The chaos following the distraction was unbelievable to Tacticus. The sheer amount of weapons fire exchanged and the quickness of it all was not something he was prepared for. When the team moved quickly into the corner of the hallway and breached the door they had not for a moment relented in their torrent of gunfire. While several of the cabalists focused on making cover for themselves and the humans to shoot from, some had decided to provide biotic artillery. Waves of biotic energy served to bolster the already incredible amount of weapons fire the 2 deep line of soldiers were dishing out. Thankfully the Humans did not break or wavier in the face of a pseudo assault, something Sura had planned to need to deal with. But no, the two races worked together like they had in the videos they had all been made to watch of the Reaper war. No politics, no divisions just pure exhibition of the warrior spirit of the squad. He even thought for a moment that he could feel the spirit guide his weapon to cut down one of the heavily armored Vorcha with a trio of shots to the skull.
It took Tacticus a moment to realize that his gun had overheated and actually had been for several moments. The chemical cocktail his body was flooded with by his own glands was enough to overcome any sense of wanting to back down or run and hide. When he ducked down into the chest high barrier he was inhabiting with Numso waiting for his weapon to cooldown he noticed something warm on the left side of his face. He reached up with his left hand and felt the liquid stick to his fingers. He pulled his hand away from his mandibles and found that it was fresh blood. His brow furrowed for a moment as he tried to think if he had been shot or not. He went so far as to begin checking himself before he got his answer. He looked to his right and saw the contents of Numso's skull strewn out on the floor in a chunky pool of congealing blood. For a moment Cactus froze and the noise of the gunfire began to fade away from his perception. He felt his throat began to burn and turn as he had to choke back vomit. His eyes also widened in surprise and then entered a state of what could only be described as confusion. "No, no it's.... no...no."
Tacticus gripped his machine pistol and chalked up the body to his mind playing tricks on him. Numso wasn't dead, he could see him in his peripheral still shooting. He wasn't on the ground right there, certainly not. He could still "feel" Numso, he wasn't dead. Cactus jumped back up into a crouch to fire over the low barrier that had been set up to allow his teammates to fire over him. Pressing the image of his dead friend out of his mind his mandibles involuntarily began to flutter as he began pulling the trigger again. He was numb to it all, he couldn't even hear anything anymore. He could just feel the recoil of the rifle and bullets whizzing near his head. There was nothing but what he was doing and who was at the end of his gun. While there was comm chatter it sounded so distant to him that it may as well have not been there at all. He put his sights over fellow Turian's upper body and aiming for his exposed neck region began to push his weapon close to it's overheating point again. Right before it redlined he ejected the thermal clip and kept firing neglecting to put a new one in. The barriers of the traitor broke and his hail of bullets finally began to tear up his kin.
Tacticus felt nothing. No remorse, no regret, no sadness, just nothing. The Turian's body was shredded away and beat into nothing but bits of discarded flesh and liquid flying up and covering the area around him. Then his weapon overheated once again and he was forced back into cover. This time he made sure to not look at the body and instead reloaded one of the few remaining thermal clips he had left into his weapon. At that moment he felt the ground shake beneath him and he looked over his left shoulder through the mostly translucent barrier at the enemy combatants. He also began to feel the air rush out of the room. This simply pressed his back against the barrier as the air rushed out into the large explosions shredding the remaining enemies. At that moment though he saw something more concerning. A large mass running back past them and another blur of color which he guessed was the Asari they had with them. Not thinking he jumped into a charge after the mass of what had to be a Krogan. The Krogan was making a run for it, unknowingly he was running towards the diplomats however. Something he couldn't let happen.
He arrived just in time to hear the Asari crack her ribs against the Krogan in an attempt to stop him. Though it did work throwing him to the floor which she then followed up with several shotgun rounds to the downed Krogan. Tacticus began unloading his pistol by simply holding the trigger into the krogan adding to the increasingly large pool surrounding the still twitching Krogan. His weapon quickly over heated, Tacticus began yelling as he ejected the thermal clip and again continued firing. Letting his pent up rage out on the surely lifeless corpse. When the Asari's weapon finally overheated and his did shortly after he discarded his weapon. He filled his arms with biotic energy as they both ceased firing and he began beating into the mass of flesh that was already barely recognizable. Still yelling primally and almost degrading into a growl he punched the slowly decaying Krogan into but pulverized bits as blood sprayed up at him and got into his mouth. Numso wasn't dead, this Krogan was dead. Numso was still alive back at the line waiting for his best brother to shore up the flank. Numso was still alive.
