Intermezzio: Exemplar
DISCLAIMER: Bioware owns Mass Effect. I take no credit or part in such except for this story. Inspiration of this story goes to theorangeguy's 'Saren's Effect'. Jennifer Hale is a real life person. Same goes for Mark Meer. These are merely fictional representations, and do not reflect the actual opinions and personalities of said persons.
Intermezzio, Exemplar
The Vanguard, Exodus Cluster, Utopia System, April 01, 2183, 2147 Zulu
She stood over the make-shift bed that she used to sleep on, looking upon the feminine form that laid upon it.
Cyan flesh was exposed admist the tangle of white rumpled human sheets and blankets on the pre-fab mattress that they had used during their intense bout of sexual gratification. The blue creature itself laid there, her breathing pained and labored as indigo tears stained her cyan cheeks, the inky blackness of her eyes fading from the force meld the human female had enacted against the creatures' own biology and wishes. It struck her as amusing that it was only possible for beings with five fingers; the monogender Asari, the endangered Drell, and of course human beings. All one had to do was to place their fingers into certain locations along the folds of an Asari's neck, just below their crest, and place a certain amount of pressure against those nerve bundles to activate their nervous system into an unwanted meld. She had invaded the Asari's mind and soul as she had done so countless times before, indulging in the sadistic pleasure of the alien's fear and denials as her thoughts and memories invaded her partners. Indulgence sated, she stood naked before the bed, her eyes upon the body of the Asari as the alien cried, folding upon herself into a fetal position, one hand draped over the large swollen bulge of her belly, cyan flesh surrounding the life that had quickened inside of it.
"Please... please let me keep this daughter." The Asari pleaded weakly, speaking through swollen lips that were dribbling indigo blood from splits in both her upper and lower lips, complimenting the swollen cheekbone that was turning a violet color, indicating that it was deeply bruised. "H-have I not given enough to you? To our benefactor? My education? My money? My body? My mind? My soul? Must you take all my daughters, too?"
"You know well what it is that we do." She replied, her tone assured as she used a little bit of her influence upon the Asari that laid before her, curled in a ball and weeping. "You know why as well. Your daughters will help ensure our preservation."
"Our daughters!" The Asari spat out through swollen lips, more indigo blood leaking from her lips as she wiped away a small trickle that ran down her chin, her other hand still laying protectively over the pregnant bulge of her belly. "Must you take everything dear to me? Have I left anything to give? Anything to take?"
"Have you forgotten what has been given to you in return, how much more you are capable of now?" She reminded the Thessian as she stood and stretched out her body, still feeling the glow of satisfaction infusing her limbs, feeling energized, rejuvenated. "What were you before? A recluse, a despot, a pariah? What did you have then that you do not have now, Thessian? A mother who had already scorned your future, wishing you to never return? An Asari father who had abandoned you at birth, never even knowing her name? A race that befouls you for your heredity, seeing your pedigree as some sort of liability? A profession that insulted your life's' ambition and work, regaling you to cataloging while they reaped the benefits of your efforts? You owe the galaxy nothing, not a Goddamn thing. And yet do you not do this for your people, to spare them the coming storm?" The Thessian merely looked at her, her swollen lips and bruised face never detracting from the eyes that she now possessed, her corneas now a fierce red color that surrounded the teal bands of her irises. The same eyes that the human woman herself possessed, save that hers were ringed with emerald green. "We do this for others, Doctor. Don't forget that... never forget that."
"I just wish..." The Asari fell silent as her right hand stroked her swollen belly, at the life that would soon come into the galaxy, a blue squalling babe. "I have given so much, as have you, Commander. So much has been lost..."
"So much has been gained." The human female reminded the Thessian, her own electric blue eyes blazed as she felt the power that thrummed in her veins, holding up a hand and looking at it, imagining the microcircuitry that laced her flesh, her muscles, her bones... every inch of her body. "Are we not better than before? Stronger? Healthier? Able to recover from injury in mere minutes instead of weeks and months? Do we not know what the coming storm will bring?" That had the Thessian close her reddened eyes, obviously remembering well their cause. "We stand a chance, Doctor. A ghost of a chance, perhaps. But it is a chance to save those who deserve it, to cleanse this galaxy of the filth that infects it while sparing those who are worthy of being the successors of a new galaxy... a better galaxy. Your daughters... our daughters... will be the queens of a better life, inheritors to a galaxy that will be better than the one we were born to. Or do you wish for them to live in the same misery you yourself faced? The same heartache that you've seen in my mind?"
"No." The Asari replied finally, her voice but a whisper as her reddened eyes opened once more. "I do remember why we do this, Commander. The lives of my daughters are precious to me... but so is the chance to rebuild this galaxy into the better place that all daughters can enjoy."
