Hello everybody,
This is my first time actually doing a serious piece of writing, at least in terms of wanting to post it for other people to read.
Hopefully this will be something a little different to the other SI's out there and that people read and enjoy it as much as I am writing it.
Any comments, questions and suggestions are welcome, other than that, thanks for reading
Standard Disclaimer: Mass Effect is the property of Bioware which is owned by EA, I sadly don't own any of them, the OC's however are mine.
Mass Effect: A Knight's Tale
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I've never had a perfect life…or even a normal one really now that I think about it...but then again what's normal for one person can be completely abnormal to someone else so who knows right?
Still I can assure you that my life for whatever level of normalcy it might have been once is definitely not the same now, you see the reality I live in now is not the reality I was born in, but it's very similar…you know besides the aliens, those are new here but Earth is still Earth for the most part but I'm getting ahead of myself here.
My name is Robert Knight and this both my life story, how I wound up in another universe and went from being a criminal to a hero as well as a first-hand account of every event surrounding the Reapers and the greatest battle in our galactic history since I was there on the front lines during the whole thing, but that's a long way away from now.
My story begins on Earth back in February of 2012…
Chapter One: An Ordinary Day…
It was another beautiful day in New York City and standing here on the 86th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building, gazing out across the cityscape as the sun shone bright in the sky, the view only helped to cement one of many nicknames the city has "The City so nice they named it twice."
New York is my home, my city and despite the fact I've seen this view countless times during my life I always fall in love with it again like I was seeing it for the first time and that's despite the crap life I've lived in it or maybe it's because of it…see I grew up on the streets, literally.
My mom was a hooker and my Dad…well I never knew him so who cares right? To her credit my mom wasn't one of those coke head whores who didn't give a damn about their kid, she was awesome. She conducted a lot of her business while I was at school and was always there for me in the morning when I left and there when I was left. I don't know what drove her into the world's oldest profession but I know she did to pay the bills, although sometimes it was tough.
I was six when she was killed and being a hooker the cops never gave it their full attention, just another whore most likely killed by a client they said, and with no other family I was put into a foster home, which was even worse than my life had been before. I finally escaped from that hell when I was twelve and lived on the streets, which I will admit wasn't easy, since the only skill I had at that time was drawing.
After a few weeks sleeping in alleyways and stealing food from vendors I was struggled without cash and tried my hand at pickpocketing, needless to say I failed and thought that I was screwed, instead the guy just smiled and offered to teach me how to do it for real.
The man's name was Ryan, at least that's what he told me and he was a con artist, one of the best in the city and took me under his wing, teaching me how to pickpocket and how to con. By the time I was sixteen I was as good as he was, I could pickpocket without anyone noticing and I could charm my way into or out of any situation. A lot of people think that running a con is hard and depending on what you're doing they can be, but the key thing you need is confidence. After all a con is essentially a lie and it takes confidence to stare someone in the eye and lie to them without revealing anything.
But let's not be stupid here, you can't pull off a con or even a simple pickpocket job on confidence alone, you need skill and one other thing…luck. And me I had confidence, I had skill and I had more than my fair share of luck…Ryan's luck however ran out during a con and wound up going to jail and I found myself on my own again, at least this time I had Ryan's apartment, some cash and the talents to increase my income, which I did via various white collar crimes and cons.
My luck eventually ran out though and a little after my 18th birthday I was caught trying to pawn off a stolen antique vase and spent the next year in jail, the joys of a first offence While I was inside I met a fellow conman named TJ. Now I was I minor league conman compared to this guy. He was in his early 40s and was more involved with the upper class areas of white collar crime, art theft, jewellery heists and so on.
He got out before me but told me to look him up when I got out, which I did down in the lower east side. Over the next few years TJ mentored me in the arts, how to spot forgeries in art and imperfections in jewellery, how to pick locks and crack the more modern security systems and how to forge artworks given my own artistic talent, we were a pretty good team. Although having to study art was by far the most boring aspect, still to be a true master of the craft you have to know what you're talking about.
Eventually our reputation grew to the point that we were being hired by the more rich and famous to…acquire various items, jewellery and paintings for the most part, it was a fun life for the most part, it was exciting, adventurous and it paid really well. Which is where my story really begins, I was 24 at the time and it was the job that turned my life upside down...
