//------------------------------// // ...Shadowbroker // Story: Mass Effect: Element of Kindness // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// Chapter 119 ...Shadowbroker The interior hallways of the Shadowbrokers ship were a mess. They snaked around, giving cover at every intersection and crossing hallways to the defending units as the squad spearheaded by Grunt’s merciless charges moved ahead. Had Liara not managed to pull the internal schematics they’d probably have walked around the hallways until they were cornered and taken out. “We should be closing in on the prison block. If this is right my friend should be there,” Liara called out as they pushed through hallways. “What’s this friend’s importance to you, Liara? I don’t remember you telling us your relationship with him?” Shepard asked as he shot a couple bursts of fire around a corner. “He helped me retrieve your body for Cerberus,” Liara simply stated between two attacks before elaborating further. “He was acting as a double agent for the Shadow Broker but in the end, he broke his loyalty with him and helped me out instead. I owe him.” “Sounds like I owe him some thanks as well,” Shepard called back as they pushed up to the door where the prison was supposedly located, starting a hack on the door and opening it soon after. “Feron!” Liara exclaimed, sprinting over to a control panel as she saw a drell strapped into a chair with all sorts of equipment around him. “Liara?” he responded with a raspy voice, looking up at the overhang above. “Hold on, we’re getting you out of there!” Liara said as she started typing in commands, looking for ways to open the restraints on the chair. “Wait, no...” The chair suddenly lit up, sending streaks of electricity through Feron’s body as he let out an agonizing scream. Rainbow winced as she could imagine the pain he was feeling at that moment. “D-Don’t, this chair plugs into the ships, power network. If you pull me out now I’ll die.” “Damnit, this looked way too easy. How do we get you out of there?” Shepard leaned on the railing, looking down at the drell. “You have to cut off the power to prevent my brain from being fried... The only place you can do that is central control. You know the Shadow Broker will be waiting for you, right?” “We’re counting on it,” Grunt chuckled cocking his shotgun. Ignoring the krogan, Shepard continued his quick interrogation. “Where is it located?” Feron motioned further up the hallway. “Down the hall at the end.” “We’ll be back for you, Feron,” Liara said, looking at Shepard who gave her a nod. The team leaving Feron alone and heading down the hallway. Only a handful of the Broker’s guards stood in their way as the group made their way to the Broker’s main office.  The room they entered was large as a single hulking figure, much bigger than even a krogan, sat at the desk with holograms all around him. His head had a sharp teethed mouth that was in the shape of a three-armed cross while many eyes glistened in the darkness he was shrouded in and two horns jutted from his head. The squad carefully spread out to not make themselves not too easy of a target. The shadow broker closed all of the holograms around him and focused his attention fully on the group entering his workspace. “Here for the drell?” The Shadow Broker’s voice was a low rumble and sounded digitally distorted as he folded his hands in front of him. “Reckless. Even for you, Commander.” “Just determination. Ask that to the Specter Liara disabled,” Shepard growled back. “Unfortunate. The only thing her capture costed me was time,” The broker responded coldly. “Expendable like Feron?” Liara snarled back at him, her finger squeezing the trigger of her SMG a little harder. “Feron betrayed me when he handed you Shepard’s body. He’s just paying the price. Had you not interfered in the first place he wouldn’t be there.”  “Trying to get my body to the collectors would eventually have gotten people to go after you,” Shepard pointed out with a huff. “It was a mutually beneficial partnership. Your arrival is convenient, the collectors’ offer still stands,” The broker plainly informed the commander. “Enough talk, my operations are too crucial to be compromised by a traitor.”  “You seem very confident for someone who’s got nowhere left to hide,” Jack spoke up with brightly lit biotic fields around her hands. “You have fascinating companions, T’Soni. Subject zero, Okeer’s experiment, one of the stranded ponies. Their bodies will net as much, if not more, than Shepard’s.” “You’re not putting a hand on anyone!” Liara said, barely holding back her rage. “It’s pointless to challenge me asari, I know your every secret while you fumble in the dark.”  “Is that right?” Liara smirked, “You’re a yahg, a pre-spaceflight species quarantined to their homeworld for massacring the Council’s first contact teams. This base is older than your planet’s discovery, which probably means you killed the original Shadow Broker sixty years ago and took over… I’m guessing you were taken from your world as a slave… or even a pet.” The broker quietly sat behind his desk as Liara laid her theory out in a taunting tone. “How am I doing?”  The broker slowly stood up to reveal his full heigh before smashing his fist into his desk, destroying it and tossing the pieces toward Shepard and the group. Dash, even though still pretty banged up, jumped out of the way, Grunt managed to only get glanced and knocked to the ground but Jack wasn’t so lucky. The human biotic was flung back and smashed against the back wall of the office and fell unconscious. None of the other four squad members hesitated for a second, all opening up with everything at their disposal, shooting and tossing everything they had at the massive, berserk, alien. Only the moment they managed to punch through the shield and armor the Broker crouched down and pulled power from the ship itself to reform a shield around him. “The shield is kinetically sensitive! High-velocity rounds and energy are bouncing off!” Liara exclaimed as all of the fire suddenly stopped being effective. “Then we’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way!” Shepard exclaimed as he rushed in, punching the Broker in the face and staggering him. Liara also ran in and got in a couple shots before the broker activated a modular shield with his omni-tool and backhanded the two with it. The only reason he couldn’t capitalize on Shepard and Liara’s disorientation was because Rainbow and Grunt’s fire was effective again with the lack of specialized shield. The broker, now with his omni-shield, returned fire again as his four opponents darted around the room and peppered him from all directions. After a couple of close calls where the Broker lost his regular shield again, forcing him to pull power from the ship for the specialized one for a second time. This time Grunt wasted no time in charging forward, using his shotgun like a baseball bat he smashed it into the Broker, getting into a pushing match with him before being tossed away by another backhand from the omni-shield. “Get him to bring up that shield again!” Liara called out, “I have a plan!” Rainbow followed the asari’s gaze up to the roof where a large capacitor was located, presumably where the broker pulled the energy from. “Got it!” Shepard exclaimed, he too understood Liara’s plan and opened fire again to complete the task of downing the Broker’s shield a third time. As the Broker crouched down for the third time the Commander charged for him, letting the Broker come at him in a counter charge, rolling under his swing at the last moment to perfectly align him under the capacitor. Liara immediately took this opportunity to break the capacitor with her biotics, cracks forming in it which immediately let raw power leak out. The broker wasn’t going to just lay down and die though, jumping to the side and out of the blast range... What he didn’t see coming was the little black armored pegasus that slammed into him and joined him in the massive surge of power. Not after what you’ve done, bastard! Rainbow’s mind went blank immediately after from agony as the beam of electrically charged energy slammed down on the Broker and, by extension, her. Fur burned and the underlying skin blistered, melting away in the brief fraction of a second she was in the blast before being flung out.  She could hear the faint calling of her name before falling into unconsciousness.