Hello! I am back, and once again with a new chapter! Yep, we have the tunnels assignments taken care of in this chapter. So before you start reading, I have to say that I'm not sure when the next chapter is going to be finished. I really need to start doing my assignments and start getting ready for my VERY important exams, which would happen in about a month. Failing those will leave me... well, in deep shit. No Uni, and I'll have to wait another year until I could take them again. So yeah, I'm not keen of failing those and I really have to get ready for them. I'll attempt to squeeze in a few writing hours here and there but again, I'm not really sure when I'll finish it. Maybe next week, maybe the one after that. I'll see what I can do. :P
Without anymore delays, here is the new chapter!
Hm, I think I'm a bit nervous here. Sure, Wrex is with me, who is probably the closest thing to an organic walking tank in the galaxy, but from what I can recall, this is not a walk in the park. I don't really remember this part of the mission that well, but I think there were quite a lot of geth down here. Well, for the good of the colony I guess I'll have to suck it up and just do the damn assignment.
We easily dealt with the geth we encountered on the way down. With some biotics from Wrex, dealing with the hoppers was extremely easy.
"Into the howling dark we go..." I mutter to myself as we descend the final staircase. Sounding awesome might make me less nervous anyway.
Wrex grunts in reply. "Not that dark in here," he remarks when we finally open the door and walk into the tunnels. They're exactly as I remember them from the game. Catwalks on the edges and a bottomless abyss in the middle. I can't help but wonder what's down there anyway. Does it have a bottom? I really don't want to check out how far the bottom is anyway.
"I was speaking figuratively," I say quietly as we cross the bridge. "we have no idea what's down here," I add, though it's a blatant lie. I just don't remember how many of the geth are down here, that's all.
"Doesn't matter," Wrex responds, making his point by shouldering his assault rifle. "we'll kill them anyway."
This gets me to crack a smile. Wrex, the voice of confidence in this team. Makes me glad he's here now. We walk over to the small passageway, and spot several geth milling about. Oh, here we go now. I raise my rifle and open fire, opting to use full auto for this occasion. The closest geth falls down from my hail of fire and this catches the attention of the other geth, making them round on us. I aim at my next target and open fire again, sending a quick glance to the corner of my HUD to check how many more shots I have left until my weapon overheats. I stop firing right before my weapon overheats and run over to the large concrete block that's lying around.
Wrex wrapped himself in biotics and sent out a wide biotic shockwave. Since the corridor didn't have much room to maneuver, the geth couldn't do anything other than brace themselves. The closest two geth were sent flying off their feet but the ones behind them were just pushed back a step or two. Still, we had two downed target and I feel that I can't miss the opportunity to use that, something which Wrex surely wasn't going to do. I quickly join Wrex and we quickly finish the two downed geth. As soon as they were filled with enough holes we turn our attention to the other four remaining. Unfortunately, one of them activates one of their geth barriers, which the rest quickly started using as cover. Well, it wont be there for long, that's for sure.
Wrex simply switches his rifle for his shotgun. I think about questioning his tactic but before I can, Wrex wraps himself with a biotic barrier and charges forward. Halfway to the geth barrier Wrex fires twice. The first shot nearly destroys the barrier but the second one completely annihilates it, leaving the geth out in the open, facing a charging krogan battlemaster. The odds are a bit unfair in my opinion. The closest geth was hit the hardest. Before it could raise it's rifle to defend itself Wrex backhands it away as if it was a measly fly. The geth behind the first one received a vicious headbutt from the krogan and couple with Wrex's running momentum, the force of the hit was enough to crush the synthetic's flashlight head into small bits. The remaining two geth started shooting but Wrex's barriers soaked the damage as if it was nothing. From there, much to my surprise, Wrex released the biotic barrier with... explosive results. More accurately, a biotic shockwave that knocked the two geth off their feet. Almost casually, as if it was an everyday occurrence, Wrex calmly aims his shotgun at their heads and fires once at each one.
