Island of Azura, Sera. 16 A.E.
As Marcus sat at the beach with Anya, he tried to be at peace. But seeing the demise of his bestfriend and his father in front of him so that he can live, he only felt guilt and sadness.
"Anya, I want to be alone.", he said.
Anya understood. She got up walked back to the celebrating Gears. Marcus, still mourning, decided to go to the Imulsion Countermeasure Weapon, at the spot where his father died. He walked up the tower and found Baird tinkering with the device.
"Hey, Baird. What the hell are you doing here? Shouldn't you be back with the rest of the COGs to celebrate?". "Hey, a scientist as brilliant as me celebrates by studying this thing. I want to know how it works.", Baird replied.
"What are you doing here anyway?", said Baird.
Marcus sighed and just looked at his father's ashes on the ground. "Just wanted to say goodbye to him. Never said goodbye to him since E-day". Baird thought it would be best to leave Marcus and carried on with his tinkering. He pressed a button and a door opened leading inside the device. Being a brilliant scientist that he is, Baird did not hesitate to enter. Inside, he found a computer with a video file and he decided to watch it.
(As you watch this, you are either Human or Locust. Whatever you are, it does not matter. The lambent and immulsion is killing this planet. This device that I created may be the only hope to save your species by destroying the lambent and the imulsion or to locate you to another place in case the destruction of the lambent and imulsion fails.) then the video stopped playing.
Baird just stood there thinking, 'What does he mean by 'Locate'?'. He pondered for a long time and got startled when Marcus approached holding his father's ashes in his bandana. "Baird, what the fuck are you doing? I thought you were speaking with someone", he said.
"Yes, Marcus. I am speaking with someone. His name is Mr. Invisible. Bullshit aside, I found a video log of your father. He said something about this device being able to locate us in case this thing fails to destroy the glowies. You know, Marcus. I'm wondering how this thing is still operational since, you know, we destroyed all the imulsion?". Baird then tried to find the power source and found that there's still imulsion inside powering the machine. He opened up the container and there was an alarm.
"ALERT. ALERT. Imulsion Detected."
The entrance of the machine shut tight and began rumbling. "What the fuck did you do, Baird!?", Marcus yelled. Baird just stayed silent for he knew that he made a mistake and what was going to happen. As everything around them started to glow blue, Marcus took and revved up Baird's chainsaw-bayonet and tried to cut the entrance open.
The Gears who were celebrating saw a light shot out into the sky.
Omega 2181
Tarkus, one of Aria T'loak's lieutenants, was a very bored turian guarding a large cargo of weapons with his squad. Marlak, his batarian right-hand, was pestering him about taking some of the guns so they can sell it themselves for profit. "If you want to piss off Aria, do it yourself. She hates traitors more than the Purgatorium at the Citadel.", Tarkus told Marlak.
Tarkus knew that if he did what Marlak wanted, only he would suffer Aria's wrath with Marlak taking his place as the team's captain. They were going to meet the Blood Pack and sell the weapons for Aria. He and his team saw the Blood Pack approaching and cautiously brought the cargo to them. "These guns better be worth the credit.", warned Gnar, a Krogan Warlord and the Blood Pack's leader.
Tarkus opened up the container and took out a claymore shotgun and an executioner pistol then showed it to Gnar. "These are the guns that you ordered along with 30 revenants, 120 scimitars and 180 vindicators along with 50 Graal Spike Throwers.", Tarkus explained.
Gnar and his Krogan companions examined the weapons (particularly the shotguns) until they were satisfied. "Good. These weapons pack a hell of a punch especially the scimitars for my Krogan mercs.", Gnar told Tarkus. "You can go the hell away now", he added. "What about your payment?", Tarkus said, he knew what was about to happen so he signalled his team to ready their weapons. Gnar laughed and shot Tarkus with the claymore he was holding. The claymore's pellets immediately destroyed Tarkus's shields.
Tarkus, a veteran of the Terminus Systems, quickly jumped behind the cargo crater's cover and threw a homing grenade at Gnar. Gnar went stumbled from the explosion and roared for his Krogan and Vorcha to engage Tarkus's men. Tarkus's team consisting 11 turians and 9 batarians were outnumbered and are no match to the vorcha, krogan and varrens of the Blood Pack. As the battle raged with the turians overheating/sabotaging their enemies' new weapons to delay them and hope for backup to arrive, an explosion of blue engulfed the area.
Marcus still trying to saw his way out of the device found himself and Baird in a weird place in front of bird-like beings and humanoid beings with four eyes in a gun fight against small grubs and creatures that looked like small brumaks. "Well, shit." He heard Baird say as both of them took cover. "Where are we? And more importantly, what the hell are those things?", Marcus asked Baird. "I don't know, but they dont look like grubs to me except for those things that look like tickers with legs", he replied.
