Below the Central Park, Ceph Lithoship Interior
August 18th, 2023
Energy Critical – Nanosuit's on-board AI SECOND fed the information directly into Prophet's brain.
"Shit…" – Prophet muttered to himself. Indeed, being surrounded with several dozen Ceph was not the best time for the Nanosuit's cloak to fail. Prophet turned his attention to the Energy bar. It said that he had only 20% of suit energy left. He looked around trying to find some cover, where he could regenerate his suit energy reserves.
Tactical Options Available – SECOND once more fed additional information about the situation to Prophet. He brought up his Tactical Visor. Seeing the cover he so desperately needed, he slowly walked toward it. At this point, with only 12% energy left, conserving the energy was the priority. As paradoxal as it is, walking slow to life-saving cover was the only way to do it.
To Prophet, the walk appeared to last even longer than it actually did. With only 2% energy left, he finally made it to cover.
Insufficient Energy - Disengaging Cloak – SECOND again kept Prophet up to date. The cloak automatically turned off, leaving the Nanosuit in its default Power Mode. Prophet now hoped that some random Ceph Grunt on patrol wouldn't walk up on him. Alerting the Ceph of his presence right now would be suicidal. With hundreds of Ceph inside the Lithoship, it would be impossible for him to escape.
With a barely hearable beep the Suit informed Prophet that his energy levels were back at 100%. He reactivated the cloak and proceeded down the alien – Yet familiar – corridor. He would only have a few minutes or so now until the biobombs he placed on the ship's spires and vein exploded. After that, the Ceph will definitely know that there was an intruded on board, making his job even more difficult.
On the other hand, he couldn't afford to run either. It would make his energy drain that much larger. And, chances are, he would be spotted even sooner. Thankfully, the ship's main structure is only a few corridors away.
Prophet passed near an unsuspecting Ceph Trooper. Thanks to the Nanosuit's upgrades, even Ceph Devastators had trouble spotting him under cloak. This mere Grunt never knew anything passed near him.
The next corridor was free of any Ceph. This inclined Prophet to disengage his cloak and recharge – Given that he was more comfortable having his energy levels above 50%. He decided against it, however, because the corridor also lacked any sort of cover and would leave him completely exposed should any Ceph come.
A series of loud explosions were heard, followed by what could be classified as an earthquake. SECOND immediately adjusted the bar that represented enemy awareness. Prophet did not like what he saw – The bar was at almost 100% awareness. That meant that the Ceph were that much more likely to reinforce the main structure He entered the chamber that contained the main structure. On the catwalk that separated Prophet from his entry point on the structure stood a lone Grunt. Prophet slowly sneaked behind the trooper. He knew that his detection was inevitable, so he decided to have it on his own terms.
As he stood behind the Grunt, he pulled out his combat knife. He then grabbed the Ceph's head and stabbed the knife in its version of neck. The Ceph, unfortunately, managed to give out a rather loud roar that attracted the attention of every single Ceph soldier in the chamber.
A few spotted him before his cloak could get back online and opened fire, the others soon started firing in Prophet's general direction, likely hoping to hit him at random. Seeing that evading the enemy fire is impossible, Prophet switched to his power mode and with some 30% of the energy left, started charging toward the entry point. A Ceph Devastator fired a missile at him.
Prophet seeing the missile, engaged his Armor Mode, however he knew it was of little use, given that he had only a small portion of suit energy left. The missile impacted nearby, and managed to drain what little energy the suit had left.
Prophet, however, continued advancing toward the main structure unrelentlessly. The enemy's projectiles hit him several times. Without the Nanosuit he would've been dead from all that Ceph fire for certain. SECOND warned him that his health is critical.
With a few final steps, Prophet entered the structure. Whether or not his Nanosuit would interface correctly with the Ceph technology was questionable at best. He had still failed to acquire the "Tunguska Iteration" from Hargreave, as his former boss wasn't very enthusiastic to give a weapon that could save the Human race to someone who (from his point of view) betrayed him.
Critical Systems Failure
Nanosuit Rebooting
Switching to Core Functions
Foreign Intrusion Detected
Analyzing…
Not Enough Common Code, Rejecting…
"Dammit! Damn you, Hargreave! You fucking blew our only chance!" – Prophet screamed to no one in particular, as his suit continued it's monologue.
