this is the way the world ends {open!}

[candace chandler]

Candace was probably only on the raiding party because someone back at the base was hoping she'd get killed, but at least she could see the sky again.

They saw the shuttle crash on the one working comm channel, out past the foggy, Husk-haunted quarantine, where nothing, alive, dead, or undead, ever moved. It had been a military ambulance evac shuttle, no doubt making an escape attempt laden with civilians, medi-gel, weapons, and amps. It had gone down in a blaze of fire, brought down by the beam of a Reaper that hadn't even bothered to turn in its direction, just fired and knocked its starboard thruster clean off.

The chief medical officer was hoping there'd be survivors, but Candace thought that if there had been any after the shuttle went down, there wouldn't be any more. She was just hoping to get her hands on a new amp. Maybe there would be an undamaged Savant or something equally nice, something that would let her show how good she could really be.

The little party moved stealthily through the evening streets, darting from shadow to shadow and peering out at every corner. Untrained biotics, shuttle technicians, civilians bearing pistols for the first time in their lives: these weren't soldiers. Candace kept close to the little group, wishing she had more than a flimsy holoshield, wishing she were strong enough to keep up a barrier for any amount of time. Chief hadn't given her a pistol; he wouldn't give them to anyone under sixteen. Candace had watched her comrades field-strip their weapons hundreds of times and was sure it couldn't be that hard.

And she desperately wanted for a weapon. These streets were quiet in a way that even the quarantine wasn't. There, you could hear the faintest hiss of distant machinery like breathing; there, air stirred gently across the skin. But out here, past the quarantine at the edge of the outskirts, was like walking on the bottom of the ocean. Completely silent, completely still.

In the distance, the shadows of Reapers swayed against the horizon, far enough away that the sounds of their devastation did not permeate the gloom. On a crumbling wall that the little party ducked around, someone had scrawled in yellow paint:

this is the way the world ends
this is the way the world ends
this is the way the world ends--
not with a bang but a whimper.

Candace hunched her shoulders up despite herself as they passed under the graffiti. It shone through the dim fog as she passed, and she found herself giving it a wide berth, staring up at it in agonizing anxiety.

Perhaps if she had been watching where she was going, she would not have tripped off the curb and kicked the abandoned spraycan still lying in the gutter.

Candace stifled a shriek and windmilled her arms, stumbling backwards onto the sidewalk again, but the damage was done. The half-empty paint canister went spinning out into the street with a noise that, in this oppressive silence, was as loud and clear as a gunshot.

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[Spike Alexander Shadows]

Spike looked around the area with his assault rifle attached to his back. This place had freaked him out as just moments ago a Reaper had attacked the area and the smell of burnt corpses and death filled the area. He did not have a squadron with him as he walked slowly through the area looking at multiple corpses, some human and the rest was something else and as he got closer he could see this was a husk. The area was distressing for him to look at as he hunted for survivors.

Spike stood there and felt the wind against his face, his armour prevented any other feeling of coldness. He kept flexing his hands which had bruising and burns, apparently the gloves don't do much. He was glad he had his N7 armour on at least so he looked respectable. He did wonder where all the soldiers were and the fact he escaped HQ with no assistance whilst a Reaper decided to beam the building. It had been several days since he last slept but this was like N7 training where staying awake was essential, he had to stay awake as he was alone and couldn't defend himself against an attack if one was to occur. He looked around and began to walk a bit further and analysing graffiti and smashed windows.

Whilst walking further and deeper into hell he saw some untrained, normal civilians. He knew they would die out there if someone with skills didn't intervene he approached them and whispered in a hushed voice, "Go and hide, I will come back to you. See that building over there?" He pointed towards it, it looked fairly stable compared to the rest of the area, "Head over there and hide. I am looking for more survivors." He continued to scan the area and saw the Reapers in the horizon which worried him slightly as he knew their destructive force and he did not want to have to fight one in a one on one combat.

Spike determined to carry on and heard a massive clash, quickly he sprinted over to where he thought he heard the sound. Spike was quite fit due to being a man in the Alliance so ran most of the way, trying to not step on anything which would cause him to injure himself. As he reached the sound he turned and saw a single husk running towards a woman on the floor, so that is where the bloody noise is coming from! he thought to himself as he charged into the husk and punched it several times in the face, "Miss we have to get out of here. That noise has the potential to bring far more then one husk over here! What the hell did you think you were doing?" He knew he could of sounded rude but he was more worried about the people he left in a building with little protection.

