Chapter 38
Krazran Palace, Kar'Shan, February 2171
Haego hadn't eaten. He hadn't ingested food since the disastrous fight inside the holy sanctum. An IV was hooked up to his arm, intravenously feeding him. He couldn't bring himself to care. For the last four months, he had remained in fasting and prayer, waiting for the Gods to send him a sign. Something, anything. They had been silent. Silent as always, and perhaps if Batar was right, silent from the beginning. There had been no religious awakening of the Karn.
He had just been a man. A man that fought and killed creatures that couldn't be killed with their steel weapons. How he did that, Haego wished to know. All of their advanced armor and weapons failed to do anything to the beasts. The champions had proceeded to take them apart. Glancing down at his wrist, his reattached hand twitched. Some of the nerve endings had not been restored, due to them being burned out by his dip into the gold.
The gold. All of the pillars had melted, when the fire had spread to the old oil lamp system that their ancestors had installed. The temperature inside the chamber became too hot for anyone to enter, and some of Batar's message had been covered by a new layer of burn marks. Only the pictograph of Rian still existed. It was half covered by soot, but its cruel eyes still bore down upon the entrance to the sanctum.
Standing up, he rose after spending his morning hours in meditation. Some of their greatest high priests had become wise and intelligent after meditation, but anything Haego did to honor them now left a poor taste in his mouth. He had defiled their religion. He might even be the great Betrayer himself. That thought disturbed him the most.
He had declared a year of religious mourning, and his priests were only too happy to don the black and yellow robes of office and collect the taxes. When a Hegemon died, often there was a month of mourning, and the priests had to work with the local governments and audit the empire, to investigate the goings on of everyone in preparation of presenting that information to the new Hegemon. Jeroth had claimed that he would be crowned by Haego, as soon as he came out of his meditation.
This left him in a difficult place. If he left the palace, then Jeroth might be crowned the day he did so. If he stayed, Jeroth had time to audit and reorganize the government. Haego knew he was up to something. He had been quietly moving troops and such around, and making changes to the government offices. Some of the more recognized members of the old Kavka had been removed from their offices, and had gone into quiet retirement. One they were not expected to emerge from.
With Haego inside the palace being reclusive, Jeroth had control over both the priests and the military in totality. None could question him and none had the support to try. Until Haego emerged from his isolation, no one would dare. Haego was the only one left who hadn't pledged his knife. Once he did, Jeroth was Hegemon in truth.
He sighed, not seeing a way to preserve his people. No truth in his religion meant that when he revealed all of this to those who followed, they too would become disillusioned and experience the feeling of loss as he had. They would be lost and without guidance, and any teachings of their religion they tried to impart would be done without conviction, and at their core lies and falsehoods. It would be only a few generations before their religion would be buried under the dust. Sure, the practice would go on, if only to perpetuate the culture. Yet the rituals would be hollow, and the priests would become corrupt without feeling guilt for failing their responsibilities.
He was brought out of his musing by the sound of his door opening. He gripped his staff with his main hand, his left too weak to do anything. His nerves and muscles were still bonding, and he might not get the same functionality back once he was fully recovered. Standing to his feet and disconnecting the IV, he prepared for anything. He was wearing his black and yellow robes of mourning, ostensibly to mourn for the old Hegemon. He rarely occupied his thoughts, and Haego doubted that he would have cared if their religion was dead.
Into his room came a temple guard in armor, as well as another priest in the black and yellow robes. The guard took position by the door, his weapon resting at ease, but not in readiness. That was good, and made him feel somewhat safer. More secure in the knowledge that if this priest was there to kill him, he was going to be doing so alone.
The priest drew back the hood of his robes, revealing it to be Jeroth. "Haego, I've been waiting for you to come out of here for weeks!"
"So you come under the guise of a priest?" He normally would have given him a speech about how it was heretical to be anything other than what your responsibilities demanded of you, but he couldn't muster the concern. "Feh. You know that the moment I leave, I seal our doom as a race and culture."
"Unless you declare me to be Batar reborn." Jeroth said. "Consider it, Haego. With that kind of declaration, we could do what he did. Reshape our religion to what it needs to be. Turn it into the system that allows our people to be free from this farce!"
"It still wouldn't be true." Haego muttered. "That is all I ever wanted, Jeroth. To find truth, and to live it. My father raised me to seek our truth, and then live like you believe it. He truly believed in Rian and the gods, even though he was not a priest. I spit upon his memory and all the others of my line when I lose my trust in the Gods."
"The Gods? I'll show you what the Gods are, Haego. Do not blink, for this is truth if you have ever seen such before." He pulled up his Omni-tool, and activated the display feature to show across one of the large stone walls. "I obtained this from a Human, someone that I hope to introduce you to eventually. His name is Jack Harper, and he convinced the Human corporation Sirta to ship us enough medi-gel to supply us for ten years. Charged at half price." Jeroth gave him a look. "When we needed it most, the Humans shipped us this, and Harper supplied a cure to the diseases of Human origin."
"The plague came from the Humans?" Haego seethed.
"No. Plagues came from Salarians, Krogan, Asari, and Humans. They simply synthesized versions that would fix the plagues that devastate our lungs. It was… a kindness I did not expect from them." He pointed at the wall. "The plagues are not your concern. This is."
Against the old stone wall, a haptic image displayed. The first was a recording of the Eye of Rian removing an old ship from the detritus of a moon. He gasped, seeing the size of it, and then finally the strange, crustacean like shape of the ship. It was odd, broken, and dead. Long limbs extended from the lower part of the ship like tentacles, or weapons. "This looks like a Hanar dreadnaught." He said. Jeroth didn't laugh, though.
"Here is a live one. The Eye of Rian had its cargo stolen, and later it was stolen again, but this time by another one of these things." The vid image shifted, to the old wreck drifting in space lazily. Pieces of the ship filled the area around it like some sort of broken bones. Then, dominating the background was another one of the ships. Yet this one was complete. It came forward, pulling the pieces and parts of the old ship with it, and then flying off at increasingly impossible speeds with its cargo intact.
"How large are those ships?" He wasn't sure if they were even possible.
"Two kilometers. Each."
"Rian is one of those?" Haego said. "By the…" He stopped himself, as he was about to intone the gods while swearing about the said things. "What do we do?"
"Not the issue. You can't stay in here much longer and we cannot afford to have you in meditation for a year. Some of the outlying colonies are stabilizing, and in time they will threaten us if we do not take action to restore the seat of the Hegemon. So, I have a plan."
