What's up people? Sorry for the wait, but college and two jobs eat up your time like nothing else. So in penance this is going to be an long chapter. Chapter 12 here we go.
"We there yet" Wrex said impatiently.
"NO, for the last time it will take another three hours to get to Tuchanka" Veronica yelled glaring at the Krogan.
"Why don't you use that teleportation thing?" Wrex asked.
"Because it can only move you a few million miles max not across the whole galaxy" Veronica answered returning to her work strewn across the cafeteria table. She was watching Wrex on Rex's orders after Wrex tried to fight Grunt for the fiftieth time.
"Oh, you got any liquor?" The Krogan warlord asked.
"No, go ask Cass she's always drinking whisky" Veronica said gesturing towards Cass who was sitting with her husband Garrus.
"I meant Krogan liquor" Wrex said.
Veronica just ignored him and continued to work; she wished Jack was here, but she was off with Thane and Kasumi training the Special Forces teams.
"Hey girl you want to put that mechanical fist of yours to the test with an arm wrestling match?" Wrex asked.
"You're on" Veronica said drawing her saturnite fist.
John and Alyssa Shepard found their way to Rex's lab after they received a ping from him an hour before. They actually got lost several times as they navigated the huge ship, and when they finally reached the lab, a large cavernous space filled with equipment and computers, they saw Rex dressing in new armor that closely resembled a mixture of N7 armor and his own saturnite power armor dyed a deep red with black inlays.
"Evening you two" Rex said.
"Evening, what's up" Alyssa asked.
"I have some new armor and weapons for you" Rex said pointing to two containers on the far wall "You'll find that I took the liberty of choosing your colors".
The armor was like Rex's but with a pitch black paint job and two small hearts plastered on the right breastplate. Upon closer inspection they found Rex's armor had one heart on his armor.
"What's with the heart?" Shepard asked.
"It's a vital sign reader" Rex explained "I based it off the quantum communicator tech; it shows you the status of someone anywhere in the galaxy. Mine is connected to Tali and you two are connected to each-others and Sharon's"
Shepard touched the heart and a holographic display opened up showing Sharon's vital signs
"Cool".
Three hours later Rex, Garrus, Cass, Boon, Mordin, Veronica, Wrex, Shepard, Alyssa, Ed-E, and the other members of the crew and companions touched down on Tuchanka. They might as well have touched down on hell because a massive sand storm had encompassed the temple the Krogan were meeting in. After entering the temple Wrex gathered all of the other clans.
"Alright you maggots we're gonna make a mad run for the shroud while fighting off the Reapers" Wrex yelled his gruff voice echoing throughout the huge room. Most of the Krogan clans nodded in agreement while a small group laughed out loud.
"And who's gonna lead us; you and your pets" a young looking Krogan said walking up to Wrex.
Wrex just laughed and pointed to Rex "he's the leader". The young Krogan laughed harder and said:
"This little whelp; oh that's the funniest thing I've ever heard"
Rex simply walked over to the Krogan and kicked him in the stomach flinging him across the stone room into his goons. Rex then sent a blat of red energy at the pile-o-Krogan causing them to float aimlessly through the air.
"Now that that's settled I think we should get going" Rex shouted leading the army of Krogan out into the storm. They piled into the massive vehicles and drove along the massive highway gathering the nomadic Krogan tribes along the way building a massive ground force as destroyer class reapers fell from the sky.
Rex leaned out of his vehicle and activated his communicator "Alright planetary assault force you are a go". Two massive dreadnoughts descended to atmospheric level and began firing on the massive beasts. The reapers broke and shattered releasing husks by the thousands which he massive ground force plowed through easily until they reached the steps of the shroud. Mordin, Shepard, and Rex ascended to the shroud's control room. Rex and Mordin went to work inserting the cure into the shroud's output; as Mordin activated the tower's machinery an alert was displayed across the screen.
"What's wrong?" Shepard asked.
"Old fail safe; tower rigged to explode" Mordin said rapidly pressing keys "can temporarily override but must stay in tower until completion"
"No Mordin I am not leaving you here to die" Rex said intently.
"Has to be me; penance for what I've done" Mordin said as the alert disappeared.
"Mordin are you sure?" Shepard asks.
"Yes, goodbye my friends" Mordin says a small tear sliding down his cheek.
"We won't forget you" Rex says as he and Sheppard take the elevator down. When they cleared the tower Mordin activated the process while overriding the fail safe.
"I am the very model of a scientist salarian, I've studied species turian, asari, and batarian.