[Kiria Winters]

Kiria's eyes scanned the street below her cautiously, the eerie quiet unnerving her and making her more jittery than she should have been. Every step she took stretched the gashes crossing her back and arms, reopening the scabs; blood trickled out of them slowly, causing her dirty clothes to stick to her. The run in with the horde of husks had left her tired, dizzy and irate.

When she first saw the small group of people walking through the streets, her eyes widened ridiculously. She shook her head a little, blinking hard, trying to clear it. There hadn't been any sign of other people- living people- since she had watched a brute catch up with her crew. She frowned at the thought before remembering the problem at hand and rushed to follow the group from the rooftops, making as little noise as possible.

The group seemed unorganized, probably just civilians, and carried only low-grade weapons. There was even a young girl in the group holding nothing but a holoshield. Kiria's frown deepened as she watched the girl, wondering why the hell they sent her along with what looked like a ramshackle scouting party.

Suddenly, the girl fell, somehow managing to make an insane amount of clattering. The sound echoed resoundingly through the street.

Kiria cursed, then flung herself at the nearest edge of the building, taking only a moment to make sure there even was a fire escape before bounding down it, as quietly as she could while still rushing. She reached the girl moments later than a man did, not one she had seen in the party earlier. He gave the girl a rushed lecture after punching out a husk and her eyes narrowed at him.

" She tripped and I'm pretty damn certain she knows how bad this could get." Kiria turned her face to the girl, her attention and eyes focused on the street, looking for any movement. She opened her mouth to say something, then settled on just shaking her head.

[candace chandler]

Candace sat on the ground, elbows stinging, and stared blankly up at the two people who had appeared out of bloody nowhere. The corpse-- well, the remains, anyways-- of the husk lay smoldering on the ground a few feet away and had that guy seriously punched it to death? Bad. Ass.

And then he had to go and ruin it by scolding her, the nerve of him! How old did he think she was, thirteen? And the dark woman, too, who had at least defended her even though Candace Chandler could fight her own battles thankyouverymuch.

Candace stood up, electing to spare the woman her wrath for the moment. Instead she turned to the man, who was sporting scratched and dented, though extraordinarily high quality (how much could she get for that, she wondered, on the black market?), armor. He also bore a military-grade assault rifle of the sort that she'd only dreamed of finding in the shuttle wreck, but since it wasn't actively pointing at her, she chose to berate him all the same.

She balled her hands into fists, shrouding herself in purple-blue energy: nothing more than raising her hackles, really, but it wasn't like he was a biotic or anything, right? He wouldn't be able to tell.

"Listen, you," she said, stretching up on tiptoes to look into his face, "I don't know who you are, but I can take care of myself, and I'm here trying to help people! There's a shuttle down there that could have supplies and we're gonna save everyone inside before they get all zombified, so you can just keep on punching husks and let us do what we came here to do, all right?"

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[Spike Alexander Shadows]

Spike looked at both women and wasn't surprised he was still single, he preferred it as they always ganged up against him. He rolled his eyes and then noticed that one woman was eyeing up his assault rifle and his armour, great a scavenger he thought to himself. He listened to both of the womens lectures and replied, "I don't know your skills in combat or if you could even take on any of these creatures. I am Alliance Military, N7 branch, we trained for these sort of missions. You have to also check where you walk before you disrupt an enemy or it is game over." He did give lectures to those who were not as intelligent, in his opinion as him or as well trained.

Spike then turned to the other woman, "I am Commander Spike Shadows. I was in the Alliance HQ before the attack and saw what had happened. I have moved a group of people inside a building as I did not know how safe this area is and wanted to scout it. We need to get out of here and make sure these people survive, is anyone a biotic? And do you have a weapon?" It was a sensible question in his opinion, after all he was a biotic and only used his gun on rare occasions as he would rather charge and hit an enemy then have his fingers hurt even more when holding down a trigger. His weapon was also there in case something happened to his biotics.

Spike wondered who would fight for the group leader position when going around the area, he thought it should be him as he was the most qualified and was in the Military which good armour and a gun. He was also the highest rank compared to the two civilians in front of him however they were women and therefore would gang up on him. An idea came to his head, "We need to find an shuttle to bring the mass amount of people over. We cannot save everyone as the longer we hang around the more dangerous it will get and we need to get as far away as possible from the city however this means picking and choosing those who can come with us. This is a war, there will be sacrifices."

