Left 4 dead is owned by Valve.
Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.
Warning: this story is rated M for a reason.
First Infection
Mindoir
2170 C.E.
Ferocious, deadly, wild.
These are the words that describe the most dangerous animal in the galaxy…
The tiger.
This black and orange feline masterfully blends with the shadows of the jungle, despite its eye-catching colors. The Mindoir jungles were no-doubt one of the most dangerous places there is, and the powerful tiger only added to the jungle's ferocity. As the uncontested king of the jungle, the tiger enjoyed a privileged and fulfilling lifestyle. This particular tiger was crouching low to the jungle floor, steadily crawling through the foliage as it hunted for prey.
Unfortunately for the tiger, it was about to be kicked off the top-of-the-food-chain by an even more dangerous predator.
Crouching low in the grass behind the tiger was a hunter.
This hunter wasn't just any kind of common hunter, no, he was the most dangerous hunter who had ever lived. He had successfully hunted and killed more animals than anyone had even claimed to have done. His mansion, which was the most sought-after dwelling by anyone, was entirely made out of the bones and pelts of all he had killed.
This amazing hunter smiled victoriously behind the unaware tiger. His sharp claws, rumored to be as sharp as a witch's, dug into the ground as he crouched lower, getting ready to pounce on the tiger that he has had a personal vendetta on for all of his life.
As the hunter was just about to leap onto the tiger, a strange sound from above distracted him. Looking up, the hunter could only gape in horror as strange tendrils lowered themselves from the sky and wrapped around his torso, pulling his entire body upwards. Where could these vile things be taking him? Perhaps they were a part of a UFO, and the aliens inside were going to dissect him to find out what made him tick. Or perhaps the tendrils were connected to some type of Lovecraftian horror and they were pulling him into some kind of interdimensional pocket where upon he will go insane by the sheer existence of that place.
"C'mon, pup. Your father is leaving for work," said the Lovecraftian monster that had taken the shape of an adult huntress, holding the hunter to her chest.
"But mom, I was just about to finally tackle him," the pup whined as he pointed at the tiger, "For once, I had the drop on him."
His mother gave him a pleasant knowing smile, and bent down to pick up the stuffed tiger, "Oh, don't worry," she said as she handed the toy tiger to her son, "I'm sure you'll have plenty of chances."
The little hunter seemed to disagree, as he grumbled, "Maybe, but now he'll be even more wary," her son was quiet for a few moments before he turned a furious gaze toward the tiger in his little claws, "don't say that you were just 'humoring me,' admit it, you had no idea I was even there."
The huntress rolled her eyes playfully as her son argued with his toy. Holding him close to her with her arms, the mother made her way away from the grassy hill where her son was playing, and toward the grand stone entrance of the settlement that they lived in. The entrance was built into the side of a mountain that contained numerous cave systems, which were used to house the inhabitants of the mountain.
As the mother carried her son up to the large double doors of the stone entrance, she took a moment to stop and read the decorative words posted at the top of the entrance.
'Welcome to Hubiku,' it read, 'Capital of the Yucatan territory on Mindoir!'
The mother smiled and proceeded past the entrance into the cave; the echo of her son's one-sided argument with the toy bouncing off the walls as she walked through the cave system. Dotted along the walls of the cavern were fluorescent lamps that lit up the paths of the caves. Every once in a while, a fork in the cave system would appear with a stone tablet located in the middle that would give directions. The mother huntress completely ignored these tablets as she walked through the caverns, relying entirely on her memory of the pathways. After a couple of minutes of navigating the cavern, she had entered what passed for the town square of Hubiku.
She was in a cenote, which is a large and deep pit with a large expanse of groundwater at the bottom. The cenote had no roof, which allowed the solar system's star to shine brightly down into the hole. What was most noteworthy, were the steel platforms and buildings that were built into the walls of the cenote. Most of the buildings were stores and had signs of the building's name hanging above their entrances and had glass windows that showcased their merchandise.
During the Pandemic, people living on the Yucatan Peninsula would hide in the hard-to-reach caverns that dotted the walls of cenotes. After the missiles had flown out and humanity had changed, people hiding in the cenotes started building settlements in them. After many years had passed by, the Collective had finally discovered the hidden settlements, and the cenotes had become tourist hot-spots. Eventually, the Yucatan territory had earned enough points from the tourism business that they were able to afford to expand their territory into space.
