Whether it was due to the nasty violation of undiscovered and unexplained laws of spacetime physics by any uncontrollable cosmic variables, or it was because of the incomprehensible fate given by the Higher Powers in the universe, he did not know. He could not figured out of where he was or how did he get here in the first place.
Three minutes ago, the Awakened Collector, who knew himself as Atala but known to his teammates as "Buggy", was fighting alongside his multiracial organic and synthetic special forces team against a company-sized Reaper ground troops within a 390 meter tall office building, specifically within the building's 57th floor, in the city known as Nagano, located in the island nation called Japan at planet Earth, the homeworld of the allied human race.
Their mission in Nagano was to buy the local Resistance Force the time they need to gather extremely valuable intel from a dead Reaper Destroyer, which was destroyed earlier by the Resistance.
Everyone who had participated in the mission, including the Systems Alliance frigate SSV Red Cliffs that provided transportation for the team, expected it would be another simple hit-and-run strikes and last for a day, just like any other N7 operations the Citadel Allied Command sent to them.
In contrast, it became a brutal fight for survival against unexpectedly smart and increasingly competent Reaper troops with their highly coordinated attacks.
That, along with the mission suddenly lasted for a full week instead a day. Worse, the team's frigate was shot down by dozens of Reaper Oculi and crashed somewhere in a mountain valley near the city of Kōfu in the third day when it was giving close air support for the team.
At the seventh day of the operation, the team faced significantly heavy and repeated Reaper infantry attacks, which tested both mental and physical fortitude of the team's organic members.
Coincidentally, it was also the day during the entire Allied Fleets were engaging the Reaper Fleet guarding the planet Earth. And at the same where a major ground battle was occurring between the Allied Hammer ground forces and the Reaper army in London, located at the other side of the planet.
Everyone on the ground and in space were fighting hard for their very lives as they placed their faith on the Crucible superweapon to destroy the Reapers and end the cycle of extinction.
For once and for all.
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"Ya Allah! Hey, I need medi-gel here! Anybody!"
A male human Alliance soldier was shouting for any of his teammate that could hear his voice in the midst of a loud and intense gunfight between the relentless Reaper hordes and a truly stubborn Allied Special Forces team that consisted of two human Alliance Soldiers, one N7 Demolisher Engineer, an asari Justicar Vanguard, a turian Armiger Legion Engineer, a batarian Enforcer Soldier, one geth Hunter Infiltrator, and last but not least, the most bizarre of them all: an Awakened Collector Adept.
The Alliance soldier was doing his best to keep the turian engineer lying on the floor from suffering severe blood loss as he keep pressing both of his hands at a gunshot wound in the abdomen that the turian received earlier by a Cannibal. Both the human and the turian had used up all of their medi-gel supplies at the wounded civilians that both them and the Awakened Collector had encountered earlier in a bunker when the entire team was completely separated by a well-crafted Reaper ambush and a building rigged with explosives, which the Reaper troops detonated to sent it crashing down on them, despite the enemies ultimately had missed their targets.
The male batarian soldier, who had just gave a Cannibal before him a headshot with his Kishock Harpoon Gun, heard the human soldier's call for aid. He quickly abandoned his personal defensive position which was a flipped over office table and made a dash towards the injured turian's side, who was lying on the floor.
The batarian looked directly at the human soldier kneeling beside the turian. "Mousavi, where are your medi-gels?"
"Me and Stanyx used them all to the injured civvies we ran into before meeting you guys here!" The male human soldier continued to apply more pressure to the gunshot wound of his turian teammate named Stanyx with his both hands without even bother to move his face towards the batarian as more blood were gushing out from the turian's injury.
"You did what!? Ah, fuck it!" The batarian hastily activated his omni-tool at his right arm and applied his medi-gel to the turian engineer's wound, where it immediately worked its magic to seal the serious injury. Both the batarian and the human carefully lifted the wounded turian from the floor, placed the engineer's arms around their shoulders and moved him behind the upturned office desks the team had set up earlier.