"What can we even do? Our religion is dead, and nothing will bring it back."
"Then you are going to craft us a new religion. Just like Batar did. Just like Rian did to us. You are going to fix us. So, put on this guard uniform, get to a ship, and go and seek out the religions that you'll need to pull information from. It would be terrible if you left a path on our computer systems here that could paint us as heretics."
"You expect me to just go out and find us a new religion? Convert?!" He spat the word. There was no such word in the High speech. Only in the speech of Jarem could the word by used. "That is heresy, no matter what kind of Batarian you are. The Karn are One!"
"As Rian envisioned." Jeroth said. "Their champion said that to us. The origin of that saying is rooted in a religion that is meant to control us."
"Be that as it may, we cannot separate. We cannot lose our cohesion. Our people cannot function apart." Haego stated. "Yet if we continue our current religion, the Karn will fracture for certain."
"You have four weeks to return." Jeroth said. "That is all that we can spare. Where will you go?"
"Earth." Haego said after a moment. "The Asari are weak. The Krogan lost from any singular path, and worshiping ancestors and Protheans sickens me. The Humans will have something inspiring, and if not I shall go to the Quarians. They had some sort of religion that we can pull details from that will not be noticed by the other Council Races."
"Excellent. My soldier here will replace you." He motioned to the temple guardsmen, who had removed most of his armor and was down to his undersuit.
"I cannot hide what I am!"
"Heresy is a definition to be decided by yourself, Haego. Live a little."
He wasn't Hegemon yet, so Haego glared into his upper eyes. "I will live, and I will do as I am expected. Give me the damn armor."
Rome, Central Italian States, March 2171
Hannah Shepard was good at flying shuttles. She was not so good at speaking to air control authorities. She was forced to land by one of their shuttles, and the police officer made her call the air traffic authority involved.
"What do you mean my flight path is not authorized? My Office is supposed to be doing oversight for this visit!"
"Call your superiors, ma'am. Your Intelligence Office already sent us all of their shuttles and vehicles for this today. They're escorting a VIP into Old Rome and back out of it. You and your shuttle are not on my list. If you come near my airspace again, I'll have you arrested, and I don't care who you are." She then received a flight plan that went directly out of Italian airspace and back into orbit.
She responded with an affirmative. She didn't want to talk to that guy any longer. So then she called Jones. She got connected within moments, as she was also nearby. "What?"
"Traffic control claims that my flight path wasn't filed. You told me that we were going to be fine!" In the back of the shuttle were her two fifteen year olds, who were dressed as tourists and dressed for winter. They hid the catsuits rather well, and the outfits were warm. Her own was feeling a little tight. But she couldn't resist gelato when Kasumi and Julia could eat the stuff every couple of hours. There were just too many flavors to try!
"My department was told that we need to kill this Batarian that is visiting. We can't afford to let him get near the Pope and kill one of our valued religious leaders." Jones said. "Go in on foot, then. At the Augustine Hill, I have a package for you to pick up. It's for if the Batarian is as dangerous as he was on the Citadel."
"That armor of his had some sort of wicked gadgets. He took apart the Ambassador like he was nothing." Hannah remembered. She still had his knife, too. She was supposed to return it, but no one had contacted her about it. So, she kept it. Though she was trying to convince Cerberus to invent monomolecular knives for their agents. Hock didn't care about that, and was instead pressuring Markov and Toyoda to produce armor and weapons of higher quality.
"Well, I hope you're prepared for that. He needs to be stopped before he makes the Vatican." Jones said. "Team two is trying to force him to land further away from the location, give you a shot." Hannah nodded, motioning to the girls. Kasumi tucked an SMG into her lower back, and had her hair pulled into a bun. Julia was bundled up like a snowcone, a long white jacket around herself. She also was actually cold, though. Kasumi had enough sugar in her system that she couldn't care less if it was cold or not. Hannah and the girls were team one. They could sneak through crowds without much difficulty. Team two would be a bit more loud, and team three included Jones and someone with a large sniper rifle. Each was going to try their chance at the same time. But if he wore that armor, it was unknown if they were going to actually damage him with a car crash or with a sniper round. For them, it most likely would come down to explosives or collapsing some of the square and burying him in rubble.
So, they left the shuttle and walked towards the tramway to St. Peter's Basilica. The train system allowed for near instantaneous movement. Trains left every four minutes, and after the mess that took apart Italy in the 2050's, there was hardly anything left. Most of the old cities were rubble, and when everything was rebuilt, Italy made a new train system that had tram stations in more locations. So, they arrived in St. Peter's with a few minutes to spare before the operation. "Kasumi, take Julia and go to Palantine Hill. Go look for our friend over there."
"Ok, Mum." Julia and Kasumi started calling her that as part of their cover. But to date, she didn't think they meant it. Kasumi butchered her pronunciation of Ma'am, and Julia had authority issues. So her using the word Mum didn't carry any weight. Except that for her it did. Sometimes it made her feel a bit happy that they called her that. Other times really quite pissed off. She had wanted to be a mother, and for years that dream had been gone from her life. She had lost a lot of her reproductive system when Jack raided the Prothean Archive. She paid millions of credits to have it rebuilt, using tissue cloned from her remaining parts. That was what some of what Jack paid her went into. The rest went into her Jek-Jek-Tar-Tek and some investments.
So, she shelved the feelings of anger and annoyance at the word Mum and took a walk towards the basilica. This entire area had been rebuilt after the Christian Spring, when the Pope had declared a Crusade to get Rome back. That was brutal enough, but before the Christian forces restored order the churches had been leveled and the basilica halfway broken. It took twenty years to restore the church, and ever since then tensions had been rough between the Islamic nations of the Alliance and the Christian ones. The Islamic nations had issues, and were willing to go to war over it. The Christians played defensive up until they lost something big. Then they got offended and acted on it. Honestly, religion was something that was great and now wasn't. She didn't care about it.
However, other people did. Thousands of people were walking around the basilica and looking at the preserved columns from the first basilica, as well as the blackened monument in the middle of the atrium there. Everyone got pictures in front of it, with their families. She turned from that, sending a short message to Jones to report that she was in position. Then, she settled her beret and smoothed out her coat. It was time to wait and check over the area for existing security.
Haego had come into Alliance Space immediately following the declaration by Jeroth that he needed to find a new religion. How by any stretch of the imagination could anyone create a new religion? It just felt wrong, to the very center of his reincarnated soul. To state falsehood was against the core nature of being a war-priest. What was real could not be stated otherwise.
