InsaneJournal

Who: Shepard, Xena, Garrus, Callisto and NPC!Cassandra
What: Operation getting Callisto's sister somewhere safe does not go according to plan.
When: Recently
Where: Around Orange County
Warnings: Violence



Everything had been planned out and arranged carefully. Yet even with all the careful planning, Callisto was a complete ball of anxiety. What if something went wrong? What if everything went according to plan? What would she do in regards to talking to her sister then?

Callisto was still mostly against talking to her sister. She felt it was better that Cassandra continue to believe that Callisto was dead instead of her knowing what kind of monster Callisto had turned into. And she was a monster, Hydra had made her into an even bigger one than she had been. But she would use those powers against them if they even tried to get close to her sister while they were getting ready to move her somewhere safe.

But Callisto couldn’t sit still. She was down the block from the place where her sister lived, and she was pacing back and forth, rubbing her hands together. This was too much stress, too much anxiety for her.

“When are we moving in?” By ‘we’ Callisto mostly meant the people in charge of actually moving her sister.

Shepard’s backup plan consisted of a pretimed message to be sent to Garrus in the event she didn’t cancel it in time. He wanted to help, and had made her promise to bring him into the loop, but he had a family, and was going to have twins. She couldn’t risk it unless she absolutely had to.

But she didn’t think they’d run into any problems. “Just as soon as Xena makes contact.”

She’d figured that would go over better than the first contact being a woman with facial scars. She got out of the car. “Which should be any minute now.”

Personally speaking, Callisto found Jane’s facial scars to be sexy, but she wasn’t a typical person either. Callisto kept pacing, looking down the street towards the house. She wasn’t going to risk getting too close.

“I swear if any of those fuckers show themselves here, I’ll tear them apart with my bare hands,” she vowed, waiting for Xena to make contact.

“Try not to leave any evidence.” Jane wasn’t one to talk, she tended to be more brute force.

Over the radio came Xena’s voice. “All right, I’m going in. Seems clear so far. I’ve been talking to her for weeks, she’ll trust me.”

“The only evidence will be the scorch marks on the ground.” Because of course Callisto would burn them all as well. At hearing Xena, she gave a little nod. “Alright, good. I don’t see anything out here yet.”

Xena nodded, mostly to herself, and got out of the car she’d rented. Callisto’s sister was waiting for her in a little cafe, and from what she could tell there was nothing to worry about. The cafe and surrounding area seemed clear of any potential problems, but she was still paranoid. Hopefully Shepard would be moving into position as well.

She sat down across from Cassandra and gave her an easy grin. “Hey kid. Nice to finally meet you in person.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Xena,” Cassandra greeted with a smile of her own. The resemblance to Callisto was perhaps striking, though it was obvious that Cassandra had gone through reconstructive surgery. Still, the resemblance was easy to see.

Callisto, meanwhile, got herself into position, keeping her eyes open. She wasn’t going to let anything go wrong if she could help it. Her sister was going to get out of here and get as far away from Hydra as possible.

If Xena had doubts about the lineage, even with the DNA test, they were set to rest. She was definitely her sister’s sister. “As lovely in person as you are on skype.” She winked at her, leaning back in her seat and smiling easily.

“I know this whole thing sounds crazy, but … with you being a witness, we’re interested in your safety.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely kind of crazy. Are you sure about this, though? It’s kind of a big change.” Cassandra was nervous. Understandably considering the situation. Leaving was no small feat.

Meanwhile, Callisto was watching the area. She thought she spotted someone potentially suspicious, though they weren’t close to the meeting place. And they seemed to be alone. “Jane, do you see that person to your eleven? Looks like they’re watching something.”

“It’s a huge change,” Xena agreed. “But think of it like an opportunity. It’s a good position. Might be a little hard adjusting to a new name, but good job, nice apartment. I can even get you a kitten.”

“I see ‘em,” Jane responded, adjusting her path to intercept. Her eyes narrowed, and she ducked into a shop. “I’m seeing two more, North and East. Callisto, stay hidden. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“The new name kinda gets me,” she confessed. This was all entirely frightening to her, but she also wanted to be safe. And this seemed to be the only way to remain safe.