Taking a step out of the cavern and onto a steel platform, the huntress watched people climb up and down the walls of the cenote to get to the various stores and buy wares. There were also metal bridges and zip lines that helped people traverse the cenote much easier. At the bottom of the cenote, where the lake of groundwater was, were wooden platforms that floated on the water. Those floating wooden platforms were used to reach the settlement's governmental buildings that were carved into the bottom walls of the cenote.
Walking past the various vendors on the platform that she was on, the huntress bypassed the crowds of people until she faced a section of the wall that was under the platform that she needed to get to.
Telling her child to wrap his arms around her neck, the huntress released her hold on her son and started climbing up the stone wall of the cenote. The setae on her hands were easily able to get a grip on the wet rocks, making climbing up to the upper platform an effortless process.
When she reached her destination, she jumped from off of the wall and onto the platform, making a loud metal clank sound as she landed on it. Holding onto her son again, she looked up to see that the open top of the cenote was only just a few meters above her head.
"Hey, Maya," said a voice next to the huntress.
Blinking in surprise, the huntress turned her head to see a blonde, glowing red-eyed witch leaning against the railing of the platform. Wearing only a blue two-piece bikini while licking a colorful ice-cream cone, the witch looked quite relaxed.
"Oh hi, Jade," the huntress, Maya, replied, "taking a break?"
"Yeah, I'm giving my throat a chance to heal," Jade was a young singer at the Deep Bellow, a local club located deep down in the caves where an underground lake had formed. Jade had quickly become one of the more popular singers after she started working there, as her angelic voice echoed off of the cave walls quite beautifully.
"Oh! By the way," Jade did a little twirl as she showcased her body, looking at Maya, she nervously nibbled her bottom lip and asked, "What do you think of my new top and bottom?"
Maya smiled at Jade and gave her a look that told her they've been down this road before. Looks like Jade needed a bit of a confidence boost again.
"Jade, honey, please stop worrying. You're beautiful, and once more: you're a woman. Just go out into the jungle and mount a man if you want your sexual needs fulfilled," Maya said informingly, "You don't need to get all dressed up or try to flaunt your beautiful body, you just need to be a bit aggressive and men will be like putty in your claws… well, for the first five minutes anyways," Maya smirked at that, "once their brains finally catches up to them and they realize what's happening they try to fight us for dominance, which just makes the sex so much better." Mmm, she remembered her first time: it was on a beach back on Earth, with a hunter like herself, they had just killed a shark and brought it to the shore, their blood was pumping at the fresh kill, she had pounced the surprised hunter's bones and ripped off the fragment of clothing that was covering his package, they did it right on top of the dead shark, she was pretty sure she lost a finger in the frenzy…
"Maya? Maya you there?" Maya came out of her daze to see a hand with deadly sharp claws waving from side-to-side in front of her face.
"Hmm? Oh! Yes, sorry about that," Maya said bashfully, "anyways, I hope you got my point."
Jade raised an eyebrow at that, "Yeah, I did. Over ten years ago, when you first told me," smirking, Jade gained a haughty tone and said, "And I'll have you know, that my sexual needs have been getting quite fulfilled if I do say so myself."
Jade leaned toward Maya and said, "By the way, thanks for the tip about doing it after a fresh kill. The charger that I was doing it with pinned me onto the corpse of a mountain goat that I had killed. Being surrounded by all of that blood and guts while being systematically… heheh… slammed, gave me such a euphoric high," Jade then stopped smirking and started looking a bit nervous, "but that's not what I was asking. I was just wondering if you think that this," she gestured toward her bikini, "will impress …um… a special someone?"
Maya gasped in realization, "Oh my gosh! Jade did… did you find someone?"
Jade leaned back against the railing and looked around the cenote, bashfully avoiding eye contact with Maya, "…Maybe…"
Maya smiled enthusiastically, "Well…? Spill, girl. Tell me everything about him. Who is he? Where did you first meet?"
"…He's a smoker," Jade said in an embarrassed manner, "and he's the guitar player of the band that plays at Deep Bellow."
"Romero?" Maya asked to which Jade confirmed with a vigorous nod, "ooh, good for you, he's very talented with that guitar of his. Not to mention that he's a real cutie too. This also explains the bikini, he loves to hang at the beach north of here."