I'm quite good at genetics as a subset of biology because I am an expert which I know is a tautology. My xenoscience studies range from urban to agrarian" Mordin sings quietly to himself as the process runs its course, and when the process was done and the fail safe's countdown began he closed his eyes and sang the last bar "I am the very model of a scientist salarian". The tower's control room exploded further spreading the cure into the atmosphere. Rex and Shepard watched with sad looks on their faces as the Krogan applauded around them; Wrex came up to them and said "That lizard had guts".
"Yeah he did" Shepard said sighing.
After the reaper forces were forced off the planet the Krogan piled onto the fleet's ships and after everyone was in the fleet lifted off towards palaven. The trip would take almost a day so the crew settled down for a much needed rest. Rex and Tali confined themselves to their quarters while the other crew members settled down with their own partners to enjoy calm before they enter the storm. And so the army that united under two skies rocketed towards another battle not realizing the next foe was already at their door.
Rex slept deeply with Tali in his arms until the familiar inability to sleep woke there must be enemies nearby. He got up and went out into the corridor to find six Cerberus soldiers filing through; he grabbed his gun and blew them away before they could react. He then sounded the alarm after making sure Tali was safe and found that the entire ship was now crawling with Cerberus troops; Cerberus troops who were slowly getting their asses kicked of his ship. Rex made his way through the halls to an atrium that seemed deserted. Suddenly hundreds of soldiers swarmed him demanding he get on his knees and an Atlas Mech came forward and pointed its gun at Rex.
"What'cha gonna do now hero?" the pilot asks.
"Call a friend of mine" Rex replied promptly.
"You think a friend will do you any good?"
"Well he is a BIGSONOFABITCH" Rex yelled and the massive super mutant appeared and crashed into the hulking Mech tearing its arms off as Rex opened fire on the soldiers. Soon the soldiers were decimated and Rex activated his com;
"Status report"
"Rex thank god you're okay; this is Veronica we're pushing Cerberus troops back at every turn looks like this was an attempt at stealing our tech"
"How'd they get on the ship?" Rex asked.
"One of the Normandy's crew still had ties to Cerberus and shut down our tracking net"
"How many we lose?"
"Twenty injured and three dead and Rex ED-E got hit with a grenade"
"Is he alright?" Rex asked franticly; ED-E was his oldest companion and they had a special bond.
"Rex his chassis ripped open and diagnostics show his systems are shutting down" Veronica replied solemnly.
Rex made his way to the mechanoid deck of ship quickly dodging securitrons and maintenance drones as he went. Soon he arrived and saw ED-E on the ground smoking and sparking making feeble beeping noises. Rex knelt down and placed his hand on ED-E and said;
"Hey buddy how you holding up?"
The small robot makes pained beeping noises.
"I'm sorry it has to end like this old friend; you've followed me through so much I couldn't imagine going into battle without you"
ED- E makes happy beeping noises as he scrolls trough his memory banks.
"ED-E run final shutdown protocol; save all recoverable memory files and system info" Rex ordered and ED-E's systems shut down faster as he allocated space for the recovery files. With his last burst of computing power ED-E arranged an audio file into a single phrase;
"Goodbye Rex and thanks for the parts"
Rex bowed his head silently mourning his old friend; after awhile he feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up to see Veronica standing above him.
"Those bastards will pay for this" She says a fierce look of determination on her face.
"Yes they will; now where's the traitor who caused all this?" Rex asked standing up. Veronica led him to the cargo hold where the traitor was strung up by his feet. It was Jenkins a low level communications officer from the Normandy.
"Jenkins how could you do this man; you were an usher at my weddings for god's sake" Rex asked.
"Fuck you; you're not even a true human" Jenkins replied spitting blood at him.
"Wow for a second there I thought you were a member of the Enclave; now you're gonna inform me of everything you know about Cerberus" Rex ordered taking a small cloth bundle from a backpack.
"Fuck you" the traitor said as he dangled.
"I was hoping you would say that; you know I've been killing raiders for years and along the way I picked up a few of their tricks" Rex said drawing a wicked looking knife "You know I once saw a raider skin a fiend so fast the poor bastard actually lived for three days before he died of blood loss".
Jenkins didn't say a word; he just stared intently at the blade.
"Now I'm not that good but I would love to give it a shot"
Four hours later Rex walked out of the cargo bay covered in blood with a list of names in his hand.
"See to it these people are detained" He said handing the list to a securitron.
He walked back to his quarters and washed the traitor's blood from his skin; when he was done he went out into the room to see Tali sitting on the bed.