“If they are who I think they are, they’re not getting my sister,” Callisto vowed. She kept scanning the area, and was seeing more guys now that she knew what she was looking for. Alright, better alert Xena. “Xena, we might have a problem out here. I think Hydra’s here.” Callisto alerted her over the radio.

“We might have to switch to plan B,” Shepard murmured. She stroked a switch on her cane, priming the omni-tool Garrus had built into it. Just in case.

Of course Plan B also involved basically kidnapping Cassandra and having her live in the OC, but Callisto didn’t need to know that part yet.

Xena acknowledged by tapping her leg under the table, and leaning in. “There might be some other ways, but for now, this is the best way.”

Callisto was oblivious to what Plan B entailed. She was just focused on ensuring her sister got out of here safely. And if Callisto got to kill more Hydra assholes in the process? All the better for her.

For the moment, Callisto kept out of sight, but she moved around to get into a better flanking position. Though considering she was a warrior, sneaking wasn’t her best skill.

Cassandra nodded a bit, taking a deep breath. “Alright, if you’re certain about that. I’ll do it.”

“Great! We can send someone to pick up a few of your things, if there’s a list or anything specific you want. In the meantime, lets get you out of here.” Xena got up, glancing around. “I’m starting to think the sooner, the better.”

A gunshot went off, and she dodged the bullet, jumping over the table and grabbing Cassandra with one strong arm.

Almost a second later, Shepard was on the move, her cane swinging down onto a Hydra agent’s back and sending him sprawling. “Execute plan Beta! Get the package to extraction! Callisto, smash quietly.”

Plan Gamma was running through the back of her head as well, but she didn’t see any of those weird shadow soldiers, so she wasn’t ready to call Garrus in for the up close and personal yet. Still, she switched to the channel he was monitoring. “Things are starting to go sideways. If you want to give us some covering fire, it would be greatly appreciated.”

“Copy that,” echoed Garrus from the other end of the comm-device - his being the infamous visor, carved with the names of his old crew on Omega. He was armored (helmet too, mostly to hide the turian looks until he needed to scare someone), armed, and stationed up on a neighboring building with his rifle scopes closing in on the targets.

Accuracy mattered. Soon, rounds of incendiary bullets rained down on several agents.

Cassandra flinched at the gunshot that rang out. When Xena grabbed her arm, she looked at her with wide, frightened eyes. “Okay, yes, okay,” she said more than ready to comply with whatever Xena wanted. She wouldn’t fight her, not when there were guns involved.

Callisto, on the other hand, was doing her end around when she suddenly got cracked on the back of the head with something hard. It wasn’t enough to knock her out, but it made her fall to her knees.

“Here you are, we’ve been looking for you.” A man said as he knelt down. He didn’t have much time before Callisto recovered herself and tried to kill them, so he made short work of saying the phrases that would active Callisto’s shadow soldier mentality. And without further ado, Callisto looked up at him, brown eyes going red, but she didn’t attack him or the other men that had surrounded her, ready to take her down if this hadn’t worked.

But like the good little brainwashed soldier she was, Callisto got to her feet and all too calmly walked around the building, her eyes searching for the people that were trying to help Cassandra get out of there. Jane was the first one that crossed her line of sight, and she leapt towards her, intending to attack her.

Jane was dispatching another Hydra agent, not really bothering to hold back the force of her blows. She was fully charged with her biotics when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. “Callisto!”

She brought her arms up, the shield protecting her from the initial attack. “Vakarian keep cover on Xena and Cassandra! You might have to break cover!”

Xena flung her Chakram, bouncing off the heads of two of the men that had caught Callisto and then ricocheting towards the brainwashed blonde.

“Why the fuck did Callisto go rogue,” was his grunt from the comm-device, not really expecting an answer either - obviously the plan was not to kill her, but Garrus also wasn’t sure about aiming a firearm at one of theirs. Between Xena and Shepard, the two of them were brute forces on the ground while the turian focused on picking off several from afar, trying to keep the pressure off them.

But Shepard was right. He might have to break cover soon. If things got too heated then there was no damn reason stay back, and there was nothing like a fully-armored alien to burst in and shake things up.