What was false must be revealed. This, too, tore at his soul as he considered their broken religion. The gods were worse than being false, they was a layer of truth to their existence. A truth that someone wanted to control their people and wasn't willing to let them think for themselves.
The Alliance was not amused that a Batarian War-priest wanted to come and tour Earth's religious sites. He had met with a 'Catholic' archbishop of the Arcturus Diocese. Whatever that meant. All he knew was that the man had some sort of religious authority. He was supposed to be able to speak regarding their religion, but he also claimed that there was still a higher religious authority for the Catholic Church. So, Haego asked to go and meet with this authority.
The Alliance sent him in lavish style and much pomp and ceremony. Leather seats, the best of foods, and the best of the best locations. He hated it. He would purposely find the simplest things on the menus, and sleep on the floor. The pomp and the ceremony would have been acceptable if it had a religious reason. Yet it lacked even that.
"Tell me of this Roma place." He stated to his guide, tired of being alone with his thoughts. "You told me that it was a capital?"
"Yes." His guide was some Senator, or whatnot. His name was Hock. He had soft hands, untouched by military service. He despised the weak, and this Hock bothered him. "It was once the capital of our ancient world. Their temples and roads covered half the world at one time or another, before it fell apart."
"Show me what remains. I will meet this Christian afterwards." Haego said. So far, what he had read of this Christ had bothered him. It went against all of the natural responses that Humans and Batarians had. It couldn't be a truly effective religion if the people didn't actually follow this Christ figure's example.
"The Pope has a busy schedule, and we are trying to honor his sacrifice." Hock said, sounding both apologetic and rude.
"Spare me the impudence. I will arrive and speak with him regarding this Christ. I also want to see this Rome. Did they also follow this Christ figure?"
"Yes, they did. Until they were conquered, they worshiped Christianity, and before that, their own form of Paganism." Haego leaned forward.
"Tell me of their original religion. I am seeking what is lost and forgotten among your people. Religion is more important than history to me now." Hock nodded.
"I know some of their religion. They had temples dedicated to the burning of offerings to their gods, and their Senate would often meet only when their priests told them to. The names of their gods are based off of a religion in Greece, that was lost to history before the Roman Empire had finished expanding. All of the Pagan religions, outside of some in Asia and Africa, actually, were conquered and defeated by Islam and Christianity."
"Yes, Islam. That one sounds more interesting than most of what I read. Take me to the old temples. I wish to feel them in my hands." He glared at Hock, who shrugged and called someone on his Omni-tool. The shuttle dropped down in altitude, coming to rest on some sort of low hill. Hock got out of the shuttle first, with the few suited guards. They had real armor, that was colored and made to look like a normal set of clothes. Haego also despised that.
But when he stepped out of the shuttle, the hill he emerged onto was different. It felt reinforced, defensible. He took his glove off, and dragged his fingers into the dirt. It felt real, hard packed in places. Ancient feet had tread here. He let Hock ramble in the background as they walked through the old ruins. The old stone walls here almost felt like an old priest, filled with stories of old glories and old enemies. This was what he craved. He walked among the old temples, sniffing the plants and the smell of ancient dirt and stone.
Then he felt a feeling in his gut. He stood up, looking around. Hock and his two escorts were behind him, mostly at ease. But the escorts weren't looking as closely as they could have been. Looking around, he put all four of his eyes to use. One thing about Batarians that made them better than other races was that they could focus each set of eyes on different targets. Their minds were prepared to receive more than just one source of input. So, he scoped the area around him, and could see two disturbances in the dirt. It was subtle, but he could see scuff marks and pressure upon the dirt right next to the path leading to the last temple.
He walked forward, as normal, one set of eyes boring into the scuffs in the dirt and seeing how the cloaked person was standing. If they were there to escort him, they would be moving in a secure fashion, forming a perimeter. If they were there for other reasons, they would move closer or remain silent and still. So, with all the grace of a predator, he walked forward and slammed his fist into the cloaked person.
A slim Human female was revealed, with long black hair and somewhat short. He grabbed her by the neck, raising her off the ground and scanning her for weapons. Her move to pull a weapon was late, and his other hand slapped the weapon to the ground before it could orient on him. "Hah!" The woman squirmed, choking. "Your world is not as peaceful as you have me envisioning, Mr. Hock." There was no response. In fact, it was odd that all of the visitors here had disappeared in the last minute.
Turning, he saw Hock and his escorts on the ground twitching and convulsing as a small tech grenade sparked in between them. No sign of what got them remained, but his gut told him that there were others here. Still holding the squirming Human, he brought up his full kinetic barriers rather than just the basic ones. His armor VI extended the basic helmet, covering his forehead and the back of his head with a thin layer of armor. Not much better than an undersuit, really, but his helmet would have gotten far more attention than necessary. He should have worn it, and not denied its necessity.
"Whoever you are, you chose the wrong priest! This will only be your end!" The girl in his hand brought a knife down on his arm, and watch with horror as it didn't pierce his thick armor. The priest robes he wore were concealed the mass drivers, which had been fully capable after his fight with Rian's champions and a good hard reset of the armor VI.
"Let her go." A voice ghosted from somewhere. It sounded like it came from three places at once, making it difficult to tell where the owner was. But it sounded like another female of the species.
"Make me." Haego replied. The girl in his arms was even more pale, as blood flow and air were being cut off to her head. He saw no movement other than a small gust of wind. Hm. Perhaps the female needed more reason to care. Humans were sentimental and did not deal with the loss of life naturally like Batarians did. Enemies and friends would be reborn. That was fact. Haego gave a grin, and increased the pressure on the female in his arms, making her gurgle and cry out. "Her neck will snap before much longer."
His answer came in the form of an entire stone edifice slamming into him. At least one ton of rock struck him, and he hadn't even heard the stone coming. He grunted, the force of the stone denting his armor and draining his kinetic barriers. He could see fracture warnings coming from the left arm, along the driver coils. His mystery attacker seemed to still be cloaked, judging by the lack of anyone visible around him. Besides the empty stone plinth that the edifice had come from, this battleground was quiet.
He didn't like this. There was no way for him to get out of here without Human help. That was not good. He hated depending on others. Yet it would be a grave insult to his government if they killed him. Perhaps they wanted that. He grunted, lifting his arm into the air higher so that the girl in hand could be higher off the ground, and brought his left around to her stomach. She had on some sort of armor, and should survive losing airflow for a short amount of time. So, he left go of her neck and fired his mass driver directly into her stomach.