I'm still standing in the same place, looking at the krogan with some amount of awe. That was freaking awesome, no doubt about it. Won't even argue. Wrex slowly turns to look at me and gives me a satisfied, and greatly pleased look which snaps me out of my stupor.
"Shit..." I mutter as I glance at the downed geth bodies. We annihilated them! This is turning out much, much better than I expected it would. Okay... back to the task at hand. I look around and spot what I'm looking for. "Hold up," I announce. "Found one of the water valves..."
I walk over to the terminal thing and activate it. Okay... let's see... I have no idea what I'm doing, but I think I can guess what to do and be done with it. Valve control... huh, this looks like what I'm looking for. Okay, 'Open valve'... I press this button and... oh! Here we go! And... silence. I look around, wondering if I actually did anything. Wrex does the same on the other end of the corridor but after several seconds where nothing happened, I look at the valve again. It's open... and I'm simply baffled. I have no idea what I'm doing
"Another one here," Wrex says gruffly, jerking his head in the direction of the second valve. "Doesn't look like it's on yet," oh, that explains it! There are three valves and without all of them being on, nothing will happen. I quickly jog over to the second valve and repeat the process. Nothing happens, again, but this time I actually know what I need to do so I don't let it bother me.
"Alright, let's go on," I say to Wrex, who starts walking off. At least he could wait for me... I quickly follow him out of the corridor. I make sure to stay away from the edge, even though there's a safety railing. There's a damn bottomless pit beneath us and I'm not risking it. Wrex pauses in front of a door and gives me a look. Hm, I don't remember where this leads, though I think it's the place where the varren are hanging out. I give him a shrug. "We might as well."
The door slides open and immediately we hear a weird... growling sound and an echoing, yet distant roar-like noise. Wrex huffs in annoyance in response. "Varren," he says with some distaste and moves into the room without giving me time to say or do anything.
Fuck, what the hell is he doing? I quickly follow him inside and as soon as we cross the threshold, we hear another of these roars, this time much closer. I turn around and I am greeted by a frighteningly large horde of varren running at us.
Wrex doesn't seem bothered by it, not in the slightest. He flares his biotics and a second later, nearly half of the varren mod are sent flying back, leaving a lot less varren to deal with. Sadly, the other ones will recover soon enough and we'll have to deal with them again. Shit, we better do this fast!
Wrex shoots once and a varren falls dead, sliding across the ground for several feet, carried by it's momentum. I shoulder my rifle and pick a varren – not that hard to do, considering their numbers – and start shooting. The varren survived nearly two seconds of constant fire before it dropped down and I pick another target. Another varren fell from a shotgun blast from Wrex. I shoot another second into a varren's face before it drops down and throughout all this, they are constantly getting closer and closer.
The rest of the varren recovered by now and resumed their blind charge at us. Apparently, they are not as dumb as I first thought they were because as I start shooting at one of them, they quickly split off in an attempt to flank us. The one I was aiming at quickly falls down from it's wounds but another one already replaced it. Since it was a lot closer, I don't even need to aim. I simply spray the thing with bullets until it finally falls down. Unfortunately, the third on catches me completely by surprise. When I spot it, I'm several seconds too late. It's already in mid-leap and heading straight at me. I do the only thing I can think off. I raise my arm in defense and the varren's jaws clamp down on it. Hard.
The rest of the varren's body hits me soon after and I'm knocked off my feet. The landing doesn't bother me much. I'm more annoyed and terrified of the fact I have a freaking varren on top of me. Much to my relief, the armor I'm wearing stops the varren's fangs from tearing into my arm but the pressure my poor forearm is currently feeling is goddamn painful. The varren starts violently jerking it's head around in an attempt to rip off my arm and I can't really do anything about it, since it caught the arm that held the rifle. To make it worse, it starts violently raking it's claws on me, probably in an attempt to tear me a new one.
