Hello world! Read up, I kinda slacked off, so I didn't get that much in. T-T
I splashed water on my face to wash off the oil from the night before. I put my hands to my face, remembering the beautiful crown with all the jewels that Garrus had painted on my face.
"Commander, we've reached Zhu's Hope."
"Yes, Joker, I'll be right up." I sighed, turning off the water and drying my face. I walked out of the cabin and saw Tali, Garrus, Ash, Kaidan, Wrex, and Liara were all sitting at the table sharing a breakfast; Liara and Kaidan talking about biotics, Wrex and Ash comparing stories, Garrus and Tali talking to each other with their omni-tools, "Wrex, Garrus, finish eating then suit up, Lorrel will want you two with us on Feros."
They nodded and continued their meal, while I headed up to the galaxy map where Lorrel was waiting, groaning slightly under her breath, "You okay?"
"Yea. Just gave myself food poisoning!" she hissed, gripping the rail so hard her knuckles turned white, "I tried to cook again."
"Lorrel," I sighed, "you know you can't cook. Go down to Chakwas."
She look at me with shear frustration, "I am not sitting out." she growled, turning to look at me.
"Listen, if you sit this one out, I'll sit the next one out." Lorrel sighed, giving in, "let me help you-"
"I can take care of myself." Lorrel snapped, as she began limping to the med bay.
"Tell Wrex he's out and Tali she's in while you're down there." I called after her.
"Yea, yea, yea." she waved her hand dismissively as she disappeared behind the door.
"Equalizing interior pressure with exterior atmosphere." I mimicked in a high pitched, mocking tone as Tali, Garrus and I left the Normandy, "God I hate that thing."
I never liked Feros. The air seemed musty (true) and dirty (true), almost like the air was too thick to breathe (and what do you know, true!). From the beginning I had had a bad feeling about this place. And to this very day I still have nightmares about the Thorian Creepers that reside here.
"Hey! Commander Shepard, over here!" A male voice from a ways down the path woke me from my thoughts. As we rushed over he spoke again, "We saw your ship. Fai Dan wants to talk to you immediately. The geth are making another push. Please, up the stairs and past the freighter." He gestured behind himself. I nodded and jogged past him, except…
"Geth!" Tali screeched a high pitched cry as she ducked behind cover, grabbing her shotgun from her back. I ran for cover, but the shrapnel from a shock troopers' carnage still hit close enough to burn my arm. I hissed in pain and quickly lost my temper.
I ran forward and punched through two geth's softer neck plating, grabbing some wire on the way out and putting the wires together, cutting through the next geth with my make-shift taser then, coming to an the last idiot geth in the room, I swung around the small piece of wall the geth was behind I grabbed its neck and spun my pistol around my finger, putting the barrel of the gun up to its stupid flashlight of a head I said, "You won't need your flashlight head in hell." And pulled the trigger.
I could still feel Tali's shocked gaze on me as we entered Zhu's Hope and went to talk to Fai Dan, "Oh, Commander. I'm glad they finally sent someone to help us."
"You're a bit late aren't you." The woman next to him snarled.
"Arcelia!" he scolded her, "Sorry, everyone's on edge since-" geth chatter cut him off
"Watch out!" Arcelia yelled, pulling out an assault rifle and firing upon the nearest geth.
"Go, woman hulk!" Garrus yelled.
"What did you just call me!" I turned and snarled at him, still a bit mad from our first Feros geth encounter.
"Nothing, just go!"
I fell down to a position that a cat might be in and smirked, "Gladly." I pounced in between a few geth ripping out the geth's wired throats, and moving to what would seem like a punch to a geth's stomach to anyone I grazed my hand across, instead flipping my hand around and grabbing the geth by the waist and throwing it at the others on the level, effectively disabling them all. A shot bounced off my shields, directing my attention to the geth upstairs. I quickly overloaded their shields as I pulled out my trusty pistol, shooting any that remained standing.