"Do you think he'll notice me? I mean there are a lot of people at the beach, I might just end up blending into the crowd," Jade asked nervously, before fixing a serious stare at Maya, "Maya, how did you get your partner to notice you?"
Maya blinked in surprise at that sudden question, but she quickly collected herself and gave Jade a straightforward answer.
"I don't wear anything below the waist," she answered truthfully.
And indeed she doesn't. Instead of wearing a hoodie, Maya covered her head with a green bandana that she had tied on, and wore sunglasses to keep the sun out of her sensitive eyes. She also had an electronic watch that she wore on her left wrist. Maya was also wearing a loose halter top that ended just above her hips with thick straps that wrapped around the back of her neck.
Below that halter top, she wore nothing.
Maya sighed contently as a cool breeze rolled through the cenote.
Jade waited patiently for Maya to explain, but after a moment of silence, she asked, "So? Plenty of people in Hubiku wear the same amount of clothing as you do, some none at all."
"Ah yes, but George didn't live in Hubiku, or even in the Yucatan territory," Maya answered, "he lived in a hive city that's in neutral territory. You know, territory that's owned only by the Collective government. Over there, they still had a habit of wearing clothing over certain body parts."
"Oh, I see where this is going," commented Jade wryly.
"Yeah, and at the time I worked as a tourist guide, so I was the first Yucatan citizen he ever met," Maya giggled as she remembered the fond memory, "he was so surprised to see my finely tanned ass, heh, it probably didn't help that I was bending down to pick up a clipboard off of the floor at the time. Boy, he sure did get a grand view of the famous Yucatan beauty."
Maya stopped giggling and continued the story with a smile on her face, "Anyways, after I explained to him the difference in social customs around here, he apologized profusely for making a scene and wanted to take me out to dinner as way of apology. I accepted, had a wonderful time, and we started dating. Eventually, the aggressive passionate sex we've been having slowly turned into beautiful lovemaking. And that lovemaking eventually ended up making this little guy," she said as she lifted her son up.
Jade waved her claws at the child and said, "Hey there little munchkin, how are you?"
The little hunter in the green hoodie and blue shorts puffed out his cheeks in irritation at being called 'munchkin' and at having to listen to the conversation while his mother held onto him. It was the worst type of conversation too, it was some kind of twisted combination of girl talk (extremely annoying) and grown-up talk (extremely boring). The conversation had become so tortuous that his pet tiger had escaped his mother's grasp and tried to run out of earshot of the conversation. Emphasis on 'try,' as he had a firm grip on the tiger's tail. If he was going to be subjected to this torture, then they both were. Honestly, why couldn't adults talk about more interesting stuff, like giant robots or alien invasions? The little hunter wanted to complain to his mother, but he found that whenever he did that, the conversations always lasted longer. So, for the most part, he just quietly tuned the conversation out and tried to focus his attention elsewhere.
Like the delicious food in Jade's claws.
"What's that?" Maya's son asked as he pointed a stubby claw at the ice cream cone that Jade was holding.
Jade smiled as she held the cone up to the little hunter's gaze and said, "This is a strawberry-vanilla-chocolate mix ice cream cone with a topping of boomer cream." Boomer cream, of course, is a fancy word for their vomit.
The little hunter stared at the ice cream cone in silent awe, before looking up at his mother with a pleading face.
"Mom, I want one. Can I have one? Please-please-please. I love you. Please. I really, really, really want one," babbled on the little hunter.
Maya gave Jade a deadpanned look, "Now look at what you've done," Maya looked down at her son and said, "Maybe tomorrow, right now we've really got to say goodbye to your father," Maya looked back up at Jade, "It was great talking to you Jade, but I have to go."
"Wait," Jade called out to Maya, "what about me and Romero? What should I do?"
Maya stared at Jade ponderously for a few moments, before leaning forward and whispering something into Jade's ear. When Maya pulled back, Jade's mouth hanged open and her cheeks were tinted rosemary.
"…and… that works?" Jade asked.
"Every time," Maya answered confidently, before turning around and walking down the steel platform toward the entrance of a cave. Entering the cave, she spent little time walking through the cave system before she reached her destination.
Another cenote.
The difference between this cenote and the first one was the fact that instead of being covered with stores, the walls of this cenote was covered by one giant building that stretched along a segment of the cenote walls. Along the walls of the building were a number of windows which allowed the occupants of the room to gaze down the cenote.