"Fuuck!" I yell in panic as I try to find something to get this thing off of me. My hand goes down to the belt as I try to find something useful there, like my sidearm but to my horror, it's on the other side, right beneath the varren. Luckily, my hand lands on something else, a handle more in particular. I quickly pull out the knife and with an angry growl, drive the knife right into the varren's fish-like face.
The varren jerks a few times before it stops moving and the pressure on my forearm lessens. I sigh in relief as I look over at Wrex to see him finish off the last varren. I'm about to remove the dead varren off of me when I hear a much louder roar and when I look at the source I see the biggest, meaning varren I've ever seen. And it looks royally pissed.
Again, Wrex doesn't look bothered or impressed. I think he's actually bored. I wrench out my hand out of the dead varren's jaws with a grunt of pain and manage to aim the rifle from my position on the ground. When the alpha varren was halfway to us, it was suddenly engulfed by biotics and gently floated off the ground, still maintaining it's momentum. Well, not like it changes anything. I still open fire at the damn thing at the same time with Wrex.
The varren flails it's limbs wildly and roars each time it's hit by our combined fire. Three shotgun blasts later and who knows how much automatic fire from me and the thing still keeps moving. Even Wrex looks mildly surprised by that! The varren finally floats up to Wrex and I stop firing to avoid hitting Wrex. The krogan simply presses his shotgun to the varren's head and pulls the trigger.
Sadly, because the varren floated between me and Wrex, when he pulled the trigger it resulted with the varren's head violently exploding, sending chunks of it's head and skull spraying in all directions... mostly at me.
The disgusting mix of varren blood and brains nearly make me lose my stomach. I slowly wipe the blood off my visor to clear the view. "Goddammit! Wrex!" I cry out in anger and disgust. Fuck! Did he really have to do this! Oh, and now the bastard looks smug!
I angrily push the varren off of me and stand up to inspect the damage. The forearm piece is slightly cracked by thankfully not one of the fangs penetrate into my flesh. Still, it will probably leave quite a big bruise. I flex my arm to see if there's any other damage from all the violent jerks it's been through but thankfully, the only thing I feel is the dull pain from where the varren bit me. There are shallow scratches on my chest and some on my legs but it's just superficial so nothing to worry about. The worst is that I'm covered in bits of brain and lot's of varren blood. I try to send Wrex my most heated glare but sadly, my helmet blocks off most of it. He looks quite amused by the way things turned out.
"Now you look more impressive," he remarks, his mouth set in a suspicious position that reminds me of a smirk.
"Oh, shut up. The smell will probably never go away," I say angrily. "Fucking varren. I need a goddamn shotgun," I sigh.
"Don't forget this moment. You survived a whole pack of them attacking you. Not many can say the same thing," he says with something that sounded almost like respect. "Though the last one was sloppy. You should've dodged instead."
What are you, a freaking contest judge? I don't really need his evaluation to know I screwed up with the last varren. Next time, hopefully there wont be a next time, I'll make sure to watch my flanks more carefully. Damn, I hope I won't have to do this ever again. This was nerve wrecking. My heart is still pounding like a jackhammer! "Shit, you do this kind of thing often?"
Wrex chuckles at the question and kicks away the closest varren corpse. "I've lost count. Varren got boring after a while though," he says, sounding slightly sad and nostalgic. "Looks like we're done with one of their requests. They should have some food now," Wrex adds thoughtfully as he looks around at the numerous dead varren around us. Yeah, we completed the varren assignment! Great now we just need to do the rest of the stuff down here. Wrex starts walking away but I quickly remember another thing.
"Wait..." I start as I look around and spot the broke vehicle I'm looking for. "they need new power cells... I think this should have one or two," I say as I start walking up to the Mako-like vehicle. Wrex just shrugs and follows me.
As soon as I reach the vehicle I come across a major problem. Once again, I have no idea what I'm doing. "Uhm..." I slowly start. By the nine hells, this is so embarrassing! "where... where are the power cells in this thing?" I slowly ask, making sure not to look at Wrex.