The small female slammed into the side of one of the old temples with enough force to shake the dirt from the top of its broken pillar. Yet it didn't even budge. Excellent craftsmanship. Now, without the hostage, he could finally focus on fighting the other person here. Her voice had emerged from multiple locations, hopefully meaning drones. Sometimes families of Batarians who had twins or triplets trained them to fight in tandem. Humans might be capable of such, and if that was what he was against it did not look good.
"Come out, and face me then. You were already planning on trying, why wait any longer?" He heard stones shift to his left, which looked like an older building with a circular back and some sort of inscription. He rushed to its entrance, just walking. No sense in revealing his mass driver-assisted propulsion yet. Though this trip was feeling oddly fulfilling, now. A good fight to get his blood pumping before he engaged in a religious debate about Christianity. What a day to be alive.
The inside of the small building with a marker that translated into, 'Thus unto Tyrants'. Of course, the weapon inside blasting him was completely rude. Inferno grenades from Tuchanka, if he could guess. He had to throw off his robes, and wipe some of the acidic substance from his face. More scars, once he put down this pest.
"Nice Armor." He heard. He tried turning around, but some red haired female was already right behind him. She emptied her SMG into his armor, shots pinging and redirecting all over the place. He swung around with one hand, trying to come close to disarm her. Enough shots in the right place and this armor might break. She leapt back, coming to a semi-kneeling stop a few feet away next to the temple where he had thrown her ally. "Looks like you need a softer touch."
The female had red hair, and her appearance looked to be the same as the female that had taken his Kavka months ago, minus some marks of age. His armor identified her as being near the same weight and body shape as the last red haired tactical agent he had run into. "Well, I certainly did not expect you. Did I kill your mother when things got interesting?"
He did not expect the Human to focus on him. She ignored his taunt, standing up and giving him a cold glare with her blue eyes. He could feel her analyze him, looking for the most effective way to kill him. He relished it. "You hurt Kasumi. We were just watching you, and you hurt her."
"Do you expect me to apologize? Pay for some doctor to heal her, teach her that attacking a War-priest of the Karn is acceptable? No law holds sway to my mandate!"
"I expect you to die." She said with venom. She didn't appear to be an adult yet, though she had on some sort of armor that disrupted his armor's scanners. An agent of theirs for certain. He started laughing, finding the idea of being killed by a female of such stature and young age to be hilarious.
Then the biotics hit. The weight of his armor didn't matter, or didn't even slow down the Throw. He got picked up, and carried deep inside the building that the trap had been inside of. The trap didn't fire again, thankfully, but he rolled around and experienced the feeling of being thrown into some sort of stone plinth. His translation functions got to work as he tried to stabilize himself. Here Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by- He glanced up, ignoring the old inscription, seeing the still glowing biotic walking slowly towards him.
Capitoline Hill, Central Italian States, February 2171
Julia knew Hate. She had never felt her biotics so well in her life as she did right now. It had been so hard to use them before, taking all of her concentration to perform just the simplest of actions. Singularities were easiest when in a room completely dark and devoid of light and sound. But today, she had seen this Batarian casually try to kill Kasumi and she just snapped. Her visual angle of the whole thing made it almost look like he was holding up Miranda. Her heart had hammered, thinking that the Batarian was holding Miranda. Screw orders to not engage, she snapped.
Now, she couldn't feel anything. Her emotions were buried beneath a cold heat that she could feel at the core of her hands and feet. She wanted to bury this guy. The small mausoleum here was the Temple of Caesar, dedicated to the tyrant-leader Julius Caesar. Her dad had taken her here once. He had taken her to this small temple and saluted a small altar, saying that even in death the man who conquered the world demands respect. She had spent a few minutes next to the altar, as her dad talked to her and Miranda about the role of the tyrant in saving Humanity from the fall of civilization. After learning Greek and reading some books, she could believe that her father just had a very extreme opinion regarding Caesar.
Fitting, that she Threw this Batarian into the Temple of Caesar. His armor looked heavy so she used a bigger Throw than normal. Unlike normal, there was no faltering, no weakness. Odd that shouldn't feel anything either, even being in this place with so many memories. "Mum, He's here. Package did not succeed."
"What?! Jones, He's in the Forum. Julia, get a tag on him and then get you and Kasumi out of there."
She could see the Batarian standing up now, some sort of visible heat being displaced by his enlarged gauntlets and shins. "Ten minutes from engagement zone. Coming by ground car." Jones' voice came over her receiver.
"Roger. Engaging." She said, starting to run forward at the Batarian. She knew by now to avoid his palms and wrists. The Batarian male couldn't pivot as fast as she could, that was certain. But he also weighed more than her. With his knives, wrist gauntlets, and whatever ranged weapon he had, this guy was going to be tough to take on for any of them. That armor resisted the thermal grenades that had been planned to be the backup if the sniper rifle failed.
Meaning that all she had left that could even hurt this guy was biotics. All that any of their team had were biotics. If she disengaged, the Batarian would live and get away. They would fail their mission, and that was unacceptable. She decided that right after seeing the Batarian start giving off more heat along his feet, the dust kicking up and obscuring the boots and the area around him, and then he jumped. She had no time to react, before his fists impacted her biotic barrier. Then the fists fired some sort of burst of kinetic energy, the same kind of thing that was used on Kasumi. She buckled, her biotic barrier weakening and shattering, and her kinetic barriers taking up the slack. He didn't get through those, but he drew back his arms to go at her normally.
Her training kicked in, ducking and dodging his fists. She rolled past his feet, hearing the hum of whatever was in his armor as her head passed by his foot. Then, from behind, she brought her biotics to bear on his arm. It was impossible to miss with a Warp at this range, and she could see the right arm of his armor glow with the force of her Warp.
She got blasted again, however. This time her kinetic barrier went down, and she was blasted back inside the Temple of Caesar. Apparently he could fire whatever was on his wrists forwards and backwards. She skidded to a halt just barely inside the doorway, a burnt hole going through her outfit and revealing a few cracks along her ribs. Glancing at her Omni-tool, it would be at least eight or ten seconds before her kinetic barriers came back online. She couldn't stay here.
The Batarian had drawn long serrated knives, rather than a gun. That in itself was odd. But then again, with armor that thick he could afford to go up close. Most people were terrible at fighting up close. Hannah wasn't, but she wasn't here yet. Julia leapt upwards, slipping through the gap in between the tarp above the Temple and its decaying walls. Behind the wall was an overgrown section that used to be part of the Temple's housing, but now was just a jumble of stones. She took cover behind them, and focused on her biotics for a long moment, letting her barrier restore.
