A Woman and her Wolf

The initial excitement in the atmosphere had eventually faded away, the rush given from going against orders could only last so long, and now the ship just had this uneasy silence, people finally getting their heads around exactly what was going to happen, and how that will impact everything. Not that anyone would admit this, though, nobody really wanting to voice negative thoughts now that they were so close to the end of this sordid affair.

This of course, left me to stew over my own thoughts. So, I have just been thinking to myself, about what will happen, and that many innocent people will end up losing their lives. Now, I'm aware this is horrible, and best to be avoided. But I can only see this on an outsider's perspective, and it scares me.

It's like looking at historical casualties from wars long past. I am aware that millions upon millions died in, let's say, World War I. I know that it was a horrible event, but I feel no real remorse about it, having no connection to it, and being too distanced in time to be relatable. That's how this knowledge feels, but I am going to witness all these deaths. I am going to playing an active role within that casualty count. Yet, I feel nothing.

I don't know what, or who, to blame. Is this just part of me that has never had an opportunity to manifest? Or is this the machinations of my new mechanical mind, draining emotion from me until it leaves a lifeless husk?

I just… don't even fucking know. I don't know which possibility scares me more really. Perhaps all this information still hasn't really sunk in, and I'm just going to freak the fuck out later. I suppose it would be best if I just allow all this to play its course, and focus on the goal.

Hopefully we are going to get to Illios soon. I hate the waiting, the doubt. I must wonder about things I would rather not think about, like what is happening with Ashley right now? Is she conscious right now, telling anyone around her about me, dooming me to an early grave? Or scrapyard, as the case may be, I suppose. Perhaps she died on the operating table, making the rush to save her for nothing. Might be she is fated to die, who fucking knows.

I feel more calm on the battlefield. More focussed. When there is opposition to me on a battlefield, I don't have to think about these things, all I need to think about is how to remove hostile targets. No existential crisis, no thoughts of morality, just a black and white 'Us against Them'. The worst part of it all is the whole 'robotic mind' thing. If I was still flesh and blood, all this thinking would take up time, stopping me from being stuck in this loop of questions. But because of my artificial body and mind, all this pointless pontificating has taken exactly one point zero four seconds. At this rate, I might just drive myself insane. Huh… that might be how most AIs lose it, just think themselves into a homicidal mess. What a lovely thought to have. This is a waste of my time anyway, no matter how quick it is. Luckily, I do have that 'standby' mode, and it appears I will be getting a whole lot of use out of it. Like right now for example.

It really helps, the standby mode. My time hanging around in the cargo bay feels so much shorter, and I can see people move about quickly, as if in a time-lapse. Eventually the people moving about stopped doing more busywork style things, and clearly started to ready for the attack on Illos. They prepped the Mako, and the ground crew got themselves ready and waiting for Shepard to come and tell them what's what. I rose myself to my feet and put myself amongst the team, getting a quick glance, but nothing more. A moment of silence floats in the air, before Kaidan decides to break it.

"So… This is going to be it, eh?"

Garrus responds with "Seems that way. Saren is cornered, we're right behind him and we don't have any red tape in the way." He gives off a little chuckle at that last part, seemingly relieved. "Spirits, I imagine Pallin is throwing a fit about all this."

Our resident quarian Tali pipes up at that. "Pallin… he is the head of C-Sec, right?"

"Right. A real by the book type, too. Always found a way to get under my skin." Garrus replies.

After that, another awkward silence starts, which is stopped this time by a ping from the elevator, with Shepard rushing out of the door. She quickly paces up to us, takes a breath, and quickly says "Garrus, Tali, Kaidan. I want you three in the Mako. The rest of you will stay aboard the ship, we can't afford to risk everyone on this. Any questions?"

"One. Why them and not me? I want to be there when Saren croaks." Wrex grumbles.

"We are quite literally going to be dropping on Saren in the Mako, I need them to maximize the Mako's shielding efficiency."

"Right. Fine." Wrex doesn't look happy about this, but he knows now isn't exactly the time.

The three have already been getting themselves into the Mako, with Shepard just now getting into the driver's seat, before turning back to us. "Oh yes, I want Bladewolf too, come on." Aces. Time to get this show on the road then. I hop in the back of the Mako, and get myself in a position vaguely resembling strapped in. Shepard makes sure we are all ready to rock and or roll, then drives us out of the cargo bay to hurtle towards the ground.

See, this is a very dangerous landing, from rather close to the ground, at incredible speed. From the faces of Kaidan and somewhat of Garrus, the feeling of inertia must be intense. But, of course, I find myself being unable to relate to such things anymore. There is no conversation between anyone, just the loud shuddering of the almost disturbingly plastic looking Mako. This continues for but a handful of seconds before the Mako suddenly jolts, slamming onto the ground with a loud crash, instantly speeding forward, before what I assume is crashing into a wall.