"I agree." She smiled as she moved through the small room, standing in front of the table that contained her weapons and armor, items honed by combat and experience. A finger traced over the blood-red stripe that ran vertically down the right pauldron, vanbrace, and bracer of the right arm, bordered by silver; a distinctive mark that any human would recognize, and many others of the other species would, too. "These past four years have been trying, yet we have continued to achieve the goals of our benefactor. Today? Today our trails and tragedies will end in triumph, for the hour of our victory is in hand. I have no doubt there will be more intelligence at the site for you to procure as I go for the cache itself. Today, Eden Prime. Tomorrow, the future." She smiled as she picked up the breastplate of her armor, smiling at it as her eyes touched upon the device that laid over the heart, the embossed 'N7' that indicated her level of training and lethality. "Nothing can stop us, Doctor. Nothing will get in our way on the path towards salvation."
The assault had gone as planned.
She stood on the Command Deck of the Vanguard, watching as the Geth Warships speared forward towards the exosphere of Eden Prime, GTS Batteries firing at the Eden Prime Colonial Air Force vessels that provided the defense for the colony. The software-possessed batteries had fired all their munitions at the thirteen Cruiser-Class human vessels holding orbit over the planet to ensure not only that they were completely destroyed, but also as well as making sure that no one else took command of the Ground-to-Space Batteries and started firing upon the Geth vessels. Not that she was worried about the Vanguard being hurt by something so puny as simply low-yield multistage thermonuclear ISBM's, but why take casualties when one could ensure it couldn't happen? The six Geth Dreadnoughts took residence in the exosphere as squadrons of Geth fighters began spewing out of the lone Megacarrier, the vessel comprised almost completely of hanger bays to hold ten thousand light-wing Delta flyers based off of the old Quarian PDF of Rannoch. The rest of the vessels began spitting out warforms and warframes onto the planet, infecting the area with a hundred thousand shock troopers of various capabilities, more than enough to take on the Marine Division posted on the colony, as well as the three Army Divisions.
Eden Prime fell in a matter of minutes.
The human woman boarded the singular personnel shuttle along with the Asari Doctor, both of them armed and armored for a fight, though she didn't doubt they would likely meet any resistance on their way to Constant, the colony's capital. Already, Geth software had infected the colony's mainframe, wrecking havoc upon its infrastructure, shutting down power planets, disabling civil services, jamming transmissions and extranet relays. The Vanguard itself drove towards the planet, assaulting local pockets of resistance to a very high degree of effectiveness, its electromagnetic metallic slurry driven through mass tunnels that bombarded with such heat and force as to strip a Dreadnought of its barriers and armor in seconds, cutting swaths of destruction upon the ground. The shuttle continued towards its destination, the dig site that the Geth had hacked its location from secured Alliance transmissions and Counsel data-packets. The seven Prime Warframe units that populated the shuttle with her and her partner were keyed on, their programs running real-time as the vessel skirted over the newly-erupted warzone and to their destiny.
"Exemplar, we have arrived." One of the Geth Prime intoned with its electronic voice, deep and unfeeling. She merely nodded towards the Warframe as she stepped out of the shuttle still ten meters off the ground as she landed upon terra firma with heavy booted feet, finding herself the host of many pairs of eyes as several Hunters and Destroyers held a large group of men and women of a variety of species hostage, their knees on the grass with a weapon to the backs of their heads. They were surrounded by a series of pre-fab trailers, quick labs for research, no doubt. She looked back up to the shuttle to see the good Doctor glow Biotically as she floated down easily, landing with the graceful ease of a feather as the Asari looked to her with her reddened eyes, nodding once as she strode forward, the seven Prime Warframes exiting the craft and landing behind the human female dressed in Heavy Onyx Armor, labeled with the 'N7' over her heart.
"I... I know you!" One of the captured Asari gasped as she looked at the Doctor, her seafoam-colored eyes going wide at the sight of the armored Asari, the Exalted approaching her first. "There was a human man, a C-Sec Officer, looking for you! Him and two Asari Matriarchs! They said you were missing!" The captured personnel looked at the Asari in question as the Doctor stood a few feet in front of the quivering Thessian. "Y-you were one of the catalogers on the dig on Feros about ten years back. I remember you! You're Doctor T'so..."
"EMBRACE OBLIVION!" The Asari shouted as she lunged forward, grabbing the captured Asari's head with both hands as the Doctor's eyes went pure red, force melding with the Asari in question. The Thessian who knelt at the ground, a Geth Hunter with a shotgun at the back of her head, began to scream in agony as her whole body siezed and convulsed, indigo blood gushing from the ear nodules from behind her crest, as well as her nostrils and tear ducts. The screams lasted but a moment, but when they finally died, the Asari laid twitching on the ground, gibbering unintelligibly. That ceased after a breath as well as the assaulted alien laid on the ground as if dead, her seafoam-colored eyes staring into a burning sky.