It seemed like a simple job at the time break into the New York University and steal some artefact that had been uncovered on an archaeological dig, which was little odd I'll admit, especially since I'd done some research on it. From what I could tell it was an ordinary metal statue, granted it was a very old statue but a statue none the less. It didn't appear to be made by anybody well known or come from an historical point in history, it didn't even appear to have been owned by anybody famous it was just old, which could have value granted but I didn't see enough to warrant the huge price we were being paid to steal it, but who am I to judge a job's a job right?
I was the one who would be doing the actual stealing of the artefact, all I needed was a student ID, not the hardest thing in the world to do. An easy pickpocket and boom, one ID and TJ knew a hacker who could hack the university system and input my details into their system; all we needed to do was create an ID for me, all things we had done before over the years and before you knew it I was enrolled at NYU.
Now I have to admit compared to my life, university life was incredibly boring! I mean seriously, and if that was a preview of what a normal working life was like then I'll be happy to stick to my criminal life thank you very much, far more exciting.
I found out that the statue was being kept in one of the science labs for testing and scouted it out, there was always a campus guard on duty during the day as well as the person who discovered it as well as the lab techs, no way I was going to be able to steal it during the day, which meant doing it at night, not wanting to drag this out longer than necessary I snuck back onto campus that night to get a lay of the land. Luckily for me it seemed as though nobody was expecting anybody to want to steal the statue since it was left in the lab, sealed in a glass container.
I probably could have grabbed it then and there but I wanted to get the campus security patrol down so that I knew how much time I would have to get in, unlock the container and grab the statue then leave. They had two guards that patrolled the science wing, one keeping an eye on the security monitors and another that did the rounds, the one doing the rounds passed the lab where the statue was every half an hour, which should be more than enough time for me, all I needed to do then was figure out how to avoid the cameras, which wasn't going to be easy given the lack of cover and hiding places. The best way would probably be to hack the system and loop a video feed but that wasn't exactly a part of my skillset so TJ's friend would have to do that one.
It took us a few days to get everything setup but soon it was time. Sneaking into the university was pretty easy to do as was getting to the science labs, all I had to do was pick the lock on the lab door and open the container. Picking the lock was easy and soon I was standing over the glass container, looking at the statue.
It appeared to be a figure of some kind, maybe a person but it was hard to tell much more than that. It had been intricately sculpted though and was about 15 inches in height and made of metal. Its eyes were made of what looked to be dark blue jewels, which were probably the reason our employer wanted it stolen for, still for that to happen I needed to get it out of the case. A task I realised would be a little bit more difficult than I had first thought since the container was stored on a pressure pad, which no doubt was connected to an alarm system.
Now normally something like that is pretty easy to circumvent, much like in that Indiana Jones movie all you need to do is replace the item on the pad with something of equal weight, the only problem was I didn't know how much the thing weighed and even if I did I didn't have anything to replace it with.
My best hope was that the people working on this thing kept their notes locked in a desk in here which would hopefully give me an idea of what I'd need. I'd picked my way through six draws without finding them when my watch beeped, an indication that the guard would be back in this area in 5 minutes.
Cursing under my breath I left the lab and jogged down the corridor, slipping into one of the empty class rooms as I waited for the guard to pass and used the time to think about my options. The first would be to leave and try another night, the second would be to just grab the thing and make a run for it, not very stealthy but as long as I got away it would be good enough…although the fact the new kid arrived for a few days and then left just after the theft would be a little suspicious, plus I like to keep my activities clean, no deaths, no witnesses and no evidence.
However there was a third, slightly less risky option…I could always guess how much it weighed and grab a few random objects to place on the pedestal instead, and if that didn't work then just grab it and run. With a nod to myself I peeked over the desk I was hiding behind just in time to see the guard walk past the door and stood up, spending the next few minutes grabbing some books, beakers and other lab equipment before making my way back to the lab with the statue.
Taking a few deep breaths I decided to go with the books first, they were pretty thick science books which alone hopefully would be enough to counter the weight of the statue and it's container, even better would be if this was one of those pressure pads that wasn't configured to the exact weight of the statue, that way any weight that I replaced it with that was equal to or heavier than it would work, however if it was configured the other way then those books would set off the alarm anyway.