The krogan huffs in annoyance and steps up to the front of the vehicle and tears off a portion of what appears to be the hood and looks inside with narrowed eyes. A few seconds later he reaches inside and pulls out a pair of small cylindrical object, which he tossed over to me. They were slightly larger than a soda-can and surprisingly heavier than they looked. I open one of my belt pouches that came with the armor and place them inside. "That's all of them?" I ask.
Wrex glances into the engine again. "Yeah. The rest are fried," he says. "Let's go already. There are more geth to kill," he adds gruffly.
"Yeah, let's head out," I agree. So far, everything is going great, save for the varren part. I don't really like them now. I think I'll have to drop by the shop who upgraded my armor and give them a nice, juicy bonus for the great job... at least when I have money again.
Alright. We have one more valve left. This should be easy.
"Fuck! Why doesn't this thing go down!" I scream as I duck behind the block of concrete I use as cover. The missile that was fired at me impacted the block and shook the whole corridor and raised a large cloud of dust and dirt.
Holy crap, I have no idea how many more shots can my cover handle. I definitely didn't have any indestructible cover anywhere around. I wait until my shields folly recharge, since I caught some stray bullets just a moment ago, and when they are back to 100% I lean out and start shooting at the geth destroyer again.
"I'd ask you the same thing!" Wrex shoots back, figuratively and shoots back, literally, at the destroyer. A moment later he apparently tires of this and sends a biotic push. The geth destroyer is sent back and lands with a heavy thud, for the fourth time.
I don't pay much attention to it mostly because I'm concentrating on that pesky geth sniper on the far end of the corridor. I wait until it shows it's glowing head and fire at short bursts again. I quickly discover that at this range I'm not very effective. While my new rifle is much more accurate, my aim still has lots of room for improvement. I fire and fire until I finally manage to catch the sniper in the shoulder, which sends it stumbling out of it's cover and into the open. Great, now's my chance! I fully stand up and continue firing in short bursts until the thing's shields finally collapse and nothing stops my bullets from piercing it's chest. The sniper fell down and I turn my attention back to the destroyer, which was slowly climbing back up.
The destroyer finally stood up... only to get dropped again by another biotic push from Wrex. I have no idea if geth are capable of emotions, but if they are, I'm willing to bet this destroyed is really frustrated at the moment.
"Just shoot it!" I shout out in annoyance as I concentrate all my firepower on the giant robot. I didn't really need to shout it, really, since Wrex is already shooting everything he has at it. The destroyer managed to get up on one knee and just moments before it manages to stand up, one round manages to rip through it's armor and damage something important. The destroyer freezes in place and finally, after a long struggle, falls facedown to floor with a heavy thud. I sigh in relief and allow myself to relax. "Finally!" I say as I exchange a glance with Wrex and together we slowly approach the downed destroyer.
We stop in front of the downed geth, still having our weapons trained on it. Without saying anything Wrex put another shotgun blast into the thing's head. At my questioning look he simply shrugs. "It might be faking it."
Huh, that's... "Can geth fake death?" I ask with some confusion. They're machines so... maybe this destroyed went to sleep mode or something. I have no idea.
Wrex looks down at the destroyer and huffs. "It's definitely not faking it now," he concluded. Yeah, now it has a bigger hole in the head. I doubt anyone, save Saren could fake death with that particular condition.
We move past the dead geth and reach the third, and last, water valve. Okay, repeat the process here and... there! The sound of distant machinery echoes through the tunnels and I can hear water running through the pipes. Great! I think we're almost done down here.
Okay, let's move on! We cross the corridor and come out on the other side, where we're greeted by a crossroad. Either we got right or we... wait, who is this guy? "Huh, I wonder what he's doing down here," I remark. Wow, I... can't remember whether this was in the game or not. How weird is that?
"Probably some idiot," Wrex mutters. Well, maybe he's right, I dunno. Let's check it out.