One of those brumak things saw them and charged towards them, raising his weapon to fire. Marcus hit the creature's gun aside with his gnasher shotgun before the shot went off and then he fired at the creature's face. He was surprised when a blue spark went off and the brumak was unharmed. He fired again and the same thing happened. The brumak bellowed a laughter and then tried to bull rush Marcus. Marcus, used to the charging techniques of the grubs, stood his ground and they were both locked in place: Marcus engaged the brumak in a battle of strength.
Tarkus was surprised when he saw that a human can match the strength of a krogan and that he won't budge even though he received a krogan charge. He was even more surprised when the human then heaved and lifted the krogan off his feet and threw him in front of his blonde friend who proceeded to split the krogan's head using a chainsaw on a gun. Both of them then charge towards the bloodpack with the black-haired human's shotgun ripping apart the vorchas and krogans (whose shields were overloaded by the turians), while the blonde one was firing his automatic weapon to kill the unshielded vorchas. The bullets of the weird assault rifle riddled the vorchas, tearing it limb from limb. He saw both of the humans' brutality and ferocity as they both destroyed the remaining vorchas with their fists. The vorcha's weapons were non-functional as they are overheated from the turians' sabotage. They tried to defend themselves using their speed and their omni-blade claws, but they were either gunned down or get their heads crushed by massive fists. As the fight went on, only the shielded krogans remained and they were slaughtering Tarkus's men.
All the batarians are dead and only 4 turians including Tarkus were alive thanks to Turian discipline and military training. They all focused fire on one of the three Krogans, but it killed another turian before it went down. Gnar blasted and destroyed the turians' cover using a carnage sending the turians flying and wounded. Gnar, slowly walked toward Tarkus to finish him of with the executioner pistol when he heard a roar of an engine and looked behind to see his remaining krogan merc get split by a chainsaw. He fired aimed his pistol at the human's unarmored arm and then fired. The power of his pistol blew off the arm, and with a cry, the human went down.
Marcus saw what happened to Baird and he tried to unload all of his shotgun's remaining bullets on the, what it looked like, leader brumak's face, but like earlier, it had the same effect: the bullets hitting the brumak causing blue sparks and the brumak unharmed. His shotgun was now empty and he pulled out his boltok pistol and fired at the advancing brumak, but with the same ineffectiveness. The brumak stopped, raised its weapon and was about to fire when one of the bird-like creature pointed his glowing arm/talon sending a bolt of electrity, stunning the brumak. Marcus saw his chance and tackled the stunned brumak and snatching his weapon away from him. Marcus knew how to operate the gun as he saw how the brumak used it earlier. He pointed the claymore at the brumak's right arm and fired. The brumak roared in pain. Marcus wanted to punch the brumak to death, but he remembered that Baird was bleeding severely so he just blew of the brumak's head off.
He then jogged to Baird to see if he was still okay. Baird couldn't say anything. He just stared at the ceiling as he was in a state of shock and he was losing consciousness and his life. "At least you stopped talking now", Marcus joked as he applied his father's ashes on Baird's arm to try and stop the bleeding. He heard someone approaching so he looked behind and saw the man-bird holding its hands... err.. talons up. The man-bird pointed at Baird and made a gesture that made a "Me help him" impression to Marcus.
Marcus lowered his new gun and let the man-bird help Baird. The man-bird applied some kind of gel on Baird's bleeding, armless right shoulder and the wound slowly, but visibly started to mend itself. Marcus sighed in relief knowing that his friend will be fine, but still wondered why are they here. He looked at the man-bird and said, "I don't know if you can understand me, but thank you for helping my friend." Of course, Marcus spoke english so it was translated by Tarkus's translator.
Tarkus replied, "Of course I understand you, human. I should also thank you for assisting us with these Blood Packs". Marcus, not having a translator, had no idea what the man-bird said. He shook his head and said, "I don't understand you." Tarkus realized what the problem was and took an omni-tool from the corpse of a fallen comrade and handed it to Marcus. The human only gave him a confused look so Tarkus showed him how to put on the omni-tool. "Do you understand me now?", Tarkus asked. Marcus having the translator installed was surprised that he can understand now the man-bird. "Yes, I can. I am Sgt. Marcus Fenix. Who and what are you?". Tarkus was unsure of how to respond to that question because a human is asking what a turian was in Omega, but he just played along. "My name is Tarkus Ironus, and I am a turian."
"A 'turian'?", Marcus replied. "Whatever. Thank you for helping me with that ugly fuck a while ago. I want to ask some more questions like "where the fuck are we", but I have to take care of my friend here", Marcus said as he looked back to Baird, still unconscious. "He will be fine for now, but I think he may have lost a lot of blood. We have to wait for my backup to pick us up and our cargo and I will have him taken care of as a thank you for helping us kill those Blood Pack bastards and saving me from Aria's punishment. So, Marcus, is it? Our names are quite similar. You can ask me questions while we wait for my friends." Tarkus said, trying to be friendly. They had a chat for 15 minutes with Tarkus answering Marcus's questions and then shuttles arrived. "Our ride is here. I will talk to you again later. For now, we should go back to Afterlife and report to my boss." Tarkus said.