"Eat this, you bastards!" The female N7 Demolisher rose from behind her cover and launched her homing grenade from her specialized omni-tool on her right arm to a group of seven husks charging towards the team's position from the opposite end of the office floor.
The seeking grenade instantly tracked down a target in the middle of the group while in mid-air. The moment after the grenade made contact with the target, it caused a massive explosion that blew the targeted husk apart and the other surrounding husks in the group thrown away by the blast.
However, behind the location of the charred remains of the husks, a group of seven Cannibals came out from the emergency fire exit door, the same place where the last group of husks came earlier. In fact, all of the Reaper troops the team had killed previously came through that same door.
The asari Justicar Vanguard behind the flipped office desk quickly unleashed a biotic shockwave to the Cannibal group that sent them into the air before they fell to the floor, while being enveloped by the biotic residues of the shockwave that glowed in purple.
This gave the Awakened Collector Adept, who was covering behind a cupboard lying on the floor, a chance to launch a biotic warp to the Cannibals that tried to rise up from the earlier biotic shockwave. The combination of negatively charged biotic residues on the Cannibals, and the positively charged biotic warp used by Atala resulted in a huge biotic explosion that ripped the fleshes off from their synthetic bodies, and throwing them dead across the floor.
Nevertheless, one Cannibal survived the explosion and it began to rise up to continue attacking the team, only it received a coup de grâce in the head which came from a geth plasma shotgun, where it fired a single shot from a distance by the geth Hunter Infiltrator known by the rest as "Vertex" from behind the cover.
"Last Cannibal eliminated," it stated with its usual emotionless electronic tone while staring at the batarian husk's headless body.
"Ah shit. That was just the third wave." A tired female human Alliance Soldier with stood up behind her own overturned office desk while she ejected a spent thermal clip from her M-76 Revenant light machine gun. "More of them will come here soon, you know?" She stated directly to the asari justicar that stood a few feet from her.
"Yep, Dlamini's right. There are thousands of these husks flooding outside of the building below." The batarian soldier stood carefully at the edge of the glass-less window as he moved his head outside of the building and look downward to the ground.
He saw thousands of different variations of husks that almost looked like small shapeshifting dots gathering outside of the building's main entrance. The same building the team was occupying currently.
"And that's exactly what we want, Jeshar," the asari justicar replied as she continued to put several thermal clips into her Disciple shotgun. "We will give these Reaper troops a really good taste of their own medicine."
Everybody in the team knew exactly what she meant and they were pissed off by it. After they had battled their way through the streets of Nagano to lure the Reaper troops onto them while giving the Resistance more time to extract data from a dead Reaper Destroyer, an 8-storey building was intentionally exploded and crashed nearly onto them by Reaper forces.
Even though all of them managed to avoid from being flattened, the collapse of the building also divided the team into two; the Awakened Collector known as Atala while that the rest called him as "Buggy" quickly grabbed both Mousavi and Stanyx in a nick of time and brought them away from the collapsing building using a biotic charge.
After they were separated, Reaper troops began attacking them from the windows of nearby buildings but both separate teams eventually survived the ambushes and finished off the attackers.
After she had finished reloading, the asari pushed a button on the right side of the shotgun and the weapon produced a distinctive whine sound effect. "Basilio, are you sure that both you and Stanyx had rigged the entire 1st floor?" She shifted her gaze to the human N7 Demolisher standing beside her.
The N7 Demolisher casually gave the asari justicar a thumbs-up. "Don't worry, Seiren. Both of us, along with Vertex and Buggy, had placed the explosives at the floor's strategic structures and carefully hid them from being discovered."
She then activated her omni-tool to actuate the supply pylon she set up earlier behind the team's barricades to generate ammo and grenades for each of the teammates. The last wave had caused them to nearly depleted of their ammunition.