"You don't want to go down there," he says as a greeting. Okay, if he's not going to say Hi like a normal person, neither will I. Actually, this is definitely a bad sign when people you meet greet you with a warning.
"Then what are you doing down here?" I shoot back. "In case you hadn't heard the loud gunfight we had, this place is crawling with geth," I explain, jerking my thumb over my shoulder in the direction where we left the geth.
"Nothing I should be... and anything I shouldn't," Okay if this isn't suspicious, I don't know what it is. I'm about to respond when suddenly he screams loudly in pain and falls to his knees. Holy fucking shit! This nearly gave me a heart attack! Even Wrex jumped back in surprise! The guy slowly stands up, panting and breathing heavily. "...that was a good one... very intense..."
Good one? The guy screamed as if a varren bit his balls off! "Uh... are you okay? That looked... painful," I slowly, and carefully ask. Damn, this guy is getting more and more familiar now.
"Just invoking the master's whip..." he breathed out. Oh! Now I remember him from the game! Okay, this settles it down. I guess I shouldn't be panicking or anything. "...helps reminds me I'm still alive. You're here for the geth, aren't you? You're not the only one interested in those... things."
"Uh, yeah, I just said that. Why? Someone else is after them?" I ask curiously. I'm feeling a bit weird that I'm the one doing the whole talking. I bet Wrex can be a great talker but he seems more than okay with letting me talk.
"Not looking for. Looking to get rid of. They are a thorn in the side of-" and here he screams again, making me jump back in surprise. Motherfucker! Stop doing that! "trying to get to the- aaarrgh!" and after that he starts... laughing?
Ooookaaaaaay. I'm very slowly taking a step back and Wrex actually mimics me, quite possibly as freaked out as me by this whole situation. "He's insane," he mutters darkly. I can disagree... but maybe Wrex is right. Maybe fighting this whole mind control thing actually drove him to insanity...
By Moradin's balls, if he starts asking me if he told met he definition of insanity, I'm shooting him.
"Uh... is there anyway I can help you or something?" I carefully ask. The guy might be insane but I'm not going to leave him like this. There might be geth still lurking about. You could never know.
"Help me? No. No one can help me now. I'd rather... die... fighting!" he groans out, visibly struggling with every word.
"Fighting what?" I ask, more for Wrex's sake than mine. I know the whole story after all but Wrex doesn't! I think he'll be offended if he misses out on some important details.
"Not that kind of fight. It's like... running through a thorn bush," Ouch, I actually did that once, so I know the feeling. "the more you struggle..." he pauses there and looks behind us. "Time's up. Company's coming... ask Fai Dan! Ask him about- aaargh!" he shrieks one more time and collapses to his knees and frome there he just falls, completely unconscious.
I don't pay much attention to him. My mind is more preoccupied with what he said before collapsing. We whirl around and see two geth standing behind us, weapons already aimed at us. "Move!" Wrex bellows as he flares his biotics. No need to tell me twice. I jump out of the way as Wrex swipes his arm in a cutting motion and when I look, I see one of the geth flying away, over the railing and down to his doom. The second geth manages to let out several shots but the krogan's shields took it would any problems. We both fire at it simultaneously and within a couple of seconds the geth falls down, littered with holes.
I sigh in relief. "Never thought geth could be sneaky," I say and look back at the now-unconscious guy. "Uh, should we do something with him?"
Wrex shrugs nonchalantly. "You should just shoot him, take him out of his misery. He clearly lost it."
What? Shit, how can he even suggest that? "Nah, no way! I'm not shooting a defenseless civilian!" I say, a bit angrily. "Let's... just leave him here."
"Whatever. I don't really care either way. He'll probably get himself killed later anyway," he says with a roll of his blood-red eyes and starts walking away. I send the unconscious man one last look before I follow.
