"This is it, I'm dead" Nathan Shepard thought as two of the creatures stood over him. One was pinning down his arms while the other lowered it's claws toward his helmet and grabbed it tight, starting to twist as if it wanted to tear his head off. He was not sure if that wasn't exactly what the ugly grey humanoid intended. There was nothing he could do but deliver some kicks to the legs of one of the creatures but it didn't even flinch.
When Shepard was about to give up the air seemed to twist and warp above him like the haze above a fire but there was no heat. At first he thought, his vision was failing him but a dim blue glow started to emanate from the distortion and suddenly the two creatures were flung away from him, as if hit by a giant invisible fist. They flew square across the chamber, slammed into the far wall and fell to the ground, limb like a pair of broken dolls. Kaidan Alenko stood behind the startled Commander, his left arm still stretched forward, his hand clenched into a fist. The residual static discharge from the biotic push he had just delivered caused some lingering light blue sparks to glitter around him and the dry smell of ozone hung in the air for a few seconds longer.
Shepard wiped his visor clean of grimy dirt and the vial green slimy substance that one of the Thorian creepers had spewed all over him. He was lying on the floor propped up against the corpse of one of the creatures, he had killed earlier. His entire body armor was covered in dust, dirt and the disgusting green muck, that the zombi like figures seemed to be filled with, without showing signs of distinct organs or any other form of distinct internal anatomy.
All around him lay more corpses of grotesquely deformed creatures, their sickly grey flesh ripped apart by the shots of his team's weapons. Their exposed entrails and fluids covered the unsteady floor, causing Shepard to get back to his feet gingerly , so not to loose his footing on the traitorously slippery surface. He spat but it didn't do any good. Some of the green goo had found its way into his mouth. It tasted like battery acid and the traces of volatile chemicals burned away the sensitive tissue of his tongue and palate. He ignored the pain and assembled his team. It was important they used the short break in combat to rethink their strategy.
Shields had not been of any help here since the Thorian's thralls just came up close and delivered savage physical attacks, as well as their abominable payload of acidic vomit at speeds not high enough to trigger the kinetic barriers.
Up on the surface, there had been enough room to manoeuvre, so they could evade the creatures easily enough to take them down with coordinated assault rifle and pistol fire but down here in the bowls of the ancient prothean city, where the Thorian's main nerve clusters were located, the narrow corridors constrained their movement and the hordes of creepers overwhelmed the three man team with sheer numbers and ferocity. Alenko's biotic skills had been impressive and had saved them more than once but how long could the lieutenant keep this up? They had destroyed two of the neural nodes, that seemed to be important to the Thorian so far but they didn't know how many it would take to severely injure or even kill the giant plant. Neithr did they know how many of these thralls still stood in their way. Their only chance was to use the enemies strength against them.
"Everyone, switch to shotguns." Shepard ordered.
Garrus and Kaidan followed the order immediately but they looked skeptical.
"Commander, you do realise that neither of us is trained well in the use of these, right?" The turian said.
Shepard removed the Shotgun from the magnetic holder on the back of his suit as he replied: "Neither am I but we don't need precision here. What we need is force." He pressed a small button on the side of the weapon to make it unfold. "These … things will come close anyway. Let them, then just shoot them at point blank range. What kind of ammo mods do we have with us?"
Kaidan looked through the fist sized ammo blocks, that were strapped to his suit on his left thigh. "Two Tungsten, two Shredder and one Incendiary." He said after a moment.
Shepard nodded: "Ok, we'll use the shredders and incendiaries. Keep together and move slowly. Lock and load people."
A minute later, the three soldiers rounded a corner into the next chamber. A ray of dim light fell through a crack in the ceiling, illuminating a long rectangular hall. There was so much rubble strewn across the floor that it built a slight incline toward a hole in the back wall. Above the floor on the left wall hang a fleshy sack of brown skin, folding and wobbeling. It's regular pulses made it almost look like ti was breathing. One of the Thorians vulnerable nodes, Shepard knew. He took a small disk-shaped object from a pocket in his armour and gave a quick hand signal to his team mates. Kaidan and Garrus raised their weapons and each fired two shots at the node. They had stayed in the doorway of the room and from this range the shotgun rounds distributed, loosing their concentrated force. They mealy scraped the outer layer of the sack, causing no more than tiny rips where the skin folded. But they still achieved their purpose. The Thorian was mad. They heard a screeching roar from the depth below them and suddenly, the entire floor of the chamber seemed to move. Out of the rubble emerged one of the creepers, it's colourless skin only enhancing the illusion of a rising corpse. Then another followed right behind him and another. More creatures dug their way out of the debris until the room seemed to be filled with them. At least a dozen were visible when they started to move towards the three intruders, shuffling slowly at first, then picking up speed until they ran towards the doorway in a mad sprint.