The dust settles. The crew waiting to hear Shepard's orders, a confirmation of a ran over turian, anything. After a second or two, Shepard tells us to pile out the Mako, that we are not finished yet. So, exit the Mako we do, and it gives us our first look at Ilos. It makes me think of rust, and decay. The sky is the colour of corroded iron, the buildings grey and green, infested by creepers and nature, doing its best to demolish what is left of the past civilization. The ground is practically all plant life, similarly rotten away, giving a noise not too dissimilar to the squelch of boils bursting from a diseased body. To put it simply, the planet resembled death in all its forms.

Judging by the looks the others are giving, I don't think I'm too far off the mark, the morbid curiosity on their faces telling me more of the same. Not that it lasts long, the mission quickly remembered, causing attention to be brought to the giant door hindering our goal of catching Saren. It's clear the Mako isn't going to be gunning down this door anytime soon, Tali seemingly agrees with my inner thoughts, and begins to voice them.

"There's no way we're getting past this door with brute fo…" Her statement is cut off, by the loud grinding of the HF chainsaw, proving its worth now more than ever, granting just enough length to actually penetrate through to the other side, with the shear cutting power allowing me to create ourselves an entrance fit for a Mako. But, in the door's defence, it is actually granting somewhat significant resistance, if only due to sheer size and weight. The rest of the team, seem to be dumbfounded by this as I go about my cutting business.

"Is this… for real?" Kaidan pipes up.

"I… I haven't seen any mech have power like this before." Big praise, coming from Tali.

"I cannot imagine this mech is legal, or was made with anything near accepted regulations." Garrus that time.

"He really is something, isn't he?" Shepard states, clearly impressed by this.

"'He' Shepard? It's a machine." Ah. Tali does get a bit touchy about this kind of thing, doesn't she?

"It's a pet thing Tali, I know it's a machine." Shepard responds.

A silence follows, shortly punctuated by the middle of the door caving inward, leaving a loud bang and an entrance the Mako could just about slip through. I turn back to the group, and give an accomplished bark. Took me a little longer than I would have liked, it wasn't the massive shortcut I really wanted, but it was better than the alternative at least.

Shepard just nods at all of this, and motions for everyone to move back in to the Mako, which we do, fast as you like, not really wanting to be outside on this stagnating planet any longer than we must. I feel like I'm rusting over just being here.

The Mako's engine starts running again, and I can feel the suspension move around to allow us to drive over the now collapsed door. The moment I feel it hit flat ground again Shepard slams on the accelerator, obvious by the sudden shift inside the vehicle and the increasing rumble of the engine. No doubt she doesn't want to waste any time to go get Saren. Which is understandable, of course. Actually, come to think of it, I have never actually seen Saren before, not properly, anyway. I have to wonder what he will look like in person. Will he look exactly the same, or will he have something more than that? I may not even see him, with the shortcut we took it's possible we might catch up to him and just run that fucker over.

Yeah. That would be good. Mildly amusing too.

A sudden lurch from the Mako tells me that Shepard just hit the brakes pretty hard. The jolt from such an action almost throws me out the seat I have awkwardly placed myself in, which could have meant the end of someone's life, as I doubt any of the passengers would be ready to take the sheer weight of sharp metal that is my body straight to their face at high speeds.

I imagine it would create quite the mess.

Garrus, Tali and Kaidan stabilize themselves from the sudden stop, and seem to be rather confused by the lack of movement. Again.

"Why have we stopped? Another door?" Kaidan asks as he moves slightly, as to ready himself to leave the Mako again.

"Not a door. This time it's some kind of wall of energy. It just came out of nowhere, and it's behind us too." Shepard tell us. I forgot about this bit, honestly. Can't remember for the life of me why, it seems to be rather important.

"Are we trapped then?"

"We will have to get out and try to find a way to shut it down. Thing has to have an off switch somewhere."

We got out into this tunnel, with high ceilings and more dead leaves and vines infesting absolutely everything. I could see some path off to the side which will likely lead to wherever we are supposed to go. But then, of course, is the huge wall of yellow, pulsating light. See, I don't know if I can cut this. This isn't properly… physical, you know. But, I suppose, what better way to find out than try?

I swiped my High Frequency chainsaw on a sideways motion, to see if I could cut enough to at least fit myself through. The barrier gives a hell of a lot of resistance, but I slowly feel the shield give. I can see more and more of the chainsaw fit through and out to the other side. Just goes to show, no barrier, no wall, no object is resistant enough to stop me from cutting where I will. Suddenly I feel the pressure on the chainsaw increase exponentially, to degrees so powerful I cannot pull it backwards or forwards. Oh… shit.