"Are you alright?" She asks as he sits beside her.
"No" Rex replied.
"I'm sorry about ED-E; I know he was your first companion" Tali said.
"Well I can build another ED-E with his files but it won't be him; in a way it would be like ED-E's child" Rex said
Rex got dressed and went to visit the wounded with Tali in tow. Rex spent the rest of the day helping the wounded soldiers and in repairing the ship. When the work was done he made his way to the secret section of the ship; the vault. In this place Rex stored the most dangerous object he came across during his travels from pure FEV to an anti mutant virus from the capitol wasteland even the secret recipe for Nuka Cola Quantum, but today he was here for something more dangerous than anything else in the vault. When he arrived at the back of the vault he came upon a stasis pod from the big empty. Rex looked upon the pod and into the cold sleeping face of his greatest enemy; the man who's home Rex destroyed; the man he fought under the old world flag, the greatest threat Rex had ever faced, Ulysses. Rex pressed a button and uttered his access phrase:
"To make a better world freed from the Bull and Bear"
The pod hissed as it thawed and when the door opened Ulysses fell to his knees panting.
"Hello Ulysses" Rex said using his best poker face.
"Hello Courier six" The former warlord said standing up "Why have you freed me from my slumber?"
"I need your help" Rex said promptly. In reply Ulysses charged forward and collided with Rex smashing him against the wall. Rex glowed with red energy and blasted Ulysses backwards; Rex rushed him and drew out a silver circle of metal and latched it around Ulysses neck while he held the madman by his fore head. The collar phased into Ulysses's neck leaving only a red circle behind.
"What was that?"
"A nifty little device that pumps poison into your blood stream; the poison is designed to kill a man in three days unless you take the antidote" Rex said taking a small wrapped piece of candy from his pocket "got the poison and antidote from observing another universe; a prison where people with weird powers fight to the death; so don't look for a cure anywhere else"
Ulysses glares with quiet rage at the man he hated the most in this world. How could he be beaten so easy; collared like the dogs of Elijah?
"What do you want me to do?" Ulysses asks seeing no way out.
"You have a knack for infiltrating and destroying things; I want you to do that to an organization called Cerberus; if you do this I will give a steady supply of candy" Rex said smirking; he gave Ulysses a data packet of all the info he would need to adapt to the new universe; Soon after Rex sent him away with a small bundle of candy and a quantum communicator. When he was gone Rex bowed his head and uttered a small prayer to whoever was listening "I don't know if you go by Atom or God, but whoever you are forgive me for what I've done"
He left the vault and made his way to the bridge where Tali and Veronica were directing the techs as they brought the last of the systems online. They walked over to Rex and veronica asked
"So why was there a power fluctuation in the restricted area?"
"I activated the Troy plan" Rex said promptly.
"You let that crazy bastard out?" Veronica said drawing several stairs from the techs.
"Quiet Veronica, most of them think he's dead; I would like to keep it that way" Rex said as he queued up the ships diagnostics. An hour later they reached Palevan and began their assault on the reaper forces destroying several capitol ship reapers. Without the capitol ships and destroyers the reaper forces on the ground were easily wiped out by the Turian military and Armada. After the Turian forces joined; the whole fleet celebrated all except for Tali and Rex. Tali had received a message from the other Qaurians stating their intention to retake Rannoch and destroy the Geth once and for all, and so Rex directed the fleet to turn around and head towards Rannoch in hopes of stopping the inevitable Geth and Qaurian conflict.
At the same time Liara, Shepard, Alyssa, and Grunt left to investigate a disturbance on Eden Prime. As the fleet rocketed through space towards Qaurian flotilla Rex and Legion began work on a surprise for the Qaurian and the Geth; a program that will free the Geth and make them sentient while at the same time revealing the nature of their uprising to the Qaurian's at large. Rex decided long ago that the Geth and Qaurian's would serve their causes better as allies than enemies. As they neared the fleet Rex suited up and entered a drop ship with Tali and legion; they flew towards flotilla's main ship where the future of two peoples would be decided. As Rex usually did in times like this he thought back to his father; a stern man with a strong jaw and a penchant for philosophy. When Rex was eight he asked his father why the Enclave fought the Brotherhood of Steel if the old world government created the military.
"Well, son sometimes the things you create take a cause of their own and just want to live the way they want"
Rex didn't know it at the time but his father's words would apply to many things in his life in the Mojave and into this new universe, but not more than what he said after taking a swig of whiskey;
"Or could be that the Enclave are just fucking assholes".