Chapter 17: Blood Pack War - Part 2
POV: Marc Wayne
Garm waded through the battle like a living catastrophe, his massive form absorbing weapons fire that would have downed vehicles while his eyes remained locked on Marc with the kind of focus that spoke of obsession crystallizing into absolute certainty. This human had to die—not for money, not for territory, not even for revenge anymore. This was about proving that Krogan supremacy couldn't be challenged by some augmented freak who thought alien genetics made him equal to centuries of evolutionary perfection.
The massive Krogan's biotic corona flared as he charged, his form wreathed in dark energy that turned his already formidable bulk into a guided missile of destruction. Marc's enhanced reflexes threw him sideways as the biotic-enhanced tackle carved through the space where he'd been standing, leaving a crater in the reinforced concrete wall behind him.
[BOSS ENCOUNTER: GARM (BLOOD PACK LEADER)]
[THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME]
[ENEMY CAPABILITIES: BIOTIC BARRIERS, REDUNDANT ORGANS, CENTURIES OF COMBAT EXPERIENCE]
[RECOMMENDED STRATEGY: SURVIVE]
The fight began with desperate intensity. Marc's tactical training told him to maintain distance, use superior mobility, exploit environmental advantages. But Garm's biotic abilities eliminated cover while his regeneration matched Marc's own enhanced healing. This would be a war of attrition between two beings who refused to die easily.
Marc's Varren Alpha Instinct fed him streams of behavioral data—micro-expressions that telegraphed Garm's attacks, subtle shifts in posture that revealed intent. His Four-Eyed Vision prevented flanking maneuvers while tracking the Krogan's weapon positions. But centuries of combat experience gave Garm advantages that genetics couldn't overcome.
The first exchange left Marc bleeding from a dozen wounds as Garm's shotgun found gaps in his improvised armor. But the injuries were already closing, Vorcha Regeneration working overtime to keep him functional. Each hit he took was a lesson learned, each near-miss a data point his System catalogued for future reference.
[HEALTH: 67% AND REGENERATING]
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: OPPONENT EXCEEDS USER CAPABILITIES]
[RECOMMENDATION: TACTICAL WITHDRAWAL]
"You're just meat pretending to be warrior!" Garm roared as his next blast caught Marc in the shoulder, spinning him around and sending him crashing into an overturned speeder.
Marc rolled behind cover, feeling his shoulder blade knitting back together while his enhanced mind processed the tactical situation. Garm was stronger, more experienced, better armed, and backed by centuries of Krogan military doctrine. But he was also predictable—a product of his species' approach to conflict resolution through superior firepower.
"And you're just proving why the Krogan are dying out," Marc gasped back, the words calculated to push Garm into rage-fueled mistakes. "Too stupid to know when to quit!"
The cruelty was intentional, targeting the Krogan's deepest wound—their species' decline from galactic superpower to mercenary rabble. Garm's response was immediate and devastating, his biotic charge tearing through Marc's cover like it was made of cardboard.
But Marc was already moving, his enhanced reflexes carrying him into close quarters where the Krogan's shotgun became a liability. His vibro-knife found gaps between armor plates while his pack coordination directed Kreek's Vorcha to exploit the openings his assault created.
The fight devolved into brutal, intimate violence—two beings with enhanced healing trading injuries that would kill baseline combatants while their respective allies struggled to influence an engagement that transcended normal tactical parameters.
That's when Marc's lucky shot changed everything.
His knife found Garm's throat, not deep enough to be fatal but devastating enough to open the Krogan's main artery. As alien blood sprayed across the battlefield, Marc's System chimed with the notification he'd been hoping for since the fight began:
[GENE MATERIAL DETECTED: KROGAN BLOOD RAGE (RARE)]
[BASE DROP RATE: 4%]
[CRITICAL HIT BONUS: +6%]
[TOTAL CHANCE: 10%]
[ACQUISITION SUCCESSFUL]
Without hesitation, Marc's mental command activated: "Equip to slot 3."
His body convulsed mid-combat as the gene integrated with painful rapidity, his cellular structure adapting to accommodate Krogan genetic programming while his enhanced healing accelerated the integration process. Wounds closed faster than they had before, his muscle density increased visibly, and most significantly, his eyes began reflecting light with a reddish tint that spoke of predatory instincts awakening.
Garm saw the change immediately, his ancient eyes recognizing the signs of genetic acquisition. "Stealing Krogan power? You're no human—you're monster!"
Marc smiled darkly as he felt the Blood Rage passive settling into his modified biology like a weapon finding its holster. "Takes one to kill one."
[KROGAN BLOOD RAGE (RARE) EQUIPPED]
[PASSIVE ABILITY: BELOW 30% HP, GAIN +100% DAMAGE, +200% REGENERATION, +50 STR]
[WARNING: ACTIVATION MAY CAUSE TEMPORARY PERSONALITY CHANGES]
The fight continued with renewed intensity, but Marc could feel the genetic modification waiting beneath his conscious control like a loaded weapon. All he needed was sufficient damage to trigger the activation, and Garm was obligingly providing opportunities.
The massive Krogan's next assault was a coordinated barrage of biotics and weapons fire that caught Marc in the open. The combined attack was devastating—biotic fields tearing through his defenses while kinetic rounds punched through armor and flesh with equal ease.
[HEALTH: 28% AND DROPPING]
[CRITICAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED]
[KROGAN BLOOD RAGE: ACTIVATING]
The transformation was immediate and terrifying.
