trooper gave up the search for his rifle and drew his stun baton, with which he advanced on Kerrigan. He was too close to have time to reload and Kerrigan couldn't really defend herself while on the ground.
"Fuck it." She muttered, then dropped her shotgun and drew her Predator pistol instead. It was a minimally effective weapon, but the best of a bad situation.
The first shot hit the trooper in the shoulder, but he kept coming and roared as he raised his baton. Kerrigan kept firing shot after shot as he charged. Some missed in her haste but shots hit him in the stomach, side and then knee. He crumpled and slid to a halt beside Kerrigan. He didn't seem to be moving, but Kerrigan put the gun to his helmet and fired again anyway. The Predator steamed and beeped as the thermal clip ran out of coolant. Blood poured from the wide hole in the trooper's helmet.
In the distance, Kerrigan could hear the other Cerberus flanking team returning. She had only seconds before they found her. Kerrigan replaced the thermal clips in her weapons while gathering extra clips from the Cerberus troopers. As she did that she noticed the grenades the Cerberus troopers were carrying. Her dark red lips twitched into a smirk.
That might even the odds.
She quickly gathered up as many grenades as she could, four in total, and returned to cover to wait. In that moment of peace understanding suddenly dawned.
Of course, the first one I charged, he got back up after. That's why my numbers were off.
Something else occurred to her as she crouched there, the sharp pain in her side grew stronger as the rush of combat wore off. She glanced down and saw the blood oozing from the hole that the one penetrating bullet had made. A quick application of medi-gel stopped the wound getting worse but she was going to have to go into surgery to get a bullet removed. Yet again.
Kerrigan glanced around her cover quickly and caught a glimpse of the off-white Cerberus armour approaching.
No problem. Lots of grenades and thermal clips. No flanking force to worry about. She thought as she readied her shotgun, but there was a detail that was pushing it's way into her mind. She chanced another glance to see if she could check on her hunch.
At the front of the approaching group Shepard saw the heavy shields of Defenders. Behind them, she caught a glimpse of antennae that suggested Centurions followed behind. It looked like they'd left the weakest of their number providing supressive fire. Now Kerrigan had to face their better troops.
She took two of the grenades in one hand, quickly armed them both and tossed them over the cover. The Cerberus troops noticed the grenades quickly.
"Grenade!" One hissed.
"Scatter!" A Centurion ordered.
Kerrigan had expected that and was already leaning over the cover thrusting forward with her mind. The shockwave shot straight through the middle of the group as they attempted to avoid the grenades, knocking them down or staggering a number of them. The deafening bang of the two grenades killed two Assault Troopers instantly, plus two Defenders that had been unable to raise their shields owing to the shockwave. Seven were left including two more Defenders and two Centurions but they had spread out and taken cover.
After recovering their balance, the Defenders continued their advance. In an effortlessly coordinated action, the two Centurions shot forth smoke grenades. One smoke cloud started to grow around Kerrigan, blinding her instantly, while the other landing close in front of her obscuring the approach that the troopers would take. After that all Kerrigan knew was that she could hear them advancing and firing blindly through the smoke in an attempt to supress her.
With her shields at full strength Kerrigan held no fear for stray shots and quickly broke cover to circle around to the right. Moving blindly, she could only guess where she was going from memory and the sound of the Cerberus troops firing. Suddenly she was out of the smoke and hesitated, disorientated for a moment. She quickly noticed the troopers behind cover watching their perimeter. One Assault Trooper and one Centurion were in cover, sweeping arcs with their rifles. Kerrigan couldn't see the other five and didn't have time to stop and think.
"There! Left! Fire!" The Centurion shouted and pointed then opened fire himself. With a furious roar, Kerrigan plunged forward in a rush of biotic energy. Their bullets were slowed by her biotic field as she charged, weakening it but not breaking it yet. She slammed into the Centurion and sent him reeling but he regained his balance and tried to bring his rifle back up. Heedless of the Assault Trooper firing or the rest of the unit returning Kerrigan poured on the attacks. She smashed aside the Centurions rifle with her shotgun and immediately followed through with a round kick to the knee. The Centurion staggered and fell to one knee with his kinetic barrier broken, but tried to draw his stun baton and fight back. Kerrigan directed all the energy she could muster into one fist which she drove into the Centurion's neck in an uppercut. His head popped off amidst an arterial spray from the body.
"Die, bastards!" Kerrigan screamed as blood hit her in the face.
The Assault Trooper stood his ground and fired rapidly but the body of the Centurion shielded Kerrigan from the shots. With a shout she speeded the corpse to the ground with a kick then fired her shotgun from the hip. The spray of projectiles slammed into the trooper and knocked him down. Kerrigan didn't wait to see if he was finished or not and immediately fired a second shot which ripped holes in his battered armour and left little doubt about his death.
A series of bangs of metal on concrete caught her attention and Kerrigan looked around suddenly to see three grenades rolling towards her.
"Give me a..." Kerrigan started speaking as she turned and broke for cover.
"Fucking..." She reached the cover, planted one hand on it and started to jump over.
"Break!" She barely escaped the heat of the explosion, but the shaking ground and flying debris took away her stability and she slipped and fell face-first to the concrete.
"Shit!"