We move on and towards the second bridge that leads to the last available door here. Hm... I don't really remember this part well. I think there was... a krogan in there with some geth. Meh, we can handle it! We cross the bridge and slowly approach the door. Wrex points to the opposite side of the door and I quickly move to take that position. As we approach the doors slides open and I'm greeted by a narrow corridor with a single geth in the middle of it. Huh... wait a second. I look up and spot two geth there, aiming their long rifles at us. Oh shit! "Snipers!" I bark as I cross the threshold and hide behind the large concrete block. A flying geth drone descends on us but before I can do anything about it, it blows up via a shotgun blast from Wrex. That takes care of this, at least.
Okay... no need to get too nervous here. They just have lethal weapons that would blow up my head like watermelon. No biggie. Fuck, I need to shoot them. I ready my rifle and lean out of cover. As soon as I do it, one of the snipers immediately aims at me while the other one probably concentrated on Wrex. The sniper is not very far from me, so I think I can be quite accurate from this range. I hold down the trigger, glad the the first salvo is as accurate as possible. The first shots hit the geth in the chest, which screws up it's aim, which is exactly what I'm after. I keep holding down the trigger until the geth finally falls and I turn my attention to the second one. A shotgun blast catches it in the chest, which surprises me since shotguns are not that accurate and Wrex is a way behind me. Still, doesn't really matter. I open fire and within a couple of seconds the geth finally falls.
I turn my attention back at the corridor where I see the lone geth hiding behind his glowing geth barrier. Pfft, what an idiot. I hold down the trigger in fully automatic fire and after several seconds the barrier collapses and leaves the lone geth in the open, which Wrex took advantage of. The geth was wrapped in biotics and shot up into the ceiling with enough force to shatter it's head.
Okay... so far it's suspiciously quiet. I remember that there was a krogan here but so far, I can't see it, which is really bad in my opinion, considering it's a krogan! Wrex quickly moves into the corridor and as silently as we can, we move further into it. Well, I tried to be silent but Wrex didn't really bother as far as I'm concerned. His footsteps loudly echoed through the empty corridor and doubtlessly alerted everyone in range... who hadn't heard the gunshots just moments ago. Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking stuff.
Halfway to the other side we're greeted by an outraged roar and a krogan rushes out from the room, quickly followed by anothe. Oh, fuck! That's two krogan! Serious miscalculation here! I pull the trigger and blindly fire into the rushing krogan, who seemingly just ignores all the rounds I'm putting into him. Wrex quickly joins in, his shotgun blasting loudly. I'm starting to move back but Wrex just stands in place, shooting the approaching krogan with a glare. Shit, what is he thinking? I'm still holding down the trigger and finally, just several meters away from us the krogan finally collapses and falls down with a thud. Sadly, there's no time for celebration because we still have a second krogan to deal with, who is almost upon us by now. I don't even bother aiming. I just start firing but after barely a second of constant fire my rifle just stops. Oh, god. I look down to see some steam rising from it and my HUD blaring warnings at me, notifying me that my weapon has overheated. Thanks a lot! As fast as I can I place the rifle on my back and draw my pistol. I start wildly firing but it just feels as though I'm shooting a brick wall... a brick wall that happens to be running at me. Shit, the krogan is glaring at me and I can see that he's aiming at me. By the nine hells, I'm about to become pancake.
Wrex flares his biotics and the krogan floats up and slams headfirst into the concrete overpass above us. Wrex isn't done there, thankfully. His biotics flare even brighter and a moment later the poor krogan is slammed headfirst into the floor. I'm standing in place, staring at the biotic display with some awe while Wrex unloads several rounds into the first krogan's head and then the second's, to make sure they're dead probably. Wow. Just... wow. Biotics are freaking awesome. No doubt about it.
We're about to move on when much to my surprise, another krogan rushes out! What the hell? How many of them are there anyway? And why did they wait to rush us one by one? Wrex seems more annoyed than worried but to my shock, he does the thing. With a short growl he rushes forward on collision course with the enemy krogan. What the hell is he doing?