The Grand Hubiku Hotel.
Which is owned by Maya.
Entering the lobby of the hotel, Maya sighed happily as the cool air from the hotel's air conditioners enveloped her. The interior of the hotel was designed to emulate the Yucatan lifestyle, so the rooms and lobby of the hotel were constructed to look like caves, minus the dampness of course.
Walking up to the check-in desk, Maya greeted her boomer employee, "Hey there, Carlos."
"Hey Maya," Carlos said distractedly. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and shorts, usually he just tended to go around shirtless, but the air conditioned rooms of the hotel made it too chilly for his comfort. Currently, he had his attention focused on the holographic computer sitting on the desk.
"George leave yet?" Maya asked.
"Nope," Carlos replied, not moving his eyes away from the computer as he moved the mouse around.
Maya raised an eyebrow at his behavior, "Working hard, or hardly working?"
"Hard."
"Really," Maya said bemusedly, "because it looks like you're playing Solitaire."
"Spider Solitaire, actually," Carlos rebutted, "four suits too, so if that's not working hard, then I don't know what is."
Maya rolled her eyes at that, but she didn't stop him. It was a slow day anyways, so she let him play his games, she seriously doubted a large crowd of tourists were going to arrive today.
Speaking of large groups of people…
"Carlos, where's your Horde?" Maya asked, referring to the boomer's personal collection of commons.
"I've got them cleaning the rooms," Carlos said as he pointed a sharp thumb down the curving hallway of rooms. Sure enough, Maya saw a group of seven commons entering a room methodically, with each one holding some kind of cleaning tool.
"Good job," Maya said as she turned away from the check-in desk and the hallway to walk toward her own room.
"Mhmm," Carlos mumbled as he focused on his game. Crap, the computer was telling him that there are no more viable moves. He'll have to start the game all over again. Oh well, he might as well take this opportunity to go to the kitchen and grab an arm off of that common in the freezer. He could do with a light snack.
Maya punched the keycard for her room into the electronic slot next to the door. Hearing a click from the door, she pushed it open and entered her home. As the owner of the Grand Hubiku Hotel she was able to afford quite a few luxuries, like the huge high-definition vid-screen that hanged from the wall and the expensive holographic laptop that was sitting on the mahogany table. Both of which had wires hooked up to the sockets on the walls, which connected to either the Hubiku city generator for power or to the relay dish on top of the mountain that allowed access to the vid channels and the internet.
"George!" Maya called out.
"In here," a voice answered from their personal kitchen.
Maya entered her kitchen filled with stainless steel appliances, wooden cabinets, and bright blue tiles for the floor and counters. Standing next to the wooden dining table in the middle of the kitchen, Maya looked up at the person that was hanging from the suspended cabinet. Wearing a white shirt and brown khaki shorts, the person had long limbs and a protruding spine. The person's hands and feet were double-jointed and allowed the person to cling to the edges of the cabinet much more easily than anyone else could.
"Looking for something, George?" Maya asked with humor in her tone.
The jockey twisted his body around to reveal a frantic face covered by a bushy beard.
"Maya, do you know where my iTool is?" George asked, "I can't seem to find it."
"I'm not too sure," Maya said, "but I'm pretty certain that you won't find it in the spice cabinet."
George jumped off of the cabinet and onto the counter in a crouching position.
"Damn it," he cursed as he started to pace back-and-forth on the counter worriedly, "I've been searching for it everywhere. All of my field research was stored in there. If I go to Mindoir Laboratories without any of my data, who knows what kind of problems will arise. I need to find tha-" His rant was cutoff mid-sentence when he turned around and Maya's lips met his own. Maya had jumped onto the counter that he was on when his back was turned and kissed him to calm him down. Their child being held in the mother's arms made a disgusted face at the scene.
"Eww," the pup cried at being at such a close proximity to the disgusting event.
Maya pulled away from her lover's face with a smirk and asked, "You calm?"
George nodded.
"Good, now listen to me," Maya said as she fixed him a confident gaze, "we need to find that iTool."
George was taken aback by that statement, "What? That's it? No, speech to boost my confidence? No, 'George you're the most experienced botanist on Mindoir, and you don't need a stupid iTool?' I don't get any of that?"
Maya smiled at him, "George you are the most experienced botanist and you don't need me to tell you that. But thirty years of research data is still thirty years of research data. So let's search our home as best as we can to find it."