"Do not think I would allow you to escape so easily!" She looked up, seeing the Batarian now standing on top of the Temple of Caesar and glaring down at her. "I come for a religion that claims peace, yet the assassins come out of the woodwork! Excellent! I knew this Christ had a backbone!" Julia didn't care for what he was saying. Her mission was clear, and that was to bring down this guy. No one else could, not without air support. They couldn't do that.
Though already the tourists had run off screaming. Police or something should have shown up by now. The odd quiet that pervaded the place made her think clearly, without any trouble. "I'm out of the engagement zone, but Red's still in there!" Kasumi said over their radio. She sounded winded, or coughing her way through her words. Definitely still injured.
"We are being detained. We can't get there in time." Jones said. "Team alpha is already detained, as well. Team Charlie, are you on site?"
"I'm right Here!" The sound of a sniper rifle went off, and the Batarian staggered, falling back into the tarp and ripping it. Julia saw something land right next to her, the glittering knife that Hannah never put down. "I'm not going to keep up with him in close. You get in there, cut his gauntlets. He can create artificial mass effect fields with his armor. It lets him mimic Asari Charging and Throws, but only in close." Hannah was standing on top of one of the low buildings, her fur coat and designer outfit covered in mud and dirt.
Julia picked up the knife, not sure about it. But she had seen Hannah carve through palladium blocks without encountering friction with it. Hopefully it could get through this bastard's armor. All she could feel, even with Hannah there, was rage. It still coursed through her like some sort of heat, and that was all that she needed. She cloaked, her armor at full kinetic barrier and her biotic barrier all the way recharged.
Instead of leaping directly through the gap and into the room with him, she ran around to the right, hopping over the small chain divider fence to keep people out of the stone ruins. She appreciated the slight lift in height that this catsuit gave her, as she was able to barely see over the stone etchwork that reinforced the corner. It was unlikely that the Batarian could see her cloaked, but Hannah said that there were some people who could notice them. The Batarian was standing up, having collapsed part of the original stone wall that made up the Temple.
He was deploying something from his back, a large staff unfolding. "I knew you were alive! You brought your daughter to return your lost honor, then? Perhaps my knife, too?" He shouted, yelling at Hannah. Hannah just walked forward, her rifle smoking from its shot still. His kinetic barrier and armor must have been too powerful for the large Markov cannon.
"I'd rather keep it, to be honest!" Hannah yelled back. "Do you even carry a gun?"
The Batarian growled. "War-Priests are only to use such if they are denied the ability to close range or call upon lessers for support. I do not need that to remind you of your place." Then he loaded some sort of spear tip onto the staff, and leveled it at Hannah. She fired her rifle, and started to run for a closer roof. But while her shot didn't go through, the Batarian's did. The spearhead had a line of cable connected to it, and the spear was buried into Hannah's torso. She screamed as the spear retracted, long prongs extending from the tip to prevent its removal.
He almost leisurely walked around the side of the building, the spear pulling Hannah off of her rooftop to fall twenty feet. She landed on her shoulder, the gun spinning off and away from herself. The Batarian stopped just past the corner, letting the fifty feet of cable retract slowly. Julia froze, holding herself up off the ground by balancing herself between the stone reinforcement and one that stuck out a half inch further than the rest. The slightly raised heel allowed for her weight to rest easier, as well as letting her jumps get a bit more distance. Some sort of small element zero generator that decreased your own weight when you jumped. She didn't understand the science, but she knew that whenever you put more than walking weight on your heels, they lowered your relative weight for your muscles to push off of. She was throwing her weight onto the heel, and as such could maintain this cramped position for at least another minute.
The War-priest scanned the area around him, his sets of eyes always scanning two things at once. She noticed he was checking the ground, patches of dirt, lots of unlikely spots. He was probably looking for her. Good thing Hannah told her to never touch the ground if you were stalking someone. Motion trackers, weighted panels, floors were the easiest to get caught on. She watched as Hannah slid to a stop in front of the bastard, and unloaded into him with a pistol from her left hand. Her right wasn't moving. Julia still only felt rage, and her biotics seethed under her skin.
So, she leapt. In air she prepared her biotics, which hardly resisted her effort. An odd feeling, still. She cut with the knife, going through the line and burying the thrumming blade inside of his knee. This time, he was the one to cry out, jerking back from her and send the knife tumbling into the bushes. Hannah stopped getting dragged, giving a short cry of pain as she slid to a stop.
"Hah!" He stated. "Use your weaker allies' sacrifice to wound me! Your cunning is showing truly, for a child." He dropped the staff, the spent wire now spinning and coiling uselessly. Not so uselessly for her, though. "Your tenacity and audacity know no bounds!" He brought his right arm around, whatever his armor did to create a mass effect field whining like a ground car engine. She brought her hand about, biotics aflare, and slapped his wrist with her hand.
The Pull grabbed his wrist and gauntlet, slamming it downwards full force into his already damaged knee, whatever force that was supposed to slam into her splashing loosely through the air and cracking some of the stone wall behind her. This destabilized him, making him fall down. But he didn't stay down, firing off his boots and gaining some distance from her and Hannah. Hannah just stayed down, her good left arm holding her right arm, which was still hanging loosely.
"Keep up the pressure!" Hannah groaned out. She had pulled out her Omni-tool, and was dialing something on it with her broken hand. It was going to take a while at that rate. Julia ran forward, the Batarian priest already on his feet and prepared for her. So she gave him something to worry about. She feinted a Throw, making him flinch and roll to the right. She concentrated on her barrier instead, and dove forward to try to use an Overload function on him. It was a basic function on her military grade Omni-tool, and she didn't know how effective it would be.
Pain blossomed in her vision when The Batarian used his gauntlet to suddenly accelerate his fist, smashing into the side of her head and knocking her down. Her barriers were low, and some of the force had been carried through. Hardly the worst moment in her life, she rolled, avoiding the crushing kick that followed. The centuries-crusted dirt shattered under the strike, hardly any dust rising from the compressed particles.
"My Asari teacher hits harder than you!" She spat, which was technically true. Nyra was very painful to spar with. She was sure to have a black eye from all this, as well as severe bruising. But she was still winning. She had disabled his staff, and kept Hannah and Kasumi from being lost. When she came out of her roll, she was facing the bastard and could see him getting ready to do another one of his jumps. She released another Warp, this one ineffective and just sticking to his left arm. She braced herself, expecting him to slam into her and send her flying. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and gripped her in a sadistic hug, his gauntlets firing into her back. Pain, loud and hot, flashed into existence in her lower back, and she could feel her clothes burst in back and the armor underneath buckle. With him gripping so close, her kinetic barriers couldn't do anything.