"Leave some for the rest of us!" Garrus yelled as he and Tali scrambled over.
Walking into the next room, I resisted all of my urges to rush in and put a few geth down, letting Tali hack the geth destroyer in the room, who caused a ton of damage and killed most of the geth in the room except a sniper which Garrus quickly took care of, while Tali and I took care of the destroyer. Once the geth had been cleared out, a geth ship overhead flew off to who-knows-where.
"I'm so sorry," A traumatized Lizbeth spoke after she had cursed herself for shooting at us, "I thought you were geth, or one of those varren."
"It's all right. You stay here till I can get the energy barrier down that the geth put up."
She nodded, "Take my ID, it should get you past any locked doors." I nodded and walked over to the door, up a level, where we found a krogan battle master arguing with a VI.
"Stupid machine! Access encrypted files! No, I don't want to review protocol!"
"I am unable to comply. Please contact your supervisor."
"Dang it! Tell me what I want or I'll blow your virtual butt into actual dust!"
"Please contact your supervisor for level 4 security encryption or make an appointment with-"
"Stupid machine!"
"If there is nothing else, please step aside. There is a queue forming behind you for use of this console." By this time we were directly behind the Krogan. I had to make him understand that we were there and there was nothing I could do about it, the only way Krogan understand things.
I head butted him.
"What was that…thing?" Garrus said, looking horrified.
"Thorian creeper," I growled, remembering the horrid things, "be careful. If it's green with claws, shoot. If it shoots back, leave them to me. Got it?" They nodded, and we headed inside for the long battle ahead.
"Alright," Tali said as we stepped into the main room of the Thorian, "We just need to find this thing and determine what it… what it…Keelah, what is that?" We all looked up at the monster in a fearful awe.
"Well, that's just great." I angrily mutter, stepping forward and muttering some more about stupid Saren, with his stupid geth, and the stupid fatty before me called a Thorian and his creepers, which were scattered all around us.
We all watch as the Thorian spits out a green asari clone, "Invaders! Your every step is a transgression. The thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose. I speak for the Old Growth, as I did for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands you to be in awe."
"I need what you gave Saren."
"Saren, sought knowledge of those who are gone. The Old Growth listened to flesh for the first time in the Long Cycle. Trades were made. Then cold ones began killing the flesh that would tend the next cycle. Flesh fairly given! The Old Growth sees the air you push as lies! It will listen no more!"
"I'm against Saren, not with him!"
"No more will the Thorian listen to those that scurry. Your lives are short, but have gone on too long. Your blood will feed the ground and the new growth!" She pulled a gun but I punched her in the stomach mid-pull and in her moment of hesitation, I swung around and broke her neck.
"Here's the plan!" I yelled, pulling out my pistol and shooting a rising creeper behind Tali, "Tali, you've got point. Focus on the Creepers in the front. Garrus, keep them off our tail. Only when you're absolutely positive there's nothing behind us do you turn around and help me with the nodes. Got it?" We both nodded and pulled up to the first node, shooting everything that moved that wasn't one of us.
The Thorian gave out a cry as the first node exploded, spitting out another clone in anger, "That did something!" Garrus whooped.
"A few more of these and it's down." Tali agreed.
We flew through the nodes with ease, while the cries of the Thorian became more, and more desperate. All was fine… till the last node.
"Tali!" I screamed as a creeper threw up acid all over Tali, causing her to fall limp furiously trying to wipe the gunk off her mask. Garrus had been distracted by my cry and a creeper snuck up on him and spit acid all over his unprotected face, "Garrus!" Now infuriated, I grabbed the two creepers and smashed their heads ageist each other and threw a grenade at the remaining node, helping Tali to her feet and picking Garrus up, Leading them to safety while we waited for the grenade to explode.
By the time we had gotten enough of the Creeper goo off Tali's mask for her to see, the Thorian gave a mighty cry as its arms started detaching, and then finally falling to the ground and shattering into a million pieces. An asari, one that looked like the clones fell to the ground and come over to us, "I'm free. I'm free! I- I suppose I should thank you for releasing me."