I made an on-the-fly decision to go with one book to begin with and if need be press down on it to add some pressure. With the first book in my right hand I took the glass container in my left and started sliding it gently across the pad, while sliding the book into the free space at the same time. My movements were painfully slow as I worked until I'd finally slid it off the pad without setting off the alarm.
And since I was now holding it in my hand could approximate its weight and smiled as I let go of the book, breathing a sigh of relief that the alarm had remained off. I placed the statue in the bag I had brought with me and gathered up the other things I had brought from the classroom and returned them to their rightful place and made my way to the exit.
I'd just managed to leave when the alarms in the University went off. With a chuckle I ran down a nearby alleyway to where I had stashed another bag and opened it, taking off the black hoodie, balaclava and gloves I had been wearing during my heist and replacing them with the New York Rangers jersey, baseball cap and long black leather coat that I'd put in there instead.
Freshly changed I calmly walked out of the alley and back onto the streets as numerous cop cars whizzed past on their way to the university as I casually blended in with the rest of the city. When I arrived back at my apartment I took the statue out of the bag and had a look at what I had just stolen, just to see what was so special about this thing.
I opened the glass canister and carefully removed the statue before rotating it in my hands, taking in every bit of detail. The figure was actually a really grotesque looking creature that I had never seen before and wondered how someone could have thought up the creature and then decided to carve a statue out of it.
Then there was the metal, which despite being at least a thousand years old according to reports was incredibly smooth, with only a few scratches on it, which made me think that maybe it was a fake, but as I ran my fingers over it I realised it didn't feel like any metal I had ever touched before which was odd, it was certainly cold enough to be metal but it didn't feel like metal, it was far too smooth and perfect.
Finally there were the dark blue gemstones that made up the eyes, they looked like sapphires only much more exquisite and I had seen some of the most exquisite jewellery known to exist during my short but illustrious career so far and none of them could even come close to whatever these things were. They were as dark as sapphire but within them seemed to be this swirling…something, it could have been a gas of some kind or a thin piece of glass or other reflective surface designed to reflect and contort the light to make a wispy pattern within the jewels. I had never seen or heard of anything like it before and yet clearly someone had because I was looking at it, no wonder somebody wanted it stolen, it must have been worth a fortune.
Shaking my head I placed the statue back in its glass container and placed it on the table, ready to be taken to TJ and handed off to our employer in the morning. After giving TJ a call and letting him know I'd retrieved the statue I grabbed a snack from the fridge and headed to the sofa to watch some TV.
I must have fallen asleep at some point because I woke up on my sofa a few hours later still dressed in the clothes I had put on in the alleyway and blinked as I looked at the shopping channel currently being shown on the screen. I turned off the TV and stood up figuring it would be best to clean my teeth and got to bed. I staggered into the bathroom and was about halfway through cleaning my teeth when I noticed a dark blue light seeping into the room from the hallway, which was strange since there wasn't anything in the hall that would cast a blue light.
I finished cleaning my teeth turned around to head into the hall when I realised that the blue light had seemed to have gotten brighter, which was weird. As I entered the hallway I realised that the light was coming from the living room and frowned since I was sure I had turned off the TV before I left the room and made my way back to it. The first thing I saw when I entered the room was the TV, which was off and glanced to my left to see where the light was coming from and froze when I saw that it was coming from the statue's eyes.
"What the hell…?" I muttered as I slowly walked over to the table and bent over to take a look at the statue, sure enough it's eyes were glowing and whatever the swirling thing inside was, it looked to be the source of the light. As I watched in fascination the statue started to vibrate and bounce slightly on the table as the light seemed to flicker and get brighter. I watched on as the glass container started to crack and cursed under my breath when I realised it was about to break and quickly ducked under the table to avoid the glass when it exploded.
I crawled out from under the table to see that the light was now even brighter than it had been a second ago and decided that running would probably be for the best. I sprinted over to the table and grabbed by phone and my closest coat and put it on as I ran for the door, however just before I reached it I heard a loud crack and turned around in time to see the statue itself crack then shattered and froze in horror as whatever caused the light seemed to expand like an explosion in almost the blink of an eye and envelop me, and then there was nothing.