Pain vanished as endorphins flooded Marc's system in concentrations that would have been toxic to baseline humans. His strength doubled as adrenal glands enhanced by Krogan genetics dumped combat stimulants into his bloodstream. Most significantly, his regeneration became incredible—wounds closing in real-time as his enhanced healing factor reached levels that defied biological possibility.
But the most disturbing change was psychological. Marc's tactical thinking simplified into predatory hunger. His empathy shut down, replaced by calculating assessment of how to most efficiently destroy the threat before him. The careful balance between human consciousness and alien enhancement tipped decisively toward something that viewed violence as the optimal solution to all problems.
The shift in the fight was immediate and decisive.
Marc stopped defending and began attacking with Krogan ferocity combined with human cunning. His enhanced strength let him trade blows with Garm while his pack coordination directed Vorcha to cut off escape routes. The massive Krogan found himself facing something he'd never encountered—a human who fought like a Krogan but thought like a predator.
Garm's shocked attempts to retreat were met with coordinated pursuit. Marc's pack had learned his tactical preferences well enough to anticipate his needs, creating a killing field that channeled the Krogan toward the confrontation his enhanced psychology demanded.
The final blow came when Garm attempted another biotic charge, desperation driving him to bet everything on a single devastating attack. Marc dodged at the last possible second, his enhanced reflexes carrying him clear while momentum sent Garm crashing into a structural support pillar with enough force to crack reinforced composite.
The massive Krogan lay dazed among the rubble, his weapon scattered, his biotic barriers failing. Marc stood over him breathing hard, the Blood Rage still singing in his veins as it waited for his decision about how to end this threat.
[COMBAT COMPLETE: VICTORY ACHIEVED]
[GARM: INCAPACITATED]
[EXECUTION RECOMMENDED FOR THREAT ELIMINATION]
Through the haze of enhanced aggression, Marc felt a moment of clarity—a reminder of who he'd been before the genetic modifications, before the violence, before the necessary evolution that had brought him to this moment. He had a choice: execute Garm as a message to anyone else who might threaten him, or show mercy and hope that lesson would be equally effective.
The Blood Rage wanted blood. His tactical mind suggested elimination of threats was optimal. But somewhere beneath the alien enhancements, the software engineer from Seattle who'd died in a car accident whispered that mercy was what separated people from monsters.
"Leave Omega," Marc said, his voice carrying the authority of someone who'd just proven his superiority in the only language Garm understood. "Don't come back. Next time, I won't stop."
The promise carried weight because both of them understood it was true. Marc had held back, had chosen restraint when elimination would have been easier. But that restraint came with the implicit threat of what would happen if it were withdrawn.
[MERCY GRANTED: REPUTATION CONSEQUENCES]
[BLOOD PACK FACTION: HOSTILE → WARY]
[KROGAN SPECIES RESPECT: +15]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: +1500 XP]
[LEVEL UP! CONGRATULATIONS: LEVEL 6 ACHIEVED]
The advancement hit Marc like lightning channeled through alien biology, his enhanced physiology adapting and improving according to parameters he was beginning to understand. But the crash that followed as Blood Rage faded was equally devastating—exhaustion, nausea, and the disturbing memory of how good violence had felt when filtered through Krogan psychological enhancement.
Blood Pack forces began retreating when their leader's defeat became obvious, their mercenary pragmatism recognizing that continuing the fight would only increase casualties without changing the outcome. Omega's streets were littered with the debris of urban warfare, but the siege was over.
Marc collapsed as the genetic enhancement faded, leaving him shaking from the biochemical aftermath of abilities that weren't meant for human neurology. Kreek's pack surrounded him protectively, their loyalty absolute now that he'd demonstrated his worthiness through victory over a proven enemy.
"Krogan-heart human!" Kreek declared with obvious pride. "Pack-leader strong! Enemy-alpha submits!"
Anto pulled Marc upright, his expression mixing admiration with concern. "You fought like you weren't human at all."
"Maybe I'm not anymore," Marc thought, tasting copper and ozone while his System provided damage assessments and tactical analyses of the engagement. "Maybe that software engineer from Seattle is just a memory I'm carrying around like old luggage."
"Does it matter?" Marc asked quietly, the question carrying weight beyond the immediate situation.
Anto considered for a long moment, his mandibles clicking with the Turian equivalent of thoughtful deliberation. "You let him live when you could have killed. That's more human than most humans manage."
As Aria's cleanup crews arrived to restore order to the district, Marc realized he'd just crossed another threshold in his evolution from victim to participant in Omega's violent ecosystem. The System displayed a new title—"Blood Pack Breaker"—that would follow him through whatever came next.
[NEW TITLE ACQUIRED: BLOOD PACK BREAKER]
[REPUTATION: KNOWN ACROSS OMEGA AS GENUINELY DANGEROUS]
[WARNING: ENHANCED CAPABILITIES NOW PUBLICLY DEMONSTRATED]
[CONSEQUENCES: UNPREDICTABLE]
Marc didn't feel victorious as he surveyed the aftermath of urban warfare. He felt exhausted, changed, and increasingly aware that each fight took him further from whoever he'd been before the genetic modifications began. The Krogan Blood Rage had been a weapon of terrible effectiveness, but using it had cost him something he couldn't quite name—perhaps the last vestiges of the belief that he could gain power without losing himself in the process.
But the galaxy was moving toward crisis, and Marc was becoming the kind of person who might actually matter when the moment arrived. Whether enough of his humanity would survive to make that matter a force for good rather than just another source of violence remained to be seen.
The war was just beginning, and Marc was finally strong enough to fight it.
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