"How was that, little creature?" He taunted, bringing his head forward to slam hers. She just reinforced her head, focusing on her barrier, and matched him. He was the one sent back from that, his head not breaking through the biotic barrier that she focused so hard. BUt he still held on with a death grip, and started to crush her in it. The feeling of being crushed was odd, the pain not necessarily increasing as much as the feeling of pressure increasing. Discomfort rose as her ribs were placed under strain, and her stuttered breathing made her barrier flutter.
She grasped the only thing she could, her biotics, and just lashed out. She couldn't move, couldn't trigger and abilities bound to muscle memory. The element zero in her body had nowhere to go, yet she just pushed it out. It felt like some kind of explosion, tearing her up along with the Batarian priest. But she felt like she could keep going, the energy not running out immediately.
Keep going with this release she did, until the Batarian bastard let go and went flying off in front of her. She fell down to the ground, concentration dimming and her nerves on fire. She collapsed in a fit, just trying to breath and get blood flow back to her body. Slumping forward, she saw that the Batarian was still up on his feet, and was walking back over to her. How? She had hit him with everything that she could! He shouldn't be moving, or even bending!
The Batarian coughed some sort of bile off to the side of the dirt path, and brought himself up to full standing by grasping an old pillar. "You're quite the damn Human, girl. By the Gods, I have never felt so old." He came to his full height, heavily favoring one leg. "I want to gut your teacher and spill her entrails upon the ground. Teaching a Human so much. Hah! Our biotics rarely are powerful enough to emulate that."
Julia tried to get her body to move, but it failed to respond. The nerves were screaming, and her back was burning. She could achieve some shaking movement, but that was all. Her biotics were just burned out, she couldn't feel them. The tingling was just too much. Not to mention the nosebleed she was suffering from overuse of her abilities. She noticed that the Batarian's armor was cracked and pitted in the front, especially his knees and gauntlets. The right one sparked, its containment field ruptured. "You don't look so good." She said, making a show of looking him over. "My allies should be able to stop you now."
"Be that as it may, you are the one who broke my blades and armor. My knives are shattered, and my armor refuses to fire. You did this without a ranged weapon, and for that you have my respect. As Ambassador of the Batarian Hegemony, I will grant you whatever form of death you desire. This is my respect."
The Ambassador? They were trying to kill an Ambassador? "What?" She just asked.
"Wait!" A highly cultured voice said. "Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" Both she and the Batarian looked over, seeing eight Alliance soldiers and two Intelligence Office agents looking over them. Their guns were trained on Julia! Not the Batarian! A man in a nice suit covered in dirt ran up, holding his hands up between the two of them. "Ambassador Dvoragk, we apologize for this insult to your honor. We-" He came closer, to look at her. "Julia?! I thought you were dead!"
"Her name is Julia?" The Batarian growled.
"Ambassador Haego Dvoragk, may I introduce, officially," He glanced at their obvious damaged appearance, "Julia Harper, the daughter of Cerberus' founder, Jack Harper. She is one of our best students and biotics."
"Hah! So you sent her to test my mettle?"
"No, we did not. In fact, we would rather like both of you unharmed and alive. Are you alright?"
Haego coughed up more blood. "Perhaps a small dose of your Medi-gel and I shall be fine." Liar. He was leaning heavily on one side, and his armor had locked up on his left leg, immobilizing it but allowing him to still walk. Heavy armor could do that. Her lighter armor couldn't.
"We certainly have that. Rodriguez, get the lady medical attention and give the Ambassador whatever he requests. Get the shuttle over here, we are going to extract the Ambassador."
Something was wrong here. There were two Intelligence Office agents here, and they were answering to Hock. She couldn't say or do anything, not without revealing her involvement. Her orders were clear. Kill the Batarian, no further details required. Yet Donovan Hock was on the Senate, and part of the command structure that all parts of the Intelligence Office had to report to. She decided to stand on her own power, and then fell down as twin sources of pain flared in her lower back. "You may want to remove those knives before standing, child. You broke off the hilts when you threw me off." Haego stated.
"You stabbed me?"
"Didn't seem to stop you, felt like the right decision at the time." Haego said, shrugging. "It means I respected you enough to stab you. Quite the honor."
She let herself be picked up by the Alliance soldiers. Her legs dangled, pain spiking in her back where those daggers must be buried. She tried to keep herself from crying out, but the pain made her release some groans. Hock had her placed in some sort of armored shuttle, and had the Intelligence agents watch her while he took Haego somewhere else. Looking around, she couldn't see Hannah or Kasumi, or any sign of them.
"Don't worry. Alpha actual will get you out of there." Came over her channel before she was fully in the shuttle. She smiled at that. Jones was usually timid with the details, but she kept her people safe. As the medics started working on her, and she felt herself fall asleep, she thought she felt comfortable knowing that she was with the Alliance, and not out in some colony where there was no support.
Tartarus Station, Luna, Sol System, February 2171
Hannah sat down with Jones and the rest of their team as they all escaped permanent detainment. Her stomach had been patched up, and her dislocated shoulder had been popped back in. Ribs had been treated, but now she had to wait with medical patches keeping her taken care of in terms of the bruised ribs. Bastard hadn't even hit her directly and she still suffered from the worst injuries she'd sustained in five years. His blasted spear had been VI assisted for sure, there was no way he could have predicted her movements that closely.
"At least Hock had Julia sent back to a hospital." She said. Kasumi had been treated here in Tartarus, and she was in her room recovering. The Japanese girl's body had thick grey-purple bruises at the neck and along her torso. She fractured ribs when she slammed into the stone pillar. So Kasumi went to bed in between tears and numbness from pain pills. The poor girl was completely inconsolable, Julia not being here and being in such pain herself. She had never hurt herself before, and her previous incarnation's memories didn't have any major injuries.
"Hock knows who she is. He won't let go of her any time soon, not when he can use her to get ahold of the rest of Cerberus' funding and stock index. With Julia, he now owns more than sixty percent of the foundation."
"If he can convince Julia to sell her shares." Hannah reminded Jones. "If I remember correctly, Julia refused to let you anywhere near them."
"Yet you failed to get control over anything that Jack Harper had controlled as well." Jones returned. "Julia has been considering you her mother figure, and I made you her guardian so that you could take control of her inheritance. She turns sixteen in months, and we lose control of that chance to stop Jack Harper from hijacking any more of Humanity."
