Sky the colour of a dead channel (Mandy x Shepherd)

[commanderShepard]

Satoru knew that she would outpace him. Not only did she have superior ware, but she had more recent training and use of her skills. To him, it was old muscle memory, like getting an instrument out of retirement to play again. But Mandy? She was a concert pianist in her prime, and tonight was her showcase performance. So he played catchup, and didn't mind one bit.

Mandy was a pleasure to watch. The way she moved was smooth and graceful, like a leopard on the hunt as it moved through the trees. She jumped and climbed and swung, that damned body suit showing him so much of her form that he could picture exactly what she would look like without it, right down to her sex. It was better than porn.

She took out the guard with expert precision, a reflex move for her. By the time he reached her, she was handing him the rifle. He accepted it, and began checking the safety, chamber, magazine, and sights with the practiced, fluid moves of someone intimately familiar with weapons like this one. Keeping it trained downwards, he followed her in the closer quarters, practically one hand on her back. They reached the roof and crouched.

He nodded his consent and understanding, still silent. He was a man of few words under the best of circumstances, but in a situation like this... death came on silent wings, after all.

 

[Mandy]

Mandy felt Satoru's presence like a shadow, a reassuring weight at her back. His acceptance of her pace, his fluid handling of the rifle, all spoke to a shared understanding that went beyond words. She felt the thrill of it, the quiet confidence that came from working with a partner who was not just capable, but deadly in his own right. This was a partnership of equals, a dance of death with two partners who moved to the same rhythm.

With a final nod, she led the way, dropping silently through the ventilation shaft and into the hushed corridors of the R&D lab. The air was thick with the sterile scent of chemicals and the faint hum of high-end electronics. They moved with a practiced, terrifying efficiency. Mandy was a blur of motion, her bladed sword a silent whisper of steel as she dispatched scientists and security guards alike. A flick of her wrist, a swift and lethal cut, and another body crumpled to the floor. Satoru followed, his movements more deliberate but no less final. The crack of his silenced pistol was a dull punctuation mark to her silent violence, his shots precise and always to the head.

They left a trail of chaos in their wake, planting the shaped charges in key locations—server banks, power conduits, and structural supports. Each explosive was a promise of the destruction to come. In the heart of the lab, surrounded by the bodies of the last research team, Mandy felt a powerful surge of adrenaline. The air was thick with the scent of blood and ozone, a heady mix that sent a shiver of pure, unadulterated pleasure through her. She leaned against a lab table, a low, guttural growl escaping her lips. Her muscles, her very skin, felt alive, and she was breathing heavily, a flush coloring her cheeks.

She looked at Satoru, her eyes a brilliant, feverish glow in the dim light. "See?" she said, her voice a ragged whisper. "I told you I get off on this."

 

[commanderShepard]

Where Mandy was on one side of the room, her blade cutting like a scythe through wheat, bodies falling like straw and blood raining like chaff, Satoru worked down the opposite end. The muzzle of the rifle flashed as lightning in the dark, exacting shots that conserved ammo. He moved from cover to cover, ducking behind consoles and lab tables. When he passed a body, he double tapped it in the head - those that had only been incapacitated did not remain that way for long.

A guard stepped out from behind a wall and unleashed a rain of gunfire. Satoru turned his chromed side into the fire, coat tails sweeping behind him in an arcing wake. Sparks showered where bullets struck his cyber arm, and his suit took the rest. It felt like getting punched by a heavyweight boxer, but he was otherwise unharmed.

His rifle now empty, he tossed it at the guard to disrupt the onslaught. He closed the distance in the blink of an eye with his wired reflexes. In a single iaido move, he drew his blade and struck the guard down.

Turning to Mandy to see how she fared after the surprise gunfire, she actually flirted with him. He smirked under his menpo, still holding his stance. "I have yet to see you climax, Mandy-san. When we are finished here, I will see to it that you do."

 

[Mandy]

Mandy’s grin was an expression of pure, unadulterated ecstasy, a perfect match for the adrenaline coursing through her veins. "I'll hold you to that," she replied, her voice a low purr, a promise of a pleasure to come that was just as dangerous as the violence they had just unleashed. But their moment of brutal intimacy was shattered by a deafening groan of machinery.

A thick steel door at the far end of the lab slid open with a hiss of hydraulics. From the opening, a heavily armored sentry robot emerged, its powerful form a stark contrast to the human bodies littering the floor. It was a block of mobile death, its polished metallic chassis bristling with heavy-caliber cannons on each arm. A red optical sensor glowed in its faceless head, methodically scanning the room for targets.

“This wasn't in the schematics!” Mandy yelled, her voice a mix of frustration and excitement. The robot’s targeting system locked onto them, and without a moment’s hesitation, it unleashed a torrent of high-explosive rounds. The sound of its cannons was a thunderous roar that made the air tremble, and the shells shredded the lab around them. Glass shattered, lab tables disintegrated into splinters, and the air filled with the acrid stench of cordite. Mandy dove behind a reinforced console, the shriek of rounds impacting the steel a hair's breadth from her head.

A moment later, she vaulted over the cover, her suprathyroid gland kicking in to give her a supercharged burst of energy. She soared through the air in a fluid somersault, a reckless and graceful arc that drew the robot’s attention. "I'll distract it, you kill it!" she yelled to Satoru. The robot swiveled, its cannons tracking her impossible leap, a new storm of shells following her through the air.

For a moment, it looked like she would clear the arc of the gunfire, but a round, a stray, caught her in the side. The impact was a sickening crunch, and her vaunted Orthoskin, her personal armor, was pierced like paper. A significant chunk of her flesh and bone was torn away, and she grunted in a flash of pure, unfiltered pain. She collapsed to the floor, a smoking hole in her side, but even as her body hit the concrete, her platelet factories and symbiotes were already kicking into overdrive, rushing to seal the wound.