The Chainsaw, the HF Chainsaw, the only one of its kind, the object I have been relying upon to survive, seemingly indestructible, severs in two. One half is with me, while the other is separated on the other side of the barrier, both ends spitting their teeth out in every direction, shrapnel and metal flying around.

Thankfully, no shards hit anyone on the ground team. Three teeth did embed themselves into my face, however, which I suppose makes me damn lucky that I'm not an organic, the current situation would leave me a shredded corpse. Because of all these distractions, I only just now look at the wall, which flickers almost imperceivably, the flow of energy being broken. Broken by… me. Wait a second… Oh fuc…

/WARNING/
/SIGNIFICANT ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE/
/EXECTUTING EMERGENCY COUNTER-MEASURES/
/SEARCHING FOR ADMIN PERMISSION TO EXECUTE/
/WARNING/
/ADMIN CANNOT BE LOCATED/
/SEARCHING FOR SECONDARY PERMISSION/
/WARNING/
/AI CORE NOT FUNCTIONAL/
/NO PERMISSION FOUND/
/WARNING/
/COUNTER-MEASURES INEFFECTIVE/
/SHUTTING DOWN/
/Err…..


Author's Notes

What is good my dudes. Look at this update, so on time you just can't believe it. Lightning fast, quick as you like. But for reals, yeah I need to update faster. I have had the majority of this typed up for a long time, just couldn't get myself to finish it. And hey, in terms of actual content, it seems like endless hero for all time Andrew/Bladewolf just shoved his High Frequency fork into the largest plug socket he could possibly find. A genius, I know. I would blame the thing on the massive confidence given to him by the chainsaw, but bad craftsmen and so on.

So, you guys. The readers. I got a question, I see a lot of reviews that say things like 'I really like this story' and so on. This story also has quite a lot of favourites and follows. See, what I want to know, is why? Why do you lot like this story, what exactly is it that I'm doing that you feel makes this story good? Like, what exactly makes this story special in any way? I want to hear your feedback on the matter. Also worth noting, I want to hear what you don't like, too. What about this story isn't good? What do you not like? That kind of thing.

And to wrap it up, here is the rather large list of review responses. I guess that's what I get when I don't update often.

LordGhostStriker- Yeah, his increasing emotional detachment is something to keep an eye on. It doesn't exactly seem to be a good thing.

Zachshadrack- Not very well. It's something she really doesn't need to deal with at this particular moment in time.

WindBear47- Yeah, that little interlude was fun to write, I like to fit little things like that into a story, just don't have that many opportunities as of yet. As for using Eezo as robot dog treats? I don't think that would work to well, but who knows, perhaps it's great.

Blaze1992- Got to keep an eye on those machines man, they could be watching, waiting for their time. Just at your worst moment, BAM. Killed by your fridge.

SimonH2009- I'm glad to know I am the best Mass Effect robo-dog story out there. With so much competition too. But for real, I'm really happy that someone else was inspired to write something because of something I did. That's super cool.

ShadowAngel32- Nah, fuck it. We are now in a Alternate Universe fic where everything is exactly the same except for the Mako's layout. Truly a brave new world we live in.

SpiritStrike- Yeah, we got to have a nice little scene of Shepard moping about, 'in private' so to speak. No romance as per yet, and I can say with certainty that I will not be shipping Andrew/Bladewolf with anyone, it's not that kind of story. It might happen to others, but it won't be the focus.

Saberfox- Was a long next time, but I'm here now, baby! The pet POV is a fun thing to write, it allows scenes to be written in more of an outsiders perspective, and nobody really considers him when thinking about privacy. And Tali? Sure, she might have her suspicions, but she doesn't have nearly enough evidence to go off of just yet. Possibly when she is finished with cork-boards and red string she may have a clue.

Natzi Sumbitch- Thanks matey. I have actually had that as an idea, but it will be used sparingly, as he can talk normally, even though he doesn't exactly talk at all at the moment, deep cover and all that.

822- Don't know about that, his teeth are blunt, and like jigsaw pieces. I don't think it would very practical.

Goldspark1- It's hard to remember at times that there are more people on the Normandy than the ground crew and the few others you could actually talk to in the games. Also you are asking the right questions. Those questions are the kind of thing this story is about. Keep it up.

And to all the people who I didn't answer directly, thanks for the reviews, they are really nice. Hopefully I can actually get myself to update this at a speed faster than glacial this time, eh?