"Is that what you fed Julia?" Hannah snapped. She immediately regretted saying that, as Jones narrowed her eyes upon Hannah. Challenging her word, and therefore the word of the department heads above them, was strictly seditious.
"Julia represents Jack Harper's weak point. Jack Harper controls all of Sirta, a company which the Council, as well as our government, are holding under a lot of scrutiny. If we simply let him continue to ruin our foreign relations, then we run the risk of an unpredictable madman starting a war!" Jones leaned slightly forward. "The last time he created something on the scale of Sirta, the Quarians became Humanity's next parasite. Now, anything they do reflects on us. You had one job, Allison! One job, and now Hock has Julia. He won't let her go until she has either signed over her inheritance or is dead."
"So what, the fact that her childhood and upbringing created a paranoia and manic distrust of authority figures is my fault? I'm the one at fault for trying to work past whatever messed up shit her father taught her?" Hannah didn't care right now. She liked Julia. She wasn't anything like her father. She cared, she liked people.
"Yes. You failed. Now Julia fought a prepared and dangerous foe, and lost. The Batarian filth is still inside of Rome, meeting with the Pope as we speak. Our mission failed. He's alive, and possibly plotting to kill our most important religious leaders as we speak. What do you think is going to happen because of this?"
"Well, team charlie obviously isn't combat ready. You can take the rest of the department and make another run when he's on his way to Mecca?" Hannah snarked. "If he's hitting up the Pope, then he will most certainly check out Islam. Or do you think he is going to Judaism next?"
"You're off the rest of the mission. Stay here and keep out of trouble. We'll talk about your effort with Julia when we return. Don't contact Hock." Jones then saluted her, requiring a salute back. Hannah returned it, but not without her own feelings on the matter. Jones and her remaining teams left and walked out of Tartarus, leaving her alone.
Frustrated, she turned on the news. The top story was, of course, the attack and battle in the middle of the Roman Forum. As she sat and fumed, she saw that multiple civilians had turned in Omni-tool footage of the battle, and could see and identify some of the people involved. For example, a redhead with a sniper rifle and a smaller redhead that could cloak. They were cross referencing the images and still shots with known government agents, and weren't getting far.
Until They came on. Commander Yugoslav Goryodovich. His superior, Rear Admiral Adrian Dawson. The Civilian oversight to the Alliance Office of Intelligence, Donnel Vasquez, was also on the report. They all looked grim. Vasquez had a smile, but not a friendly one. Goryodovich just looked like most Russians did, grim and determined. Dawson just looked reserved. As soon as the three men sat down, a reporter started a round of questions.
"This question is to the board in general. Was this an action to stop some sort of Batarian outbreak? Or some sort of bio weapon?" The reporter started, her smile vainly showing how interested she was in the morals of all of this.
Dawson answered that. "This Batarian is here on official Council and Hegemony business. He has been invited to Earth, and has refused escort of his own guards during this time period. He trusted our own security forces with his protection."
"So, then, why did we have a brawl in Old Rome? The damage to the Roman Forum is quite extensive, and the riots in the city have taken on a new shape."
"The fight there was not planned by any loyal members of the Alliance Office of Intelligence. Rogue elements decided to try to kill our escort so as to incite war with our allies on the Council." Hannah felt bile rise up in her throat. She stood up, wincing as this pulled at her bandages. Running, she got to Kasumi and Julia's room and pulled out an emergency medical gurney from the wall.
"Kasumi, I'm sorry. So sorry, but we have to go." Kasumi had taken painkillers, and wasn't responding to her. Sighing, she pulled the girl out of her bed and lowered her onto the gurney gently. She still skewed her face in pain. "Sorry, sorry." Hannah muttered, ruffling the girl's black hair and pushing the gurney towards the door. She picked up the small bag that held all of Kasumi's earthly goods, which was of course packed to the brim. Out of habit, she checked the wall safe that Kasumi and Julia had access to, and her jaw near about dropped. There were credit chits upon credit chits here. Hundreds of them above the one thousand range. She threw those into her own pouches. She grabbed her own travel bag and medical care supply bag, and threw those over her shoulder along with Kasumi's.
When she re-emerged into the main living area, the news report had taken a darker turn. "We have long been aware that there was another group within the Office that was stealing personnel, tasks, and resources from the greater whole. Today, after a full investigation and audit that occurred, we discovered that retired agent Julianne Jones had faked her retirement and was instead running operations that ostensibly were under the Alliance sanction, yet fulfilled her own goals. We were only able to confirm the identity of two of her operatives, and one of them has so many aliases that it is impossible to locate her. So far, we have identified the entire rogue department to report to Jack Harper. Jones masqueraded as his representative through intermediaries and the control of his daughter, whom we took into custody and saved from the organization."
"So, what actions are being taken to thwart this kind of threat? Shouldn't the Alliance be aggressively removing this group of terrorists?"
"We are. Agents have been dispatched to all of the old locations that were frequented by Harper, who has been proven to have been a seditious element. The only personnel that we can confirm are members of this group are Jones herself, as well as her second in command, whom you see in the video attacking the Batarian with a long range rifle." Goryodovich stated. Hannah felt blood pool at her feet and hands as her face was shown, of course from the worst angle as she looked like a cold blooded killer.
They were on their way here, for sure. Tartarus would be at the top of their list. So, she took Kasumi into the maintenance tunnels. They were old, and in some places rusty. Only bots came through here these days. But she had master codes that Jack had given her to run Cerberus. These were all on a closed network, and she couldn't see any other signs of Humanity in the deck plate's dust. She pushed the gurney along, walking as fast as the wounds in her side would allow her.
The docking bay was always full of people, and she would have to be completely in the open in order to reach any sort of shuttle or her own ship. The Jek-jek-tar-tek was parked here, and had been rented out to different agents at times as an element of Cerberus allied forces. When she emerged from the maintenance entrance, the dock was mostly empty, with the technicians only clustered at the far end. Only one man in a suit waited in front of her ship. She didn't bother cloaking. She just walked towards the ship, the gurney following after her with its own VI systems.
"Hock." She spat.
"Constantine. Shepard. Whatever you call yourself." He returned. "I just wanted to talk to you before I go."
She didn't slow her pace. "So talk. You obviously know that I'm going to be hunted."