After a shocked moment she rolled over onto her back and shoved forwards to stand up. The last Centurion and two Assault Troopers were advancing from the smoke behind the two Defenders. They stayed behind the heavy shields of the Defenders, occasionally leaning out to fire shots at her. Taking cover from the grenades had put her directly in their line of sight! Kerrigan immediately vaulted back over the cover she had just crossed to avoid their shots. To buy herself some time to reinforce her shields Kerrigan took the last two grenades, armed them, then tossed them backwards over the cover.
"Scatter!" The Centurion said again, showing how repetitive their ingrained programming made them. The Defenders turned their shields toward the grenades to absorb the impact, while the other three spread out. Again Kerrigan was banking on that, she leant around the cover with her Predator pistol and sighted down on the Defender's back. Not wasting time with precision, Kerrigan hammered out as many shots as she could before shifting back into cover. With a groan, the Defender went limp at the knees as his bullet-riddled body stopped working. The grenades went off a moment later and the shield protected the Defender's dead body from the blast and only knocked it over. The other Defender just staggered back two steps, then turned back towards Kerrigan and continued his implacable advance. The other three rapidly returned to their advance with the Centurion taking precedence and getting cover behind the Defender.
Shots hammered down around Kerrigan's cover, but the delay had done it's job - her shields were back at full strength. The dead Defender was an added bonus. Amidst the hail of gun shots, Kerrigan quickly popped up and let loose another shockwave, which knocked down both Assault Troopers. The Centurion continued to fire from behind the Defender, but Kerrigan stood and steadied her pistol. While the shots from the Centurion and Defender wore down her shields, Kerrigan sighted in the narrow slot in the shield and carefully fired. The first shot clipped the edge of the view slot, and Kerrigan frowned and steadied the pistol in both hands as more shots flew past her. Her next shots were on target, and the Defender stumbled and fell after a bullet punched through the eyepiece of his helmet and into his skull.
Kerrigan dropped back behind cover, giving her biotic shields time to recover while reloading the pistol. She knew the Centurion must have been right on top of her, and the Assault Troopers couldn't be far behind, so she wasn't going to have cover for long. She quickly switched back to her shotgun, then with a determined shout she vaulted on top of the fallen concrete pillar she was hiding behind.
The Centurion was practically right on top of her, and as he saw her rise from the cover he readied his stun baton. Kerrigan grinned and, rather than fighting the Centurion, she leapt up and over him and launched herself towards the Assault Troopers. While the Centurion swang at the air Kerrigan had occupied, she slammed into the first trooper and sent him flying back. Kerrigan fired her shotgun as he flew back, which blew most of his head off. She immediately turned on the other Trooper and smashed her shotgun down at his head in a wide arc. The Trooper staggered back and she followed through, bringing the shotgun back around to catch him in the stomach. He doubled over and fell to his knees, Kerrigan finished him by taking the back of his head in one hand and thrusting her knee into his face. The armoured knee plate smashed against the Cerberus issue helmet, which cracked and shattered the trooper's face.
Kerrigan started to turn around, knowing there was just the one left. But the Centurion had her in his sights and before she finished turning he fired. Kerrigan felt the first bullet slip past her head, only barely deflected by her biotic field. The second shot ricocheted off her shoulder plate, slowed down enough by her field to not penetrate. Kerrigan finished turning and fired back with her shotgun, which did very little as the kinetic barrier of the Centurion stopped it. She tried to fire again, but the hissing and beeping of her shotgun indicated she had miscalculated and given the Centurion another chance. The next shot caught her in the shoulder, punched straight through her armour and shattered the joint. Her arm went limp and her shotgun clattered to the floor.
"Fuck!"
It was the last of the Cerberus troops, and there was no chance Kerrigan was going to let them win at that point. With one arm limp, she plunged forwards in a desperate rush. The Centurion staggered back a step as she coliided amidst a biotic wave. He still held his shock baton ready in his left hand, which he held up to block any attacks Kerrigan attempted. With no shotgun to use as a bludgeon and only one good arm Kerrigan was forced to improvise. She gripped his wrist in her good hand and brought her weight down on it, so she could bring her knee up against the elbow.
"You!"
The Centurion grunted in pain as his joint cracked and he dropped the baton. Without that he instead brought his rifle around and smashed it against Kerrigan's head. Dazed by the blow, Kerrigan wasn't thinking too clearly, she staggered forward against the Centurion and grabbed out for anything she could with her good hand. She found herself holding on to the back of his neck and didn't really know what else to do.
"Asshole!"
The Centurion staggered back more out of shock than injury after Kerrigan head-butted his helmet with her bare forehead. Dazed and struggling to see straight, Kerrigan whipped out her pistol while the Centurion was confused and started firing indiscriminately at the blurry white shape in front of her, screaming her defiance. She registered the Predator beeping and hissing as the thermal clip ran out, but the white shape was still in front of her. She desperately lashed out with the overheating pistol in a last-ditch attempt to pistol-whip the Centurion, but missed wildly as the Centurion fell backwards. As her vision cleared she could see his body was riddled with most of the shots from the clip. He had just taken a few seconds to notice he was dead and fall over.
"That's it, right?" Kerrigan muttered to herself as she looked around. She managed to switch the thermal clip in her pistol one-handed after a few fumbles. Seeing no immediate threats, she attached her pistol to her armour and clutched her head with her good hand.
"That actually hurt less than headbutting a Krogan."