Callisto was about to attack Jane again when she heard a telltale whistling sound getting louder. Turning her head, Callisto saw the glint of silver coming straight at her. She caught the chakram easily and expertly threw it back, letting it bank off of a few surfaces on its way back to Xena. Really, they could play catch with that all day.

Which was why Callisto also rocketed herself at Xena. She was immersed in a black shadowy type of substance as she launched herself Xena. With both Callisto and the chakram closing in, Xena had to think fast. Especially with Cassandra there, who was taking refuge on the floor, out of the line of fire.

Shepard let out an expletive that would have made Wrex blush, drawing her side arm and hauling tail after Callisto. "Garrus, I'm going to extract the girl!" There was a pause, then she added, “If you have to move in or take the shot, take the shot.”

Callisto's super powers were bad enough, if Shepard added her biotics to the mix freaking Cassandra out would be the least of their problems - they'd probably level the block in the fight.

Xena let out her battle cry, flipping backwards and onto a table. She grabbed the Chakram out of the air and flipped off the table, kicking it up and at Callisto. "Snap out of it! We put all this behind us!"

Next time she was bringing her sword.

Move in or take the shot. Looks like it’d be his call, then, and Garrus made up his mind quick - the visor attached to his helmet zoomed in, and he aligned the rifle in his three-fingered hands. “Gonna do both,” his metallic voice boomed, and he pulled the trigger.

Callisto was a maniac, something had to have triggered her state, and they didn’t have time to come up with a plan to snap her out of it humanely - so when he let the bullet fly, it wasn’t meant to kill. It was meant to disable, aimed right at the back of her knee.

After that was when he moved in, agile on his feet but a towering presence that became visible in the fray barely minutes after.

There was no reasoning with Callisto currently. Her eyes were red, harsh, perhaps reminiscent of the fury they’d carried when she’d been a demon in Hell. All Callisto was doing was following the orders she’d been given before she’d attacked Jane.

Callisto wound up and was ready to hit Xena when her knee buckled and she crumpled to the ground. Pain shot through her, and she grunted as she looked up for whomever had shot her. Fire started to form around her closed fist, and she was going to let a fireball fly at the closest person to her.

They could deal with the fall out later. Jane vaulted over a gate, punching the fireball out of the air with her biotics. She hit the ground and rolled and for three quarters of a second could feel her leg screaming.

Either through biotics or sheer force of will she ignored it, picked Cassandra over her shoulder and ran. "I feel like I'm 75 and my hip is going to go any second."

"Should have drank more milk." Xena had never met Garrus before, but now there was a towering alien charing towards them. She snapped her fist towards Callisto's face, hoping to buy Shepard time to get out of there and Garrus time to get into range. "I don't know what they did to her but it can't be good. She used to be a god. If she's juiced up to that level again we've got problems."

Garrus posed as their shield, his armor able to take the dings and fire, and as he moved he shot - rounds of bullets, thermal clips on the ground, the snaps and clacks of reload. His aim was impeccable, each pull of the trigger meant to drop a body down and give them room to get the fuck out.

“Less talking, more moving!” he called out, wanting to make sure they got out of here mostly unscathed. “We can slap some medi-gel on Callisto once we’re sure she’s not going apeshit on us!”

Cassandra yelped a bit as she suddenly hoisted over someone’s shoulder and hauled off. “Is this part of the plan?” She managed to ask before daring to look at the fray as she was carried off. The blonde woman attacking Xena looked familiar. Very familiar. But it couldn’t be, could it?

Callisto parried the fist Xena sent at her, and she leveled one back at her, intending on nailing her in the face. Though her red eyes flicked over to Garrus and the retreating Jane with Cassandra in tow. She needed to get to them, but she also left herself open to attack.

“Yes, sir,” Shepard said. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m with Xena, and we’re on plan F.” F is for Fuck.

There was nothing she could to do keep CAssandra from noticing her sister, and hoped that in the chaos she might think she was seeing things. They already had a lot to explain, adding ‘your sister is brainwashed’ to it was probably a bit much.

“Sorry.” Xena slammed her Chakram down onto the back of Callisto’s head. Thank the gods, they could have fought for hours if given half a chance. She picked Callisto up over her shoulder. “Okay handsome, show me the way out of here.”