They're gradually approaching closer to eachother. Two giants charging eachother. One calm and the other roaring in rage. Just as they were about to collide, Wrex uses his trump card. He flares his biotics and wraps himself with the purple-blue light just before collision and with a grunt, he gives the enemy krogan a vicious headbutt. There is a loud crack and a second later the krogan falls down in a heap and didn't move again.
At this moment my mouth doubtlessly hangs open. If it was physically possible, I think my lower jaw would be on the floor by now. Wrex headbutted a krogan to death. Correction, he gave the krogan a biotic headbutt. I'm... speechless. Wrex shakes his head a few times and blinks, maybe to clear his vision or something. He does look a bit disoriented at the moment. Shit... this was simply brutal. "Uh... krogan biotics are... rare, right?" I ask quietly. If I'll have to fight a biotic krogan sometime in the future... that will be bad. Really bad.
Wrex grunts as he turns around to face me. "Very rare," he answers.
I just sigh in relief at that. That's a very good thing to know. Regular krogan are hard enough to deal with anyway, having them through singularities at me will be overkill. I sigh again and calm my nerves down, glancing at the three dead krogan and then at my pistol. I wasn't really effective against them, not as much as Wrex anyway. My weapons simply lacked the force behind them to actually push a krogan back. "Fuck. I need a shotgun," I mutter to myself.
Wrex simply bends down and picks up the fallen krogan's shotgun and tosses it over to me. I quickly catch it, fumbling with it a bit before I manage to hold it properly, without the barrel pointing at me. Huh, it's a bit heavier than I expected but not that heavy. I expected it to weight less though, judging by it's size. I inspect it a bit more, just to make sure it's not that claymore shotgun, because that shotgun would break my arms, according to the codex in the second game, but I quickly calm down when I'm assured it's not that shotgun. I don't really remember how that one even looks...
"You should stop whining and pick up a weapon, if you want it," Wrex remarks, making a fine points. This get's me to blink in confusion and look at the dead bodies around us and from there at the weapons laying about. Wow, I wonder just why I hadn't thought of that. There are no game mechanics to stop me from doing this. Kinda weird that I didn't think of it before now.
"Yeah..." I say awkwardly. "Let's go," I add, walking further down the corridor without waiting for Wrex. The krogan let's out a low chuckle but I ignore him. Yeah, I'm probably looking like an idiot right now. Hopefully he won't mention this ever again.
We finally enter the final room. It's completely empty save for some kind of device on the far corner of the room. I don't really have a clue what the device actually does, but I remember destroying it in the game. "Looks like some sort of transmitter..." Wrex supplies.
"Transmitter or not, they're not going to need it now anyway," I say with a smirk as I bring up my policed shotgun. I hold it by my hip, because it ultimately looks a lot cooler this way, and aim it to the best of my ability. I pull the trigger and...
Holy shit! The recoil is waaay worse than I thought it would be! As I fire the shotgun, the recoil actually forces me a half-step back. The transmitter sparks for a second or two before it shuts off. Shit, the recoil is monstrous compared to the pistol. I need some practice with it, that's for sure. Maybe there's a special way you fire a shotgun or something? I glance at Wrex, who looks incredibly amused. Okay, I'm definitely not asking help from him. Ash would probably be more helpful about it... with less laughs involved.
"Okay, I think we're done here!" I announce loudly. Maybe this will get his attention away from my lame recoil handling.
"That we are," Wrex agrees. "Let's get out of here. I've had enough of these tunnels," he grumbles and starts heading back to the way we came from.
Well, he couldn't put it in any way better than I can. I'm still a bit disappointed that I didn't get to go with Shepard. While it was intense, clearing these tunnels was simply tiresome, not to mention I'm a bit pissed that Wrex did most of the work. It's kinda hard to pull my weight when I'm working with people like Wrex, who pretty much define the meaning of one-man-army. I don't have any biotics or any special skills so I have to work twice as hard to pull my weight. Then again, neither does Ash. She's a simple soldier and while she does have much more training that I have, she's still better than me in combat as far as I know.