But in the case of Atala, he did not need thermal clips as his unique Prothean and Collector weapons were using traditional heat sinking method. The only thing he was concerned about was to restock the frag grenades he ran out currently.
"Good. Since Stanyx is seriously injured, you'll be the one taking care of detonate them." Seiren then placed her sight towards the Awakened Collector. "Buggy. Since you're the only one in the team who can fly, I need you to go prepare our extraction plan. Now."
The Awakened Collector Atala or "Buggy" nodded and quickly walked in a fast pace to the glass-less window. He then spread his synthetic hindwings, grabbed a rope where its end was knotted tightly to a large steel screw hook and quickly jumped off the office building. The moment he was in mid-air, Atala's wings instantly beat at a rapid rate and flied off to the adjacent tall building across the street, particularly to the building's 49th floor.
After landed at the 49th floor through the glass-less windows, the Awakened Collector thrust the hook's sharp end to the concrete floor, but only 1/3 of the hook's length was embedded into the floor. Atala stomped the hook in order to bury it further and the hook was fixed firmly into the floor. He then applied omni-gel around the hook so that it would not easily come off.
After it was done, Atala flied back to the office building and arrived at the 57th floor, where he found the other end of the rope was wound around a metal poll that was recently placed by Vertex, the geth Hunter Infiltrator, who was holding the rope's end.
Damn synthetic, why can't they call this thing "Rustbucket" or some shit, Atala thought.
The Awakened Collector gave the geth hunter before him a nod and a trill, which Vertex logically took them as: "The hook is secured. Taut the rope now."
"Affirmative, Buggy-Collector." Vertex pulled the rope and it became stretched tight, which the geth quickly tied the cord's end into a tight knot on the metal poll. "Extraction plan is prepared, Seiren-Justicar."
The team's extraction plan was actually to zipline themselves to the adjacent building located just 60 meters across the street and once everyone was in the safe place, they would immediately blow the office building they came from in order to bury and kill thousands of husks under the heavy debris. In case of the Awakened Collector, however, he just have to fly away to the extraction point.
"Well done," Seiren nodded in satisfaction. She then turned her attention towards the human N7 Demolisher. "Basilio. Deploy a few of your "suicide drones". Armed them with high-explosive mods and place them near the fire exit door," she ordered.
"Got it, ma'am." Basilio activated her omni-tool to create five red-colored, omni-gel-based holographic drones which were called either as "suicide drones" or "kamikaze drones", where their role, as the names obviously suggested, was to move slowly or fast, and seek out targets, usually at their last known position. When a target entered its detection range, the drones would kamikaze towards its target, dealing heavy damage.
The kamikaze drones she deployed could be armed with different mods such as high-explosive, overload, warp, cryo, incineration or acid.
After the kamikaze drones were in place in front of the fire exit, and half of the team were standing near the glass-less window and the taut rope with their hooks prepared in their hands, with the exception of Atala, all teammates and the rest of Allied Forces on Earth and in the planet's orbit suddenly received a confirmation from their radio that the Crucible was successfully docked with the Citadel, minutes after someone had been reported to had made it to the Conduit located in the center of London in order to open the Citadel's closed arms.
"Hey Stanyx. Can you walk, man?" The human soldier Mousavi stooped beside the turian engineer who was siting and recuperating behind the flipped office desk.
"Ugh," Stanyx groaned in pain behind his fully sealed helmet. "Those Reapers gonna need more than a shot in my belly to took me down," he pointed out. "Walk? Yes. Run? Shit, with a wound like this and the pain it'll make... Not a chance, buddy." The turian outstretched his right arm upward to Mousavi to help him stand up.
Stanyx' hand was grabbed, but instead of Mousavi, who was just about to extend his right arm, it was Atala the Awakened Collector that grabbed Stanyx' hand, which surprised both the turian and the human a bit. Stanyx was then lifted from the floor and walked lamely to the taut rope after both he and Mousavi gave the Awakened Collector a nod of appreciation.