When they arrived at Afterlife, Marcus was surprised that Tarkus was not lying about different species. He even saw other humans. "You, human. Follow me." ordered a Batarian. "Where is Baird?", Marcus asked. "Your friend is fine. He's in a clinic getting taken care of. For now, follow me." Marcus followed the batarian and they entered a bar filled with those blue chicks. They climbed up a terrace and Marcus saw Tarkus (at least it looked like Tarkus) talking to a blue chick with tatoos on her face.
Tarkus made way and the blue chick gestured for Marcus to sit on the sofa. After Marcus sat down, the blue chick asked, "So, you're the one that Tarkus is telling me about. I saw on his omni-tool footage how you brutalized those Blood Packs. Couldn't have done it better myself", she laughed. "And you also said that you were from a planet named "Sera", there's no planet in the Terminus nor Citadel Space with such a name." She explained. "Who are you?", Marcus asked. "I am Aria and in this place, I am the law.", she said with a voice full of authority. "I am impressed with your efficiency in eliminating those Blood Packs without having any armor or shields. And chainsaw on rifles? That's something you don't see every century."
"Yeah. And I just fought a horde of grubs and glowies a few minutes before that", he replied, sternly.
"Really, now? And what are these "grubs" and "glowies"? asked Aria. Marcus, tired of explaining things, tired of acting friendly to these weird people, and just literally tired from all the fighting said, "Look, Princess. I just ended a war a few minutes ago and I almost lost my friend when I arrived here. I want to see if he's okay, and to also get some rest." Aria laughed. "My, my. I will let that insolence pass this time since you saved me millions of credits from Gnar and his Blood Pack. Tarkus, bring this man to his friend and then one of our apartments so he can rest. I want him to report back to me once he's rested." Tarkus led Marcus out of afterlife and ordered one of his human subordinates to take Marcus to Baird.
When they reached the crowded clinic, Marcus tried his best to ignore the "aliens" staring at him and walked straight to Baird's room. "Hey, Marcus. I guess I fucked up, huh?", Said Baird whose missing an arm. "Messing with the Doctor's device and sending us to this place filled with grub-looking aliens".
"So, you already know. I guess they gave you this "codex" too?, Marcus asked. "Yes. And judging based on the information here, if it's true, the Doctor's device either sent us to a faraway place, far away from Sera, or killed us both and we are now in heaven or hell", he said in a low tone.
"What the fuck are you talking about? There are humans here. Maybe it sent us on one of the other planets near Sera.", Marcus said. "Yeah. We're sent on another planet on Sera's system with aliens and humans who could have contacted us and helped us against the grubs." Baird replied in a sarcastic tone.
"I read the codex and asked the doctors if they know what and where "Sera" is. None of them know what Sera is, not even the humans, unless they're lying. They said that there's no human planet by the name of "Sera".
"Yep. You fucked up. By the way, how are you feeling?", Marcus said. "Still a bit dizzy, and it's weird not having a right arm. I always wondered what the grubs felt when I saw theirs off. The doctors said someone paid them to replace my arm with a prosthetic one. Their technology here is amazing. Prosthetic body parts, the "medi-gel", these "omni-tools", and those drones that are much more advanced than J.A.C.K. Once I get out of here, I'm going to study their technology. It might help those dumbasses when we get back to Sera- if we get back to Sera..", Baird said excitedly. The door suddenly slid open and entered a frog alien which the codex referred to as a "Salarian". "Hello Doctor Mordin." Baird groaned. "Want to take another stool sample?", he added.
"Sorry to interrupt. Patient needs rest. Needs lots of it to let the new blood flow in his body. Also, need to study him. Physique similar to human, but muscle mass, bone thickness and heart size twice the size of humans of your height. Intriguing." The Salarian said very quickly.
"Yeah. You should get your little boy's rest and we will figure out the rest of this fuckery later. I'll be back tomorrow." Marcus said not wanting to here both Baird's and the doctor's blabbering. He left the clinic and followed Chuck, one of Tarkus's men, to an apartment. Upon entering, Marcus whistled because the apartment looked as luxurious as the hotel from Azura. "Wow. That Aria chick takes care of her men like a mother." he told Chuck.
"Nah. Most of us, the grunts, stay at the shit-hole of a barracks. Aria's apartments are for the team captains and her lieutenants.", Chuck explained. Marcus realized what he was saying and swiftly replied "Wait, I'm not one of Aria's men. Why did you lead me here?".
"Just following orders.", Chuck said. "Maybe Aria likes you since you're the biggest and buffest human I've ever seen. I saw on the video how you overpowered those Krogans. I wish I could've been there to see it in person." he continued and then left Marcus. The leader of Delta Squad looked around checked out the apartment and was very impressed on how luxurious it was. The beds, the lighting, the food, the things that Cole blabbered to them whenever he and Baird bickered about which thrashball team was the best. Marcus took off his gauntlets and fell asleep on the bed.
New to fanfiction. Really open to feedback. thanks.