"Found it," the pup in Maya's arms said as he held out an electronic watch, similar to the one that Maya was wearing. He had been keeping it in his pocket.
George's pale white eye's widened in surprise as he said, "Where did you find it? And more importantly why do you have it?"
"I found it inside your desk and I took it out so I could pretend that I was fighting aliens with an awesome lightsaber," "I found it on the floor by that trashcan near your desk. I thought you had tried to throw it away, so I took it, because it seemed too good to be considered trash and I didn't want to be wasteful," the little pup said truthfully with a charming smile.
George gave him a stare that clearly said that he didn't believe him.
Squirming nervously under his father's gaze, the little pup pointed a claw at his pet tiger and said, "Also, it was his idea."
Rolling his eyes, George slipped the watch over his wrist and activated it. Immediately, his arm was covered by silver palettes of light. After a few moments of perusing through the data, George was happy to note that all of his research was still there.
"Alright," he said as he climbed off of the counter to stand up on the floor, "I need to leave for the train station soon if I want to make it to the lab in time."
"How long will you be gone for?" Maya asked as she jumped off of the counter too. Standing up, she was just a bit taller than George, as even standing up straight, the jockey's curved spine still forced them to lean forward slightly.
"I'll be gone for about a month," George answered, "or at least, that's how long the Advisor thinks we'll be there for."
"What's the Advisor like?" asked their curious son.
George paused at that. He always believed that by the time that he had a kid, he would be able to talk about Advisors openly. Over the years, the required clearance to learn about the Advisors has been steadily expanding to include more people. After all, the Director and Advisors only kept their identities a secret after the Pandemic, because they didn't want dissenters claiming that humanity was going to be ruled by computers.
Of course, that is exactly what happened to humanity, but the Director and Advisors believed that it would be better if that fact wasn't twisted with such negative implications.
Many years after the Pandemic ended, when people had become comfortable with the Collective's rule, the Director began a slow process of informing more people about the existence of her and the Advisors. The Director's goal of this process was to be able to have an easier time acquiring more scientists, information, and resources.
…And to have more people acknowledge the Director's and Advisors' rightfully deserved accomplishments.
Eventually, this process has allowed anyone that is the head of a department in the Administration, who has a rank higher than Staff Lieutenant in the Military, a top scientist, or a leader of an established territory to know about the Director and Advisors.
Unfortunately, the process stopped there when humanity came into contact with aliens. When the Collective was given a copy of the Citadel government's laws and regulations, they learned about the Citadel's policy with AI's.
Suffice to say, that the Director and Advisors were doing their best to make sure that the Citadel races never learned about their existence.
"The Advisor is… enjoyable to be around, but that's all I can say," George answered his son's question, before leaning forward and kissing the top of his head. To which, the little pup cried out in disgust.
"Now you be good, alright," he told his son, "I don't want to come back here to find this place burnt down to a crisp, alright?"
"Alright," his son grumbled.
George then kissed Maya, who responded in kind, "Take care," he said.
And with that, he walked out of the room and made his way toward the train station.
The little hunter looked up at his mother.
Maya didn't say anything.
"Um… mom, can you let go of me now?" the pup asked.
Maya smirked and walked out of the kitchen with her son firmly in her grasp, "Why? This'll make it much easier."
Her son looked at her nervously, "…Make what easier?"
His question was answered when his mother opened a particular door to reveal a shiny bathtub.
The pup's eyes widened in fear and he opened his mouth to scream.
In the hotel's lobby, Carlos was biting off the finger of the hand that he got off from that common in the freezer when suddenly…
"NOOOooOOOooOOO!" a horrible wail erupted from Maya's room.
Carlos was so surprised by the scream, that he ended up swallowing an entire finger from that hand. The finger ended up getting stuck in his throat and he had to puke it out. While looking at the mess that he made on the desk, his Horde of commons ran out from the hallway and to the bile.
"Well, at least they brought the cleaning supplies," he said.
Mindoir Laboratories
George stood silently in his lab coat as he watched concrete walls swiftly pass him by.
Mindoir Laboratories was located deep underground under the Capital hive city of Mindoir. One of the very few ways to enter the laboratory was by elevator. The glass elevator was very spacious and roomy, and moved swiftly downward.