"Right. I'll go first and secure the extraction point." The human soldier Dlamini placed her hook onto the rope, with a carbon nanotube wire was tied from her utility belt to the hook she held on firmly.
"I'll see you guys at the side." Dlamini then ran out of the building through the open window and made a zipline through the air towards the adjacent building before her. The female human reached the open window and landed her feet on the floor, inside the building's 49th floor.
She released the hook, untied the wire from her belt, quickly pulled out her M-76 Revenant LMG and went to check the surrounding empty floor. "Dlamini has landed. Extraction point is secured. No signs of hostiles here," she contacted Seiren via her helmet's personal communicator.
"Copy that." The asari Justicar put down her left index finger from the headset in her left ear and faced the batarian that stood at her left side. "Jeshar, you're next."
As the batarian soldier readied his hook on the rope, the N7 Demolisher's omni-tool began to beeping loudly and she quickly raised her right arm to take a look at it. At the same time, all five of her kamikaze drones suddenly entered swiftly into the fire exit.
"Ah fuck," Basilio cursed as she looked at the fire exit. A few seconds later, powerful explosions that came from within the fire exit stairs shook the entire floor the team was standing on, which caused them to nearly stumbled to the floor. "Damn! Those bastards are climbing the stairs faster than we thought!"
"And that means we need to move fast, damn it!" Jeshar growled hurriedly. He immediately ran out of the window and made a zipline to the building across the street.
"Goddess damn them!" Seiren gritted her teeth in frustration as Reaper troops were heading towards 57th floor faster than everyone had expected. "Mousavi! Stanyx! You guys are next! Go!"
"No need to tell us twice, ma'am!" Mousavi exclaimed. Both the human soldier and the turian engineer quickly hooked up to the rope and ran out to the window one after the other.
After she saw both men were in mid-air while ziplining to the adjacent building, Seiren turned her gaze to the N7 Demolisher. "Basilio! You're-"
"I get it!" Without any delay, Basilio hooked up to the rope and made a dash towards the open window. "Jesus! I really hate this kind of shiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-!" The human N7 Demolisher continued to curse loudly along the zipline in mid-air until she reached the 49th floor of the building.
After Basilio had made it, now it was the asari's turn. She placed her hook to rope then turned her sight to the Awakened Collector standing on the right side of her. "Okay, Buggy. You're ready?." Her response from the Awakened Collector was his hindwings that were immediately extended from his back and his nod. "Alright. Let's-"
Without finishing her words, a Marauder suddenly came out from the fire exit and fired a sustained automatic burst with its Phaeston assault rifle at Atala's back until his biotic barriers were depleted. Once they were depleted, several of the Marauder's rounds pierced through at Atala's hard chitinous back and hindwings that caused him to trilled loudly in great pain. The Marauder's attack left him severely wounded and his hindwings full of holes.
The moment the Awakened Collector knelt on the floor in serious pain, Seiren instantaneously unholstered her Acolyte heavy pistol and fired a single advanced projectile at the Marauder's right shoulder. Once the Acolyte's resonant warp bomb-like projectile made contact with the turian husk's kinetic shields, it triggered a detonation so strong that the blast it created sent the Marauder smacked to the wall behind him, where the impact instantly broke its skull and severely damaged its brain, killing it immediately.
As Atala was about to stand up, he saw Seiren holstered her pistol back to her left waist and extended her right arm to the kneeling Awakened Collector. He even saw her very fearful and worried expression etched on the asari's face. "Buggy! Grab my hand!"
When Atala's right hand was reaching to the asari's, a Cannibal came out from the fire exit and fired a short burst of high caliber rounds at the asari. Several slugs bounced and weakened Seiren's biotic barriers rapidly until it became depleted, leaving her completely exposed as the final slug hit the justicar in the exposed right side part of her stomach. The Cannibal's heavy caliber slug hit right at her "soft" ballistic bodysuit instead the light armor's abdominal piece.
