General Alarm Protocol 6.9.02
Initiating boot sequence...
Primary processes online.
*IFF code verification*
*Hostiles Detected*
*Initiating Combat Protocol*
Secondary priority processes starting up in parallel...
I wake up to the familiar sound of gunfire, and the marginally less familiar close up sight of brains messily splattered on a window.
"Damn. I hope those aren't mine."
I must regrettably say that my very first thought in my new life is a selfishly callous one.
Suddenly the view in front of me expands, and I see a headless body dressed in an unfamiliar uniform slowly slump against the lower wall. I would examine him more closely, but I feel a few bullets ricochet off of my barriers and turn right instead. A man with a frightened expression aims a heavy pistol at me and rapidly pulls the trigger, seemingly unaware that his heat clip is already taxed to capacity.
"Wait!" I say, lowering my gun, hoping to ask him some questions. Or at least, that's what I try to do. What happens instead is a dozen high caliber rounds from my right impact his lightly armored body unhindered. His body jerks around in a grotesque dance as it flies backward from the momentum of the bullets.
Instinctively I try to move as soon as I hear the shots, to get some cover behind the corridor's corner against the unknown shooter, but my body refuses to respond.
*clomp* *clomp*
Instead my view advances straight down the long metal corridor with a slow and steady gait.
I'm right in the open; I need to get to cover! I struggle desperately to turn. But nothing happens, and I continue to advance. Although I am clearly visible, no further shots come.
Wait a second.
...
Was it me who fired those shots? They came from where my arm should be...I try to look, but I find myself unable to even turn my head.
...
What the hell is this?
Is this hell? My very own personal hell?
Maybe.
Come to think of it, I distinctly remember a rather fatal incident involving a unknown ship and a unholy beam of death.
I mean, I know I may be Commander Shepard, Savior of the Citadel, Destroyer of Synthetics, Proponent of Child Immunization, and all around generally incredible guy, but there is a limit to my survivability. A rapidly depressurizing suit in orbit in front of an already depressurized ship...my ship...our ship...that would probably just about do the trick.
My very last sight before I died was a lot of escape pods already twinkling in the distance among the stars...I guess that wasn't too bad. And there's the fact that I always did want to be buried in space. You never know, maybe I'd be recovered someday when a future civilization scans the system. "Human Data Disc Recovered." No, "Patriarch Shepard's Writings Found!" Heh.
*Thoom!*
My thoughts are interrupted by an explosion from my left through an open doorway. I can't even turn, but I can still see the results, as a single hand lands on the ground in front of me.
*clomp* *clomp* *crunch*
This must be hell...I can't imagine heaven would involve me not in control of my body, shooting helpless men and women. Maybe they weren't innocent men and women, maybe this was some twisted form of justice, I certainly don't know but...I still know this can't be right.
I always did try to do what was right when I was alive but...I will admit it got pretty unclear sometimes. I did do the right things didn't I?
Saving those colonists on Feros, letting the Rachni queen go, saving the council...No, those were definitely right.
Come to think of it, maybe that second one was a mistake. Udina angrily accused me of salving my own conscience at the eventual expense of human lives. Was that the reason I let her go? Just for myself, so I would be able to sleep at the end of the day?
No. That was the right decision. I know it was. It had to be. Udina can go piss on a live wire for all I care.
Maybe it was because I left Kaidan back on Virmire...I sometimes still think I could have saved him.
Everyone tried to convince me otherwise after Virmire, but to be honest...I really think I could have. If I had sent Wrex and Garrus to help Alenko while Liara and Tali helped me take down Saren...
Or maybe Wrex and Garrus would have joined him in death instead. To be honest, I never did get along all that great with Alenko, and that's the part that makes me feel the worst, that makes me wonder about it so much...Would I have done more if it was someone else? If it were someone like...
Tch. I thought I had dealt with that already, but stray guilty thoughts are just like stray cats; very hard to keep away, and very easy to accidentally feed.
*clomp* *clomp*
This would be a rather well designed hell for me I muse as I continue forward.
Lacking the extraordinary self control I had always been proud of, killing in a way I had always refused to do when I was alive, even despite the enormous temptation at time...
A man runs out in front of me in the T section ahead, narrowly avoiding gunfire from behind him. His eyes widen in fear. He knows he can't escape, that he has only a few seconds to live.
He turns and bangs on the window behind him.
"Help me! Somebody." He cries. Behind the window, I see several other men and women in the same uniform, fleeing for their lives. But his cries are unheard, as they too scream as they are cut down in a hail of gunfire from sources I cannot see.
He sinks to his knees sobbing...
A rocket this time. I want to close my eyes but I can't.
Yet another body hits the ground...in more pieces than the last.
Goddammit.
I really don't think I'll be able to take this for much longer with my sanity intact. It's not the bodies, God knows I've seen much more gruesome ones in much larger numbers but...
Suddenly, above his body, bullets fly, and after a brief exchange during which I never slow my advance towards the intersection, the gunfire from the right subsides.
I turn left at the corner.
"Commander Shepard."
A voice inside my head? Probably not heard from this hellish corridor.
A frightened pair suddenly stop in their forward rush, backing away slowly as they futilely raise their pistols towards me.
"Commander Shepard."
"Help me!" I cry voicelessly inside my uncontrollable shell.
The man's head is taken off in a spray of fire from my right weapon as it tracks from the upper right to the lower left. The woman stumbles as the high speed masses tear through her abdomen and shoulder.
"Activate Protocol 12.1.01" The voice intones.
"How!" I can only stare unblinkingly as my left arm slowly rises towards the woman.
"Simply do so."
Protocol 12.1.01
"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL"
A harsh metallic voice echoes through the hallway and my arm stops in its tracks.
The woman on the ground stares back at me through teary eyes, clutching her stomach with her remaining arm. She is bleeding horribly, and I can clearly see her ruined insides through her shredded armor. If I had medigel maybe...Hell, that wouldn't make any difference.
She coughs up blood, splattering the red liquid across the floor.
Damn it.
I want to say something comforting, something that might make her last moments just a little better, something,
"SORRY"
That horrible metallic voice comes out again...my voice. No, that wasn't what I wanted...
She shuffles on her rear, pushing herself towards the wall to have something to lean on. She is giggling now, from hysteria, adrenaline, pain...A wet, horrible sounding giggle.
...
"SHOULD I"
I make a small motion with my rocket launcher...my arm.
She nods and curls into a ball, shuddering.
Goddamnit.
I would cry if I still had tear ducts.
AN: This idea stemmed from...Ymir Mechs. No, really. When I was playing, I always wanted one for fire support, mobile cover, distractions. Then I thought about what it'd be like to control one and...there we go.
By the way, I'm wondering whether I should keep the Ymir's voice in all caps. I realize it may bother some people, but I want to keep it for something approximately equivalent to that reason for story purposes. It'll force me to keep him fairly silent in outward conversations for one thing.
The intent is for this to be a full length story of action, adventure, a moderate mix of comedy and angst (not too heavy I should think), and of course, as this is Mass Effect, romance. Seriously, romance. And no, not with EDI.
Wish me luck.