"Yes, yes. My department under Jones and Ross failed. You've been in the rogue department from the very beginning. My dear, when I started your department under Runya Ross, I intended it as a way to protect Humanity from its own selfish desires. You've never had a government salary in your life. You, my dear, are mine. Just like Jones. If you want to continue to serve Humanity, as they do, you can go to these coordinates on Bekenstein. Don't worry about the feds. They will be here in a few minutes, and I have already scheduled this ship to travel to the Citadel." He walked over to her, placing his hand upon her shoulder. "You've always been one of the best agents we had. Don't give up on what you've built for yourself."
Lies. All bloody lies. She had sold Jack out, sold him out to Hock. She numbly took the coordinates from him, written on a business card. "Thank you." She ground out. "What about Julia?"
"Oh, her? Don't worry about her. I had to turn her into the actual Alliance Office of Intelligence. They will be content to keep her locked up for as long as it takes. I gave my word that she should be kept far away from anyone she knows until she gives up all of her rights to inherit. All of that wealth makes her just a very vulnerable target, you know." He patted her on the shoulder again. "But she is no longer your concern. Get out of here, and join up with the rest of the agents at Bekenstein."
"Yes, sir." She stated. By rote memory, she trudged on to her own ship. She had to remind herself that she bought this from Jack's money, and not the money she had gotten as part of her job. As soon as the doors shut, she got Kasumi off of the gurney and into the medical suite. But she was fuming. She had been used, used from the very beginning when Ross took her away from the Prothean Archive. Ross had placed her inside of a false department. Jones had perpetuated the lie, and without Ross the legitimate connection to the rest of the Alliance was gone.
Which meant that Jack was right all along. Her eyes trembled a bit, and she considered going for some of the whiskey that she had stashed here. But that wasn't right. None of this was right. She started her ship, setting it on a course to take it through the relay and to the Citadel. Before she hit the relay, she had dialed up a comm relay line on her most secure encryptions.
The connection took a long moment to connect. When it did, the face on the other end was grainy, the connection extremely weak. "Well, well, well. I left this number for you to contact me just in case." Jack Harper said. He looked haggard, his hair longer than normal.
"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. For everything. So sorry. Now, Hock has everything. He has Julia, he has Cerberus, and it's all my fault." She kept herself from falling apart in front of the screen, but she felt the warmth that threatened deeper emotions. "I never should have trusted them so blindly."
"What happened?"
"We tried to kill the Batarian Ambassador to the Citadel." She said. "Civilians saw the battle and sent in their recordings. Julia was injured, stabbed, but she nearly took him down on her own."
"Haego is in the top ten for most dangerous close range combatants that I know of. He's a bit of an odd duck, even for Batarians. Most of the upper caste call him a zealot. A high priest who is unafraid of anything. Julia was recorded?"
"She was recorded beating the hell out of a Batarian in some sort of advanced armor in the middle of the Roman Forum." Hannah said. "But that's not the worst. After that, the real Intelligence Office came forward and denied any connection, and claimed that you created and ran that entire show through Jones. You're getting framed for all this."
"Not bloody likely." He spat. "I have to give Julia some style points for location and skill. Now, though, is a rather complicated time. Charles! Take care of things, I've got to go save my idiotic race!" Jack glanced up and away from the Omni-tool's screen when he said this, and then turned back to her. "How did you find out it was Hock?"
"He told me so. Told me to come to Bekenstein with the rest of the agents."
"Oh! Perfect, I've already tapped that house." Jack said, grinning. "You go there, and collect any evidence you can of wrongdoing and connection to other criminal elements, while I work on having some sort of press conference. I know just the place." Jack grinned. "Revenge is sweet, Hannah. I'll meet you at Bekenstein soon. Harper out." The line went static, and Hannah drove for Bekenstein, feeling ten times better about herself.
Haego watched as the Sacrament was blessed and brought to him. The bread had been a nice symbolic ritual, yet this, this blood ritual, this was much more acceptable. 'This is something I would prefer. This Christianity preaches of weakness, yet many of its rituals are related to the use of blood as a foci. Yes, this is perhaps a fine example of what I could use for a religious background.' He wrote in his journal of religious searching. This Sacrament business was highly telling of the religion. The Pope himself performed the ceremony, making it especially telling. From High Priest to High Priest, he understood what kind of statement this made regarding the openness of a religion. After this ritual, he rested in the Papal apartments in Rome.
Thus, he spoke with this Pope for two days. They exchanged so much information regarding religion that Haego actually felt slightly like one of his scribes. Yet it was the most fulfilling talk he had experienced in a long while. There was nothing here that was taboo to speak of. The entire religion was an open book, in which you could plumb its depths without fear of being killed for asking questions above your station. That had always bugged him, yet he understood now how important that was, with the champions still being hidden amongst the Pillars.
"Show me this Hinduism. I must learn more of the polytheistic religions." He was using medi-gel on his destroyed knee and damaged body. The cartilage in his nose was nearly destroyed by that little girl. As was more than a few of his bones. He had stabbed her in the back, and was trying to hold on while she had fired off that biotic burst. That was a mistake. She managed to break every single weapon but his Kavka. She had dropped hers, which meant that he wasn't about to draw his own. But to go up against him in close range combat, that was impressive. She had been inexperienced, for sure, but that was going to be something he remembered. Humans were just so entertaining, in so many ways! They knew just how to make him feel welcome. An assassination attempt here, some religion there, it was all quite the hospitable visit.
Author's Note
I had to take some time on this one, because I had to do a few things right. I had a trip to Europe recently, and on the trip my wife and I went to Rome. I had a blast, as you might imagine. She realized that taking a fan of Assassin's Creed to Italy was a terrible decision for her. Many of the visits to impressive buildings ended in geeky comments and conjecture. Though it was completely awesome at the same time, we had very different vies on art and architecture in general. So, when I went through the Roman Forum I planned out this fight in detail, stepping around and seeing where everything went. My wife was not amused that we spent two hours just pacing around in the Forum.
Take a look at the Wikipedia page for the Temple of Caesar, and you'll have some idea of how small of an area they are fighting in. There are rocks, stones, old pillars everywhere around it. Right across from it is one of the old temples with a marble base and a few pillars left standing, sunken into the foundation. That's what Kasumi was launched into, and that is some of the toughest rock on the planet.
I took some liberties with the religions of the world, and I don't feel that my guesses are too inaccurate for what might be a possible future. If you have issues with religion, that is all well and good, but that is one of the biggest, if not the largest, reason for cultures to change and develop. Our political structures and racial practices also center around it, and so for this story you'll see more religious references than in other Mass Effect stories.
Thanks for waiting, everyone. Enjoy the show and let me know what you think about the continuing trouble that is stewing!