War, always a strange concept to him. He would try saving any human he could but it was about survival now and fighting against the Reaper creatures. He knew that once they had got the civilians they would have to be trained and it was not easy finding old Alliance training grounds on Earth anymore.

[Kiria Winters]

Kiria whirled to face the girl fully at her outburst, utterly shocked. Without paying any attention to the showy glow of biotics, she reached her arm out, grabbed the girl by the elbow, and moved to swing her away from the man. But when he started talking again she stopped, and dropped the girl's elbow.

"I spent a few years in Omega, we're trained to survive. I dropped a freakish amount of husks about an hour ago- I'm a vanguard and I had a shotgun," she grit her teeth together, angry at herself, "I dropped it getting away. But, I can handle almost whatever we pick up; I'm, uh, experienced."

Her eyes scanned around them again, this time landing on the horizon that was littered with giant metal creatures. Even the slight twisting of her head yanked at the scabs and she grimaced a bit before turning back to him. The assault rifle he held at his hip drew her attention and she wondered if she should stick with this group- even if for just long enough to take it.

"No thanks though, don't wanna go through the city edges, that's where I'm coming from... they're knocking down any shuttles trying to fly out. If you wanna leave, you do it by yourself. And I kind of doubt anyone'd want to follow you with your sacrificial state of mind, Mr. N7. Either way though, we need to move right the hell now."

[candace chandler]

Candace never admitted debt to anyone, ever, but she found herself blessing the other woman every way she knew how. This spiky-haired buffoon was so full of himself just because he had a gun. Did he even know what was out here?

"She's right," Candace said to the soldier. "Shuttles are the absolute worst idea. These people are out here because one got knocked down! And that group of people you said you saw? I'd bet my shield generator they're already Indoctrinated. Anyone stays out past the quarantine zone longer than a day or two at a time starts to feel it." She paused, gave him her best smirk (which, granted, wasn't great, but she was working on it.) "And I don't care what you think, Soldierboy, but I am sure as hell not abandoning my city. Someone needs to fight if you're too coward to do so."

She turned to the other woman, gave her a wide smile. "You, I like, so you can come with." With that, she turned and began heading back down the street in the direction of her companions, who had been watching the show with wary interest, either too afraid or too intelligent to join the conversation.

"By the way," Candace added over her shoulder as she left, not waiting to see if either one of them followed, "you start to feel dizzy, or get headaches, or hear voices, we're shooting you between the eyes. Sorry about that."

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[Kiria Winters]

Kiria's longer strides caught her up with the small girl quickly, not bothering to rush. Unsure if she should bother sticking with this group, the brunette began a stream of questions.

"Where exactly are you all from? How do you know about this shuttle?" For a moment she considered asking why the girl was even with the group in the first place, then thought better of it; especially considering her earlier rant at the N7 soldier, "You want me to go with you? You don't even know me."

Sensing that she was rambling, Kiria cut herself off, choosing instead to examine the group more closely while waiting for her answers. As she had seen from above, they didn't have very high quality weapons, and most looked uncomfortable holding them. She quickly mapped out the myriad of alterations she could make them if they'd let her, again glancing desperately at the soldier's assault rifle. After spending so many years constantly holding a gun, she felt absurdly naked without one. If only she could get to the warehouse that had been her crew's current base of operations without getting slaughtered in the Reaper's territory. Maybe she could somehow guilt the soldier into going with her; she doubted this tiny group would hold very well.

On the other hand, the girl was obviously some sort of biotic and confident, even if it was probably without much backing. And they had to have gotten their shitty weapons from somewhere. Kiria grudgingly decided that for the moment, at least, she'd see where this was going.

[Isaac Maxwell]

The shuttle that had crashed earlier held Isaac Maxwell inside, an alliance navy officer whom now was injured once again from the crash landing. The shuttle came down hard and Isaac believed that he might be cursed; however he tried not to think about it as he needed to get out of here and make his way to London. Isaac had flown the shuttle from the Sahara Desert and it was a shame that it started to break down just before arriving in London; he was glad that it didn’t get shot down though. Isaac laughed at that very thought, but stopped after few second after his stomach began hurting.