Rejection failure
Critical Core Systems Failure
Foreign Intrusion Accessing the Deep Layers…
Initiating countermeasures…
Countermeasures failing…
Foreign Intrusion Accessing the Deep Layers…
Analyzing…
Rewritten Nanocatalysts Assimilated by the Intrusion
"Wait, the ship's actually assimilating the catalysts? This is working after all…" – Prophet thought, with a sigh of relief.
Hazardous Environmental Change Detected…
Analyzing…
Lithoship's Core Destabilizing…
20 Megaton Explosion Imminent
Scanning for Tactical Options…
No Tactical Options Detected
"Oh shit…" – Prophet mumbled, knowing that he's as good as dead.
Critical Threat Detected…
No Countermeasures Available
Massive Energy Output Detected
The explosion violently shook the entire structure. As the shockwave advanced toward Prophet, the Nanosuit continued to report, as he knew it would until the very last moment. The final words he'd remember would be:
Critical Thread Approaching
No Countermeasures Available
Critical Systems Failure
Switching to Core Systems
Attempting to Reboot the Nanosuit
Critical Core Systems Failure…
Atte…
Then everything suddenly turned to black, as he lost consciousness.
Unknown Location
Unknown Date
Critical Core Systems Failure Detected
Isolating the Error
Error Corrected
Switching to Core Systems
Checking User Vital Signs
User Status: KIA
Massive Damage to User Detected
Affecting Repairs to User
User Status: Salvageable
User Consciousness Backup Status: Stored and Undamaged
Estimated Repair Time: 12 Hours 26 Minutes 19 Seconds
Critical Systems Failure Detected
Systems Repair Delayed until User is Operational
SECOND continued its monologue for the duration of the "repairs" it conducted. Nanosuit's Symbiosis with its user was one of those things that were both a gift and a curse: It meant that the Nanosuit's user couldn't die as long as the suit had an energy reserve. Due to the fact that Nanosuit's user couldn't remove his Nanosuit due to that same symbiosis also meant that the user was condemned to living out a near-eternity in the suit.
Fortunately for Prophet, his suit did have a source of energy, and a rather powerful one at that: The Lithoship's explosion overloaded and nearly fried the suit's energy capacitors.
Some twelve hours later, Prophet awakened to a rather loud screech. He immediately looked to his left, where he saw an immensely large ship that somewhat resembled the Ceph Lithoship due to its tentacles.
"What the hell? How the fuck did the Lithoship survive?" - He said to himself, unbelieving – "And also, how the hell did survive a 20 megaton blast?"
Then, all the sudden, SECOND started feeding some information:
Higher Suit Functions Repaired
Switching to Higher Suit Functions
Warning: Threat Detected
Analyzing…
Vessel of Unknown Origin
Closest Analogue: Ceph Lithoship
"That doesn't sound good. But I'll have to think about it later. My first priority should be: Where the hell am I?" – Prophet thought. Almost in response, the AI said:
Unable to Determine the Location: No GPS Satellites Detected
"How long was I out? Doesn't matter, I still have to be cautious. God knows the Ceph are probably here."
With that, Prophet engaged his cloak. He knew that finding a weapon – As he has lost his – Was a must. He walked forward, where he spotted some crates that could be used for cover. As he approached he spotted a body. Given that it could possibly have some weapons on it, he decided to inspect it.
Prophet immediately noticed something odd about the body. As he approached it, he noticed that it was not human. But it was not Ceph either. He saw what appeared to be a gun. Not like any gun he has ever seen, but it was far better than nothing. As he picked it up, his AI once more commented:
Error: Unable to Interface with Weapon
"Great." – Prophet thought – "Let's just hope that it is not out of ammo, eh?"
Potential Threat Detected: Unknown incoming
Tactical Options Available
Prophet pulled up his Tactical Vision and soon realized what his AI was talking about. Three armed humans descended down the nearby hill. One of them was a woman, while the other two were men. SECOND failed to provide any additional information about them. He decided to go behind the crates and recharge his suit's energy.
Once that was done, he cloaked again and jumped onto a crate nearby, and waited for the unknown – Quite possibly hostile – Humans to come to him.
As they approached one of men spoke: "Damn, is that Nihilus?"
"I am afraid so… Damn it!" – The apparent leader answered.