Which reminds me... I wonder how Ash is doing. Hopefully she didn't get into too much trouble. Well, soon enough we'll find out. It wont take us long to get back to the colony. I place the shotgun onto it's new place on my lower back and take out my assault rifle. If I'm going to see combat, I'll use something I'm actually familiar with, for now at least. Hopefully Shepard will get back soon. I'm kinda nervous that I'm going to a place that's right above the thorian's lair, not to mention that it's swarming with it's thralls.
Either way, things are going to be intense, that's for sure.
Yeah, you probably noticed that I decided to end the chapter here. Don't you worry! The colony and the Thorian will be dealt with in the next chapter, so until then, you'll have to wait! Simple as that! At least it's not a cliffhanger, so take comfort in that. :P
So... yeah, maybe I'll put another rant here. Don't worry, it's shorter! A friend asked me: "Dude, why do you hate the ending so much? It's just a lame ending!" Well... I can easily answer that, in case anyone of you actually had that unasked question.
Yes, the journey is as important as the ending but... it's not the case here. During the journey you do stuff that are associated with journeys. You complete tasks, get to know your companions, get close to them, accomplish other stuff. There is character growth! In ME you CHANGE the fate of the galaxy. Saving the rachni or not, saving the council or not, helping out your teammates and getting to know them, retaking the quarian homeworld... all of that carries weight. You change the world you play in. And I'd expect this change to carry over al the way to the end. But... in the end we have, NOTHING we accomplished in the last two games, including the 3rd simple matters! What does it matter if I saved the council or I didnt if in the end, I still blow up the relays and die? Why should I care about saving the krogan if in the end, I blow up the mass relays and DIE?
And this is where the problem is. All the things we did, all the changes we made to the galaxy, all the romances we did... all the countless hours we placed into the game with it's amazing and enthralling story... simply do not matter in the slightest, because in the end, they change nothing. Everything in the galaxy leads to the same conclusion, and this is simply insulting. It's about a promise BW made us. They promised us different endings, where all the choices we made in the last two games count, that they will CHANGE how the 3rd game plays out and ultimately, the ending itself. But in reality, we got nothing of what was promised to us. For all it matters, Shepard could just chill out in the Carribean islands, drinking a martini until the time to use the ass-pulled crucible and face the star-child (which is insulting since we can't pull a renegade interrupt and punch the brat in the face. We're expected to BELIEVE the bullshit he's spouting!) and end the game, since either way, it will have the same results, only less fun and engaging.
A friend of mine pulled out the theory that Bioware simply pulled out all their resources to Star Wars: The Old Republic and the ending of ME3 had to be rushed because lack of resources and time... because SW:TOR had more money-gaining potential. For all I know, it could possibly be true.
So yeah, here you go. I'm pissed that Bioware lied to me, that everything I did in ALL the games barely mattered in the slightest and insulted that they act as if we don't understand how shitty the end was. Now they're going to explain us WHY it's utter shit, as if we couldnt understand before. Heh, looks like it came out quite long. Then again, I don't think I'll have anymore Bioware and ME3 rants, at least until BW does something stupid again.
Oh, before I forget! SPOILERS: In case anyone of you actually got Tali to suicide... well, after that you get to see her face! (Yeah, you have to KILL TALI in order to FINALLY see her face). The only problem? It's a freaking picture from the internet that they got for free and without any effort whatsoever. How lazy is THAT? Not to mention insulting. So yeah, all you Tali fans... you just got Bioware'd. You got another epic middle finger from them! Yay!
Yep, for now I'm done (for real) with the rants and I'm quite spent out and I have nothing more to say! Again, I'm not sure when I'll finish the next chapter, but I'll work on it if I can have any time for it. So yeah, until next time... Delvaro out.