Isaac hoped that his shuttle hadn’t been seen by the reapers; he wouldn’t like that to happen. Pushing the thoughts from his mind Isaac managed to stand and walk a little bit before crashing back down. Isaac sound realized that he was most likely wounded; which would make sense and sure enough as he looked down a steel pipe had seared through his leg making it very difficult for Isaac to walk. “Great! Just great.” Isaac mumbled to himself as he didn’t know what to do here; he wasn’t sure where London was from where he crashed and he hoped that when he did find the city they would have another transport that would at least take him to his ship.

Little did Isaac know however; his ship the Okinawa was destroyed three days ago by a reaper. Everyone on the ship including Captain Chang; the commanding officer was killed. Isaac tried getting up again; however putting pressure on his leg was something that he shouldn’t be doing since it hurt like hell. Think! Isaac thought to himself. Isaac rolled onto his back and rested there for a moment; someone was bound to see his shuttle crashing down well he hopped. Isaac remained laying on his back drifting in and out of sleep; he didn’t want to pass out here but if he didn’t have medical treatment soon he wouldn’t make it.

[ANTHONY KENNEDY]

Engineer Anthony Kennedy tried his hardest to keep the small group of survivors safe but in the end he failed. Focusing too much of the end goal that he missed seeing a group of husks flanking them from behind. In little to no time at the all the husks had ripped the group of civilians apart with him barely being able to escape. Huddling against some fallen debris as he noticed that he lost his pistol in the fight to escape. Just great the engineer thought as he knew that one false move might as well finish him off without having no weapon to defend himself.

Anthony reached his omni-tool arm out of cover and summon an combat drone to the battlefield to keep the reaper forces at a safe distance. The longer that he stayed there though he was a sitting target which meant he had to move soon. Checking out the battlefield awfully quick to see the drone doing the work that it was created for before he bolted out of cover. The soldier had to idea where the hell he was going but as long as it was safer than his current location. His barriers was blocking most of the attempted shots but one somehow made his way through.

Grazing his upper left shoulder as he tripped over some debris and crashed face first down on the ground. Anthony cursed these lifeless creatures under this breath as he scrabbled to his feet and dived into the closest cover he could find. Reaching up he activated his in-suit communicator and blurred out a mayday message.

"This is Engineer Anthony Kennedy requesting extraction and backup if possible. I repeat this is Anthony Kennedy needing extraction or backup. Is anybody there?" the engineer managed to get off the message.

[Spike Alexander Shadows]

Spike looked around as the two women spoke, he did not have the opportunity to reply as he was thinking, thinking of tactics and the risks to each plan running through his mind. Like a data base running through every scenario and saying yes and no to himself quietly as he gazed into the distance. They had more chance of surviving if they stuck together, however he felt uncomfortable as someone was eyeing up his trusted assault rifle and felt angry about the coward comment earlier, he was not a coward but they were going to get killed by the machine creatures if they did not back down. He moved opposite the woman who called him a coward and snapped, "Are you really that stupid? If I was so much of a coward I would of left already. We cannot go back to the city with those creatures there! I seen what they do first hand, I was in Alliance HQ. So back down!" He ordered.

Spike heard a voice in his earpiece all of a sudden, a distress call and he turned to the two women, "As much as you would love to be suicidal and run back to the city someone needs help! Now you can either run off and play vanguard or stick with me, someone who is Military trained and has had a lot more vanguard training then you which means a higher chance of survival." He sighed as he stared at the women in front of him, he hated women and the ganging up with each other, "Either way I am going to find this person and help him! We have a better chance sticking together, then we find a new plan! Like getting these other victims out of here! This city is destroyed, it is time we moved on as well."

Turning away he placed his hand by his earpiece and spoke in a gentle voice, one that was unseen to many. The voice still had an urgency to it, desperation, "Engineer Kennedy, this is Commander Shadows from Alliance HQ. What is your position?" He knew he had so sound professional, especially in front of the idiots either way he was going to head forward and save this man and any other victims en-route, today was not the day to fight, it was about survival and that was the only thing that mattered to him.

[candace chandler]

Crap.
Candace groaned and gritted her teeth as she heard the faint squawking sound coming from Soldierboy's earpiece. A downed civilian, and an engineer at that-- they were in desperate need of techies, and while Candace wasn't useless with an omni-tool, she was hardly an experienced engineer.