The humans continued their dialogue, and Prophet decided that if he was to strike, the time was now. He jumped down from the crate. He didn't have much suit energy left. Only about 25%. He wouldn't need it for long.
Prophet sneaked behind the woman and pulled out his combat knife.
"Hey, you hear that humming noise?" – She said to the others.
"What hummi… Holy shit!" – The other, non-leader, man spoke as Prophet decloaked, grabbed the woman – Catching her off guard – And put his knife to her throat.
"Listen up! If you try to raise your weapons, she dies. If you do not answer my questions, she dies. Got it?" – Prophet yelled out, which, thanks to his voice amplifier, came out even louder than he intended.
"Listen, we're not your enemy! We're with the Systems Alliance; we came here after we heard the distress signal!" - The leader spoke out.
"There is no "Systems Alliance", who are you working for? Hargreave? I bet the man's still pretty pissed I stole his billion dollar suit!" – Prophet came back.
"We don't even know who this Hargrave is!" – The other man spoke out.
"Can I know who I am speaking with?" – The leader said.
"They call me Prophet. And I find it damn interesting that a CELL Commando wouldn't know this."
The leader gave him a questioning look, obviously confused. Then he spoke: "What is CELL?"
"Alright, who the hell are you people?"
"I'm Commander Shepard, this is Lieutenant Alenko and the woman you're holding is Gunnery Chief Williams. We are with the Systems Alliance."
"What Systems Alliance?"
This only confused the group further. "You haven't heard of the Systems Alliance?" – Shepard asked.
"Would I be asking if I had?"
"The Systems Alliance is the federal government that rules over the Earth and her Colonies."
"Yeah right, how stupid do you think I am? We couldn't have possibly reverse-engineered the space traveling tech from the Ceph, colonized the galaxy and unified the Earth under same banner while I was knocked out."
"Who are the Ceph…? Look, let's discuss this with out weapons down."
"Sure, I trust you that much already." – Prophet responded, with notable sarcasm.
"Look, we'll drop our weapons."
"Are you sure that's wise Commander?" – Alenko asked.
"Conflict isn't going to solve this, Kaiden." – Shepard answered.
Shepard and Kaiden lowered dropped their weapons and Prophet released his grip on Chief Williams, who immediately ran towards her group. Now that he has released his hostage, Prophet's Nanosuit became far more visible, as much as it became obvious that it wasn't any random infiltrator battle armor. Another thing that became visible is that Prophet had an assault rifle. He raised the rifle and pointed it in Shepard's general direction
"Whoa, I thought we agreed to drop our weapons?" – Shepard yelled.
"So we did. And you trusted me. Your loss, my gain. Now, where the fuck is this place? And don't give me that space travel bullshit!" – Prophet yelled back.
"This is Eden Prime a human colon…" – Then Shepard saw Prophet raise his rifle and prepare to shoot.
"If you keep repeating that bullshit, then you are of no use to me, CELL Operative." – Prophet said.
"Kaiden! Biotics!" – Shepard ordered.
"Gladly Sir!" – Kaiden responded, taking the rifle away from Prophet with his biotics.
"The fuck…?" – Prophet muttered.
Threat Detected – Prophet's onboard AI informed him as both Kaiden and Shepard picked up their rifles. Prophet knew what to do.
Maximum Armor
With that, his suit began adapting into armor. Prophet ran for his rifle and Shepard order his team to open fire. The shots didn't take a great toll on his armor, reducing the suit's energy to just under 80%. However, as Prophet raised his rifle on Shepard's squad something did take a far larger toll on the armor. Kaiden raised Prophet in the air and slammed him down onto the ground.
Energy Critical
Dark Energy Anomaly Detected…
Analyzing…
Source: Hostile Human
Tactical Retreat Advised
However, given that Kaiden's biotics drained his suit's energy, Prophet knew that he couldn't retreat. Instead, he raised his rifle, and with almost supernatural accuracy, began firing at Kaiden. His shields soon dropped and Prophet fired one last burst that hit Kaiden's legs and injuring him. This distracted Shepard and Williams long enough for his energy reserves to resupply. He then, activating his Power Mode, ran for cover behind a crate.
When Shepard finally got around to searching for Prophet, he was long gone, obviously using his cloak to slip past him and Williams.