Shepard pressed a button on the disk and hurled it towards the monsters. The small device flew into the room spinning, until it stopped a few meters in front of the doorway. The creatures, bent on stopping Shepard's team ignored it and went right past the little hovering object. When the disc was in the middle of the crowd it burst into a bright flash of light and released a cloud of invisible gas.
The grenade had knocked two of the creatures down in the explosion but the real damage was done by the gas. The concentrated pesticide, Shepard had received from Lisbeth and her Mother had a devastating effect on the Thorian's creatures. As they came in contact with it, their skin began to dry, crack and flake of their bodies. Some of them roared and screeched until their screams were drowned out by gurgles as their lungs dissolved on contact with the inhaled gas. They collapsed in spams and seizures, twisting their unnatural forms into even more bizarre angles and Shepard was sure he heard a crack when the spine of one of the creepers snapped as its back bent beyond the breaking point.
When the gruesome spectacle was over, more than half of the attacking creepers lay on the ground dead but the rest of them were still charging. They were no more than 6 meters from the doorway. Garrus and Kaidan were raising their weapons.
"Wait!" Shepard shouted. They were not trained to calibrate the unfamiliar shotguns precisely to deliver more concentrated fire at mid range and without perfectly set heat sinks, they might not get more than one or two concecutve shots out of their weapons before overheating them. They needed for the monsters to get as close as possible for the shotguns to have the maximum effect.
Four meters.
"Wait." Shepard repeated.
Two meters.
"Fire!"
All three team members squeezed their triggers. Garrus and Kaidan were using the shredder ammo. The tiny projectiles burst into into a fine dust on impact but the incredible speed at which it was propelled transformed that dust cloud into the equivalent of a fist sized bullet inside the creepers bodies. Each shot delivered 6 of those pallets and the combined force tore the creatures apart, even as they were knocked back by the initial entry. Bits of flesh, bone and fluid sprayed through the air as the horrid figures disintegrated into nothing more than tattered pieces. Shepard's incendiary round was even more grisly in its effect. Each round consisted of a thermite paste that would ignite in the heat of friction as the projectile entered the target's body. For any organic species this would mean horrible internal burns but in this case some of the chemicals within the Thorian creepers caught on fire and the creature burned from the inside out, flames bursting from its eyes and out of it's mouth as it opened it for a final screeching howl before the body collapsed into a smouldering pile on the floor.
Shepard had no time to dwell on the carnage they had just wrought as yet another creeper leaped towards him. He squeezed the trigger again but instead of the deep boom that accompanied the firing of the weapon he merely heard a faint warning sound. His weapon had overheated..
Kaidan came to his rescue yet again, thrusting his hand upwards and sending the attacking thrall floating into the air. Garrus aimed his shotgun high and fired. To Shepard, it looked like the creature exploded in mid air right above him, showering him and Kaidan in a sicky gory-green mush.
In the few seconds that their defence had taken, the last of the creepers had gotten too close though. Before Garrus could spin around, back towards the chamber again, the creature was on him, slamming the shotgun out of his hand and grabbing the turian by his throat.
Kaidan whiped his gun around but there was no way of shooting the the creeper now without risking to hit Garrus as well. Shhepard pushed Kaidan aside and jumped at the creatures from behind. Startled, it let go of the turian's neck and they all tumbled to the ground, rolling. Shepard had dust in his eyes, his visor was smeared with gunk, so he could barely see but he felt the creepers claws grabbing at him now. One found its way under his visor and tore at his cheek, ripping skin from flesh. He screamed. The sudden pain and the burst of adrenaline that came with it made him realise that he still held onto his shotgun by the barrel. Blindly, he slammed it forward. The butt of the weapon hit the creeper directly in the face. It fell back onto the ground. Shepard raised the weapon up in both hands and thrust it downward with full force. Once, twice, three times he beat the weapon down on the creeper's skull. As he hauled the improvised club up for another savage blow Kaidan grabbed his arm. "I think it's dead commander."
When Shepard ran the back of his gloved hand over his visor to clear off the worst of the muck, he saw that his wild attack had reduced the head of the creature to a brown pulp on the floor.
Breathing heavily, he got to his feet. The entire team was in a dismal state. Covered in gore, caked in dirt, they stood in the underground chamber. Their eye stung from the residue of the nerve gas they had released. Garrus had bruises on his neck and head. Shepard had a bleeding gash on his cheek, where the creeper's claw had hit him but they were alive and there were no more monsters in sight
The commander walked over to the enormous bulging sack, that was part of the giant plant surrounding them. The initial shots at it had left small seeping wounds in the outer skin. Shepard put the muzzle of the shotgun into one of them than rammed the weapon forward until half the barrel was plunged into the fleshy mass. When he pulled the trigger the incendiary rounds immediately caught fire. A wave of heat and flames burst out the top of the grotesque bulbous form.
Below them, in the depth of old prothean structure, they heard a deep rumble as the Thorian screamed.
Retour en haut
(except Vanguard, charging on Banshees is fun 
Btw, sniper rifles knock creepers down too... I wonder what Garrus thought about it 