The concrete walls that George had watched pass by for the last three minutes finally receded and he was rewarded with a view of Mindoir Laboratories.
A multitude number of testing chambers and installations were suspended over the huge drop in the extremely large cavern. Along with the suspended installations were the various glass tubes that transported all sorts of objects between the test chambers and installations. As the glass elevator lowered itself into one of the installations, George met a familiar face.
"Diane," George greeted the female smoker. Diane was a prestigious scientist who specialized in environmental science. Wearing her white lab coat, she was a very prim-and-proper woman who kept her hair tied in a bun.
"George," she greeted back stoically, "you're late.
He shrugged his shoulders, "Only just."
Diane's tongues twitched at his words, "Come on," she said in an even tone as she turned around and walked down the hallway, "They're waiting on us."
After a few minutes of walking down the corridors of Mindoir Laboratories, George and Diane had arrived at the Central AI Chamber. The chamber was dome shaped and had over a dozen scientists in lab coats standing around. Most of them were conversing with each other to pass the time. Standing in the center of the chamber was the famous and ever-silent Chell, the head of security for all Advisors. Usually, Chell was on Earth with the Director, who resided in the mysterious headquarters of the Research and Development division of the Collective government, but every once in a while, Chell would go out and visit an Advisor or personally oversee an operation.
Hanging from the center of the ceiling was the very Advisor that had called all of these scientists to this meeting, Wheatley. Currently, Wheatley was talking to a male spitter dressed in a green uniform that was covered with medals, most likely he was a high-ranking officer of the military. They were both looking over a vid-screen that showed some kind of huge dinosaur-like alien in a test chamber.
"As you can see by this recording, Commander, we have done extensive testing with this species and I can conclude that krogan are bloody dangerous," Wheatley said to the military commander, "also, fun fact: krogans really, really, really hate to be kept in captivity, especially if it's for science. Of course, most people do tend to hate being held captive, obviously, but these krogans seem to really hate it. The first time we told a krogan subject that we were studying him to see what he will do, he refused to take part in any more tests and started banging against the walls to try and escape. After that, we only learned one valuable bit of science from that subject: krogans can be killed by crushers. Still, one good thing about these krogans is that when you capture one, nobody in the galaxy seems to care. Which makes our job capturing them just a bit more easier. But just a bit, I mean there still bloody krogan after all."
"Wheatley," Diane said, gaining the Advisor's attention, "we're all here now and ready for you."
Wheatley turned back to the commander, "Anyways commander, I'll have the data about the krogans on your computer by tomorrow."
Wheatley faced the crowd of scientists and addressed them, "Hello everyone and welcome back to Mindoir Laboratories. Well… let's get this meeting started. First order of business is to belay a bit of bad news to all of you. Well actually, the first order of business was telling you what the first order of business was, but that's a bit redundant now, isn't it?"
"Anyways, as you all know, humans are incapable of gaining biotic powers and we have been doing all kinds of tests to figure out a way to make this untrue," Wheatley said confidently, "one of the most recent tests involved cloning eezo nodules from one of our asari test subjects and surgically implant them into the commons. Now, I don't want to give much away, but suffice it to say that… about all of the commons have… exploded. So we'll be shelving that experiment for the time being."
"But we do have a bit of good news," Wheatley said cheerfully, "with the technology that we have been receiving from the quarians, we were able to create, drum roll please, sealant clothing! Which is clothing that is able to reseal torn holes as if they were never there, which is just amazing if I do say so myself. We made the clothing after we got the designs from the quarian suits. Would you believe that I spent literally hours tearing up clothing and watching them reseal up? It's so interesting to watch."
Wheatley then calmed down a bit and gave them all a serious stare, "Now let's get to the main reason why I called you all here."
The chamber darkened and a holographic display of the planet popped up in the center.
"Mindoir… is dying," Wheatley said dramatically. He then rotated around the hologram and said happily, "So… nothing serious really."
"Now, I'm sure you all know that you humans have gained a… bit of an appetite after the Pandemic… and also a need to kill," Wheatley lectured them, "So the animals on Earth got a small dose of…overkill, which didn't do so well for Earth's environment. Luckily for all of you, the Director, me, and the other Advisors and scientists to a lesser extent, were able to create a chemical that increased animal and plant reproduction exponentially, which helped balance the natural order of things …for the most part."