Was Garrus single? She kind of hoped he was single.

What a nice compliment during this tango, especially when his built was far from human-shaped.

A couple of extra rounds were unleashed and once the onslaught of them lessened, Garrus thought it safe to get the hell out for good - let someone trail them, he dared them. “This way,” he led, maneuvering them over to what they’d decided was the ‘extraction point.’ Granted, there was no Cortez flying around to pull them out of the fray, but it’d do. “Whatever Plan F is, it’s working so far!”

Cassandra closed her eyes, mostly because what was happening was fucking crazy and tended to only happen in the movies. “Just get me out of here!” She told Jane, just wanting to get out of the heart of the conflict. She didn’t want to die or get injured or anything of the sort. She just wanted to live in peace.

Callisto meanwhile was out cold.

"Don't worry." Jane ducked under cover of the SUV they'd rented. Fake IDs, of course, but still. "Get in the back, stay low."

Next time, she was just bringing the Mako. Edging around cover, she fired off a few shots, but couldn't get around to the driver's seat. So she popped open the passanger door and crawled in that way.

Xena, meanwhile, was making good use of Garrus as a shield. "Does it itch? Did it feel kinda weird? How do you kiss someone like that?"

Ah, not the strangest questions to receive ever in the middle of combat? “No,” shots fired, “no,” shots fired again, “and when the helmet’s off - my wife’s into it.” Garrus also almost wished the Mako had been here. It could take being shot at, and he wasn’t all that confident wouldn’t make him hurl rainbow alien vomit no matter the vehicle driven.

But before he himself made it inside the SUV, he’d make sure to help Xena and Cassandra in it - his shields were up on his armor, and they fizzed and sizzled every time a bullet hit him.

Once in, he slammed the doors shut but kept his rifle readied. “Drive. I’ll stick my head out and keep shooting if I need to, but everyone make sure your head’s ducked!”

Cassandra got on the floor in the back. “Got it!” She responded to the...dinosaur man? She didn’t waste much time staring and just curled her arms over her head to offer more protection in the event broken glass and such went flying around. This was all completely insane to her. “Staying down! Someone tell me when it’s safe.”

“Ain’t safe yet, kid.” Xena checked her over for injuries, then quickly bound Callisto’s hands and legs. She wished she had something a little stronger, or magical. She gripped the seat as Shepard took a turn too sharply. “We need to find out what happened. It was like a switch went off.”

Shepard pursed her lips. She could think of a couple theories, none of them particularly welcome. “Garrus, they still following?”

“No,” he answered, tapping the visor on his head to change a setting - they read thermal signatures now, and gave a number of distance between their targets and them. “Got proximity mines just in case but keep going, this is the one time I encourage you to drive like the maniac you are. Xena, there’s a case under the seats. Pull it out. It’s got medi-gel should anyone need to slap it on a wound, but careful, it can get you a little wired.”

“Got it.” It looked like Cassandra had a few cuts that needed looking at, and Xena could feel at least one wound on herself that was probably more serious than it looked at first glance. Those were always the annoying ones.

“It’s so wonderful to have your permission, Vakarian.” Shepard shifted gears, glancing back at Garrus in the mirror. “I feel like my life is now complete.”

This must be the Twilight Zone. That was the only thing that made sense to Cassandra. But she wasn’t going to start asking questions until the rollercoaster race they were currently in came to a stop. Hopefully one that involved a gentle stop like how normal people stopped their cars. But the potential for a fiery and violent crash ending her life was one she was fearing would actually happen.

And for all intents and purposes, Callisto remained unconscious. Or at least she pretended to be if she was actually conscious again. After what Hydra had done to her, she healed from wounds quickly, startlingly so.

“Don’t think anyone here actually wants to see me vomit to your maneuvering,” was his steely chuckle beneath the helmet, peeling his eyes from the windows to assess everyone else around them because fuck, what a ride. “Hopefully where we’re headed has alcohol. We all could use a drink.”

And hopefully Callisto wouldn’t reawaken and try to kill them. That’d put a ding in their somewhat mostly victorious night.