At this point Garrus had gotten up and was walking around. It made me feel relieved, even though he was definitely hurt, "Are you alright?"
"I am fine. Or I will be, in time. My name is Shiala. I serve- I served Matriarch Benezia. When she allied herself with Saren, so did I. Benezia foresaw the influence Saren would have. She joined him to guide him down a gentler path. But Saren is compelling. Benezia lost her way."
"What do you mean?"
"Benezia underestimated Saren. As did I. We came to believe his cause and his goals. The strength of his influence is troubling."
"She tried to manipulate Saren. But in the end, her plan backfired." Tali spoke up.
"Saren has a vessel. A warship unlike anything I have ever seen. He calls it Sovereign. It can dominate the minds of his followers. They become indoctrinated to Saren's will. The process is subtle. It can take days, weeks. But in the end, it is absolute. I was a willing slave when Saren brought me to this world. He needed my biotics to communicate with the Thorian, to learn its secrets. Saren offered me in trade. I was sacrificed to secure an alliance between Saren and the Thorian."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Saren sacrificed you, for an alliance with a fat plant?"
"Yes, he needed the Cipher."
"The what now?"
"The beacon on Eden Prime gave you visions. But the visions are unclear, confusing. They were meant for a Prothean mind. To truly comprehend them, you must think like a Prothean. You must understand their culture, their history, their very existence. The Thorian was here long before the Protheans built this city. It watched and studied them. When they died, it consumed them. They became a part of it."
"So the Cipher is the history of the Protheans?"
"The cipher is the very essence of being a Prothean. It cannot be described or explained. It would be like describing color to an animal without eyes. To understand, you must have access to exceptional ancestral memory. A view point stretching thousands of Prothean generations. I sensed this ancestral memory - the Cipher - when I melded with the Thorian. Our identities merged, our minds intertwined. Such knowledge cannot be taught; it simply exists."
"We-" I stopped, remembering Lorrel wasn't here, "I need that information."
"There is a way," the asari suddenly looked almost shy, "I can transfer the knowledge from my mind to yours, as I did for Saren. Try to relax, Commander. Slow, deep breaths. Let go of you physical shell. Reach out to grab the threads that bind us, one to another. Every action sends ripples across the galaxy. Every Idea must touch a mind to live. Every motion must mark another's spirit. We are all connected. Every being united in a single, glorious existence. Open yourself to the universe, Commander. Embrace eternity!"
I opened my eyes after the link of data, most of which I already knew, as she kicked me out of my mind, planted the data, and jumped back out, letting me back in and the images fill my mind, "I have given you the Cipher, just as it was given to Saren. The ancestral memories of the Protheans are a part of you now." The asari spoke.
"What was that?" Tali asked, "Shepard are you alright?"
"I'm fine Tali." I exhaled, "just a …new… feeling."
"You have been given a great gift: the experience of an entire people." Shiala spoke again, "It will take time for your mind to process this information."
"I already have. I know what was in the beacon, or part of it." I said, somehow managing to think back to the first game, "It was a warning of some sort. But the beacon on Eden Prime was damaged, so it must have not had the full story."
"I am… impressed. Most cannot comprehend things like this for a week or a month. Some not in a year. You are a very capable woman, Shepard. Now, if you allow it, I will tend to the colonists. They have suffered greatly. I would like to make amends."
"Sounds good to me. We need to get our friend back to the ship. Good bye, Shiala."
yes I skipped a ton of battle sections,yes its because I'm lazy and suck at putting battle scenes,so review if you want more!
CommanderHawke667 -agreed. what if he was like "Well if Shep goes gay, maybe I should try!" and next thing you know he's sleeping with Cortez. lol :3
Liege Lord -thx.
if anyone has a prob with anything, let me know by clicking the blue thing down there, plz!