"Oh Goddess, she's an Ardat-Yakshi!" One of the other Asari exclaimed in terror, the fear in her voice palatable, even if her knowledge was not. The N7 watched blandly as her Asari cohort melded with that Asari next, briefly noting that the Thessian too was dressed like a doctor; who wore a lab coat to a dig? She watched with muted satisfaction as the Doctor tore into the Asari's mind, stripping away everything; memories torn out in a few beats of the heart. The victim fell to the ground, epileptic and spasming as the female N7 watched her partner step away, frowning.
"I'll need time to process." The Doctor replayed, looking at her with her red-teal eyes. "The first one, Doctor Sandaya M'dronis, specialized in Prothean Paleotechnological Studies. I doubt she'll know much of worth. The second one, though, focused on Prothean holdings and extrastructure. Doctor T'lela's memories might prove useful."
"Good. Wipe them all. Leave a few droolers." The human ordered as she pulled off of her chest her main weapon of choice, cocking back the internal heat-sink exposure slide, watching with satisfaction as the rest of the capturees jolted in fright at the 'click-clank' noise that the heavy shotgun made. Though she doubted any of the eggheads would recognize the illegal M-500 Claymore on sight, she didn't doubt they could see the size of it and reach their own conclusions as the Doctor moved to one of the Salarians, grabbing his skull, and proceeding to drain all of his memories. Then it was a human man. Then a human woman. Another Salarian. A Drell. An Asari. A female Turian. Two more human men. The last available detainee was a younger human woman, possibly just a college intern. The Doctor frowned as she approached the crying human as she begged, and instead of embracing oblivion, merely stood in front of her for a moment, obviously going through the many memories she had just collected.
"Julia. Julia Davenport. Second year, joined the dig in the hopes of being able to watch history being made. A... believer." The Doctor looked to the woman in the N7 armor, a cold smile upon her teal lips. "She competed with with the rest of her class for the opportunity to come, knowing that she would do nothing more than take notes and send data requests. A child with a dream to one day discover something amazing."
"Should have let one of your classmates beat you out." The human woman told the intern, who looked at her with tear-filled eyes.
"Please! Help me! You're a Marine!" The college student begged between sobs, looking at the human woman who stood in front of her. "Don't let her kill me! I... I... I'll do anything you ask!"
"Good." The human woman smiled, though no warmth came to her face as she did so. "Exchange her." The order went to one of the Geth Prime units, who laid down a low tripod device upon the ground from its back as the Destroyer who held the college student at gunpoint picked up the crying woman and pushed her onto the tripod. The weight sensor activated, a long sharp metal rod shot from the tripod, impaling the woman low in her gut, forcing her some several feet in the air as she screamed out in pain and agony as the spike held her aloft. "Do me a favor. When the nanocytes are done converting you into something a little more useful than a damsel in distress, start ferreting out and killing any survivors you find." The N7 turned her back on the college student as young woman began to scream out in pain, the Asari Doctor by her side as the Primes, Destroyers, and Hunters flanked them. "Warframes! Take us to the cache site. We have a meeting that is about fifty thousand years behind schedule. Ready to answer your every dream, Doctor? We've got a beacon to capture."
"Of course, Commander. After you." The Asari replied, a hand on her hugely swollen belly.
"Good. Take us to the Spaceport."
A/N:I wonder how many of you guessed who the bad guy was, considering the start of every chapter was dedicating the inspiration to 'theorangeguy's' Saren's Effect, in which Commander Shepard was the bad guy. How many of you knew before this chapter? Don't lie.
Oh, Dr. T'soni, I presume?
You were promised lots of little blue babies, Shepsonis. Now you fucking got them without having to pick the Red skittle option.
Surprisingly, coming up with 'Embrace Oblivion' as a polar opposite of 'embrace eternity' was harder than it should have been, but I love the concept. Despair instead of hope, anguish instead of pleasure, finality instead of peace.
I'm really liking BadShep.
For those who aren't versed in Italian, 'Intermezzio' stands for intermission, while 'Exemplar' means a person, a place, an object, or some other entity that serves as an excellent example of a given concept. Or in this case, a Reaper Avatar. I've tossed the idea of an Exemplar around for a while, as there have been several Reaper-based persons of varying degrees; Saren, TIM, the Collectors, the Avatars, the husks, and the Indoctrinated. They will all be covered. Shepard is singular as an Exemplar, while Liara is an Exalted, second tier.
Poor Julia Davenport. Spiked.
ISBM - Inter-Spacial Ballistic Missile. A play on the ICBM, or Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile; a MIRV (Multiple Independantly-targetable Re-entry Vehicle) that usually flies at about Mach 22, is loaded with a nuke strong enough to put a whole in a planet, and is generally depicted as those cute little white lines crossing the globe in any doomsday movie or video game.
GTS - Ground to Space, defense turret that fires missiles (or mass accelerated fire) at space targets. Think of that POS tower on Horizon that we all enjoyed waiting to power up while being pulverized by a large flying bug-tank.