"Arrgh!" Seiren screamed in agony as she was shot in the stomach by the Cannibal.
The Awakened Collector turned his head to the left, where once his three left eyes saw the Cannibal located far behind his left, Atala's left arm was shrouded with green biotic aura and immediately stretched it out towards the batarian husk behind him.
He then fired a biotic flare to the Cannibal, which unleashed a huge, bright green explosion that threw it away and simultaneously shredded the fleshes of the Cannibal within its range, causing massive damage to the batarian husk and killed it.
Atala turned his attention to the asari Justicar in front of him. He could see purple blood flowing down on her light armor's abdominal piece from the bullet wound she sustained. The Awakened Collector knew Seiren was suffering an agonizing pain just by looking at her facial expression; every inch of muscle in her face became strained, her eyes were shut tightly with tears escaped from them and her teeth were gritting firmly.
Seiren quickly activated her omni-tool on her left arm to put medi-gel on her wound, sealing it completely and prevent more blood from further flowing out.
After Atala finally stood up on his two feet, he unexpectedly heard loud howls and growls that were unique to husks which came from the fire exit. The Awakened Collector expected that plenty of husks would come out from the fire exit door and they would completely overwhelm them if both of them did not start to escape quickly.
He saw that Seiren still had her hook hanging onto the rope and she held it with her right hand. With several husks now emerged from the fire exit and started to charge towards both of them, without thinking twice, Atala biotically pushed Seiren out of the window and let gravity did the rest.
He was then immediately pounced by two husks from behind and they pushed him along with themselves off from the open window, which caused Atala and the two husks to fall towards the ground. Atala swore in his mind he that could clearly hear the asari shouted his nickname loudly as he fell.
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As they fell towards the sidewalk below, Atala managed to killed both husks by using his organic blade; he sunk his blade into a husk's head while beheaded the other one in mid-air. The Awakened Collector could not fly up to meet up with rest of his team, or in order to land safely on the ground as his wings were severely damaged by the Marauder's Phaeston assault rifle. He would ended up splat and die upon hitting the hard surface.
However, as he was falling, he saw a 5-storey building located across the road of the tall building. That instantly gave Awakened Collector an idea: he would use the biotic charge to propel himself to the roof of the small building and land on it safely upon reaching the 10th floor from the ground.
While he prepared to use the biotic charge, a wall of blue-colored energy pulse as tall as the sky itself was heading towards the city from the east at high speed. By the time Atala reached the 10th floor, he biotically charged towards the small building. At the same time, the 1st floor of the office building behind him suddenly exploded. The blast weakens the tall structure's critical supports to the point that it could no longer withstand the force of gravity and the building began to collapse under its own weight.
In a brief moment of time, as the Awakened Collector traveled in mid-air in a mass-free "corridor", the energy pulse hit him and disrupted his surrounding natural mass effect fields, which had caused Atala's biotics to become dampened and the Earth's force of gravity began to pulled him again to the surface straight downward, instead of diagonal. But as he fell, Atala instantly noticed something was not right after the energy pulse had passed through him.
Earlier, he saw only but dark clouds during daytime, heavily broken roads, damaged buildings, debris, wrecked skycars and fires of different sizes littered the streets. But after the pulse passed through him, however, he saw trees. Green trees. And that was not all, as his peripheral vision caught something very bizarre.
The sky he saw was not daylight. It was...
Night...
...under the bright moonlight.
Author's Note:
The Awakened Collector's name, Atala, means "Resolute" in Gujerati language in India. Similar how the name Javik, the Prothean squadmate in ME3, is translated from Hindi language as "Biological" or "Organic".
Also, I may need someone who is an expert in Touhou and its Spell Card System to PM with in FanFiction. That, along with a guy/girl who is an expert in Mass Effect and its biotics.
Constructive reviews are welcomed, while the flaming, negative-toned ones will be deleted on sight. Just so you know.