"Now Mindoir was a low-tier planet when we colonized it, as it only had plant life and a few small animals, which didn't satiate human bloodlust at all," Wheatley said as he shook his 'head,' "No, no it did not. So to rectify this, we brought over some of Earth's animals to liven the place up, which worked wonders. Unfortunately, all of those animals have caused massive environmental damage, with whole forests and jungles disappearing overnight. So the Director will be sending us a shipment of the chemicals that was used on Earth, which will be arriving in a week or so."
"Which is where you guys come in," Wheatley addressed the crowd of scientists, "When the shipment of chemicals arrive, we will be working around the clock to adapt the chemicals to only affect the plant life on this planet. When that's done, the commander here," Wheatley gestured toward the uniformed spitter, "will load the modified chemicals into the missiles on his warship and detonate them over various areas of the planet's atmosphere. Which we will be spending the month analyzing and observing the effects on the planet, in case we need to intervene with a few extra cases of an even more modified chemicals. Oh, and don't worry about the chemical harming humans, the Virus inside of all of you will nullify the effects. That said …I am going to need all of you to wear hazmat suits when it gets here, I don't want to risk you humans contaminating the very dangerous chemicals with your virus."
Wheatley looked at all of them, "Now… any questions?"
Torfan, in a deep underground base
"When do we attack?"
The batarian general tore his gaze from the galactic map and looked up at the pirate that asked the question.
"Two weeks," the general said, "you attack Mindoir in two weeks,"
Author's Note
Ah hunter pups, aren't they just the cutest things in the galaxy?
For this chapter, I decided to finally give you readers a small peek in the daily life of human society.
Now, I'm sure that plenty of you have a lot of questions, like: what the hell is a cenote? Well, if you ever played Far Cry 3, it's that giant-ass hole that Buck makes you dive into. So just imagine a town being built around that.
I'm sure a few of you are also wondering why those two women were talking about sex so openly when there was a child present? Or why humans now have a habit of wearing very little clothing. Why are humans so engrossed with sex? These questions and more will be answered in later chapters. Although I do want you guys to know that humanity's behavior with sex isn't just an excuse to have smut in this story, there is an actual deep psychological reason for their behavior.
Pertaining to the iTool: After the Pandemic ended, what remained of Apple, Microsoft, and the other powerful technology companies were eventually turned into subdivisions of the Research and Development division of the Collective.
Now on to the comments…
HOLY-WET-WALRUS-TESTES, BATMAN! THE USUAL AMOUNT OF REVIEWS I GET FOR A CHAPTER HAS BEEN DOUBLED! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!?
"…It's because I'm Batman."
…Actually, I'm pretty sure it's because of Wheatley.
Everyone: Ah yes, give me more of your praise. It feeds me, makes me stronger. Seriously though everyone, thank you so much for all of the comments, it really inspired me to write more.
Nightmaster000 & Ruler of Existance: I'm sure a lot of you readers want to know why GlaDOS saved humanity. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to refer all of you to my Bad Poker Player note in my profile, sorry.
SoulVoid87: thanks, the trick with writing Wheatley is to always get him to counterpoint what he is saying.
aDarkOne: …your comment led me to looking up the Greek myth of Echidna. Now I've got even more ideas for this fic, thanks.
LayDownHunter: isn't Elita so kind?
Ussopking: I KNOW RIGHT? Aperture Science has such amazing technology. How did they ever lose to Black Mesa? There seriously needs to be more Portal fanfiction.
Eipok: Glowing green stuff? I don't remember any glowing green stuff? Do you mean the green dust from chapter five? Because the dust was only green because it contained a modified version of the Green Flu.
Medchtsia & .5: some of the portal and half-life technology will be incorporated later into the story. That's all I can say for now, sorry.
Omake 1
"Now you be good, alright," he told his son, "I don't want to come back here to find this place burnt down to a crisp, alright?"
"Alright," his son grumbled.
George then kissed Maya, who responded in kind, "You too," he said.
Maya rolled her eyes, "It was only one time."
"I'm serious," George said, "You," he pointed at his son, "make sure she doesn't enter the kitchen while I'm gone."
Omake 2
Mordalfus Grea: Is it me or is Mordin becoming a trademark Omake gag.
"Yes, I believe so," Mordin said, "and I find the whole experience to be quite…" puts on sunglasses, "fascinating."
YEEEEAAAAAHHHH!
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