But at the same time, how many people had been in the shuttle that went down? How many of them were civilians who had no training, not even an omni-tool that could take down enemy shields?

She glanced back hastily at the little team of rebels, some of whom were talking quietly to the vanguard woman in a friendly, relieved way. Candace could sense that the woman was powerful, humming with energy in a way that only the really combat-oriented biotics did. Her shirt was bloodstained and she moved stiffly; those were husk scratches if Candace knew anything about it (which she didn't really, but she'd watched the doctor patch up enough zombie bites by now to recognize, at the very least, the types of wounds the different Reaper creatures made).

Well, she'd have to cooperate with one or the other of them if they wanted to save everyone. They made ten, now: her, Soldierboy, the vanguard woman, and her seven companions, of which only one had any sort of powers. But they all had pistols and Candace had her amp, and she knew these streets like the back of her bruised and battered hands.

"Okay," she said suddenly, deciding that if one of her older brethren wasn't going to lead anybody it was damn well gonna have to be her. "First thing, Soldierboy: the center of the city is the safest place. You obviously don't know London real well, but the Reapers are working inwards. You're right in that we're in terrible danger-- this is one of the most dangerous parts of the city." She paused, lowered her voice, realizing how loud they'd been. It was a miracle that their shadowy, foggy corner hadn't been discovered yet. "In fact if we stick around much longer husks are gonna be the least of our worries. There's big nasty dragon things that spit fire that fly around here, and I don't think even Soldierboy could deal with one of those on his own."

She looked between the two newcomers. "We've got two problems now. Your engineer, and our shuttle. Someone's gotta salvage the shuttle before any survivors get turned into zombies or slaves and it's already been down six hours. I'm going there because I have medigel and can get into tight spaces. Someone's gotta go and get that engineer before he gets eaten, so why don't we split up, five and five?"

She stood with her hands on her hips, feeling extraordinarily pleased with herself for managing to be so professional.
"Vanguard Lady and Soldierboy will each take five people with them, the five including me, and it's up to you to decide which way you want to go. How does that sound?"

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[Kiria Winters]

Kiria paused, surprised at the blonde's cutting way of taking control. The stopping and starting of action was making her antsy again and she was glad that the girl seemed determined to get them moving. The longer they stayed in the small area, the more nervous she got and the more nervous she got- well, she could feel her biotics buzzing underneath her skin in preparation for a fight. She wondered if the other biotics could feel them too and tried to calm herself down by focusing on a reply for the girl.

"Since N7 obviously thinks he can handle himself, I'll go with you to the shuttle crash; don't really feel like risking my life for some engineer and I really do need to get my hands on more supplies," She hefted her tattered backpack around in front of her, opening it up and digging through, "I've got a ton of heat clips I've been grabbing, don't have much use for them at the moment without my own gun. I'm fine with trading them to ya in exchange for some of whatever might be in that shuttle, or some room staying wherever you came from. It's definitely gonna be easier to get through this with a group. But, the girl's right. There's shit out there worse than the husks. Ridiculous, big- bigger than Krogan- claw-monster things that I really don't wanna run into again, ever. My name's Kiria, by the way."

A desperate hope that she wasn't talking too much(still) shot through her head as she spoke; she had gotten far more used to dealing with guns than people that she wasn't already close friends with(was friends the right word for 'group-of-fellow-criminals'?). The crew she traveled with only really hired her because of her skill at identifying weapons and the wonders she could work with their stolen and sometimes sketchy arms. Of course, this was after they saw her blast a potential mugger five yards away, so she guessed that was part of it too. Actual deals, arranging and executing them without getting caught in the process took far more planning and charm than she had the patience for. She tended to hang in the back, only having a major part in the trades by fighting when things got nasty- which they did often enough to keep her on her toes. Her team had been good to her though, keeping her out of actual trouble and teaching(or at least trying to teach) her the tricks to the trade. She wished-

Sensing how quickly the train of thought would upset her, Kiria forced herself to stop, running over the schematics of newer guns in her head. Once she had covered her favorites(and hopefully pushed aside the upsetting gravity of the last few days' events), she turned to the others in the group, and gave them quick greetings, trying to get everyone's name, even though she knew she wouldn't remember them in twenty minutes.