Authors notes:
Touhoufanatic: Alright, final chapter of these specials, hope you all have liked them. With this the boundary effect is done until I get to the ME2 stuff, which will be a while as i'll be assiting dread on his spin off while im resting from writing mass effect myself.
XYZDreadnought: And as this is the post mission epilogue, it will mostly be Desida's debriefing on the assignment, it will be pretty wordy, and kinda dry, but that's generally what reports are like. Thanks for reading, new chapter of Path of a magician eventually.
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June 13rd -2155 - Boundary slip in Transit to Arcturus station - Daydream - Bedroom
Desida lay on her massive bed, head propped up against Gummi's chest as she wrote her both her report and the queen's application for asylum.
Well, to be completely honest, she had already finished the latter, but she was mostly agonising on who to send it to.
While she could just send via official channels, that could take days to be fully processed, if not weeks depending on how forgiving Alliance bureaucracy was feeling at the time. And not to put too fine a point on it, she was arriving in Arcturus by this evening, there was an alien Queen cramped into her cockpit, and would much rather it be somebody else's problem by then.
So she was going to fasttrack it by sending it via somebody who had more weight to throw around via operative only channels.
Now as her direct superior, the obvious one would be Reimu.
'But do I really want to create more work for Reimu mere hours before I get in a meeting with her?' Desida thought.
It didn't take her long to decide that 'No. No she did not.'
So that meant she had to aim even higher.
Unfortunately, both Kaguya and Yukari had both marked themselves as 'do not disturb' on the comms network. But that always left…
"Heeeyy… Hacket." she said, as he picked up. "Are you busy right now?"
"What do you want, Desida?" Hacket replied, sensing an oncoming headache.
"My Report is as follows." Desdia drawled, reading from a holographic readout projected from her wrist comp. "Mission began in orbit and my candidates were teleported down to the surface in what would be late morning in local time, near an offworld port facility. Weather conditions were extreme with a blizzard, but candidates were minimally impared thanks to Candidate Jessamines Meteromancy. As I had decided to withhold intelligence to the squad to increase mission difficulty, Candidate Isika magically infiltrated the port through the ventilation, guided from outside by Candidate Uno. She proceeded to disable cameras and open outside access to the facilities garage to let her squad in.
They then proceeded to split up, with Candidates Jesamine and Ishi moving under the cover of optical camouflage to the port administrators office to raid his files for relevant data, and Isika used her appearance as an Asari to question some port personnel. Candidates ika and Uno stayed in the Garage to both cover their exit and coordinate their movements respectively. Candidate Jesamine used her ability to disable the port administrator while Candidate Ishi used her hacking skills to slice security and search the administrators files. Acting from a tip off from Candidate Isika after she had questioned one of the ports staff, Candidate Ishi was able to pinpoint the mission objective, Peak Fifteen, as well as confirm the presence of another rogue spectre, Tela Vasir, who was collaborating with Saren.
In addition, Candidate Isika opened dialog with Lorik Qui'in, local representative of the company Synthetic insights, a company operating within council space specialising in AI and VI research. And despite Qui'in correctly guessing Isika's alliance allegiance, he still proved himself willing to cooperate, providing additional intel on Novera internal affairs, and after Isika provided him with some assistance with a dispute between himself and the port administrator, promised favourable dealings with both himself and his company with the alliance in the future. Addendum, prior to arriving at Arcturus Candidate Isika was contacted by Lorik Qui'in, informing her that thanks to her assistance, he has now become the new port administrator, and has extended his offer to include assistance and security backdoors should the Alliance ever find themselves operating on Noveria again, provided we exercise subtly.
Intel secured the group departed from the port facility to The Peak fifteen labs. Candidates Ishi and Ika, whose equipment and constitution were more resistant to the weather, Moved ahead as a vanguard to clear the path of an enemy presence consisting of several armoured vehicles and robotic infantry units, whose presence was observed via Candidate Uno's ability. Despite the moderately sized enemy presence, the vanguard met with minimal resistance, the narrow mountain paths and poor visibility inhibited the enemy forces response times and mobility, and thus could not stand against their combined force. It is worth noting that for the latter part of this deployment, Ika pulled ahead of Ishi in an attempt to show off, but as the maneuver was still a success, I consider it a null point.
Upon the vanguard and the remaining candidates regrouping outside peak fifteen, they entered the facility, and after dispatching a small garrison in the Garage, took a break for lunch as Candidate Uno assed the facility layout and enemy presence. The group then departed further into the facility to try and gain further intel both on Sarens interest in this facility and the as of yet unexplained presence of an at-the-time unidentified and universally hostile alien creatures. It was later discovered that these aliens were 'Rachni' a race of space-faring aliens formerly thought to be extinct due to the actions of the Krogan during the appropriately named 'Rachni war'. For ease of reference, I shall refer to them as such for the rest of this report.
After Candidate Isika interrogated some of Sarens forces, it was found that a 'Rachni Queen', who I believe functions as both a leader and primary breeder of her species, thereby fulfilling both definitions of the title, is present on the facility, and represents Sarens current interest in the facility, marking it as the missions primary objective. However Candidate Ishi, upon investigating one of the facilities terminals. Found that the primary station VI was disabled, cutting off network access. What's more, The Rachni queen was located within a sub facility which was located on the end of a long tram tunnel, and the tram was currently inoperable. In the interest of completing the mission as soon as possible, as The Facility was due to be glassed from orbit due to earlier broadcasting an 'Omega alert', they endeavoured to reactivate the VI in order to reactivate the Tram.
This was accomplished quickly as the VI had only been deactivated, and after bypassing security, they had it instruct them on how to restore tram functionality. This involved restarting the Facilities reactor, which was carried out by Candidates Ishi and Uno. There was an entrenched enemy presence, which was quickly dispatched before restarting the reactor. There was also had to reconnect the main Facility to the sub facility in order for the trams to operate. Candidates Isika and Ika carried out this task, and met no resistance besides a small group of Rachni that had congregated on the roof. They then regrouped by the VI core, which was being held by Candidate Jesamine from intermittent attacks from the Rachni. They then boarded the Tram to the sub facility.
Reconnecting the Facilities together had the foreseen consequence of alerting the enemy to their approach. So in order to avoid the enemy ambush, they evacuated the tram half a klick out from the opposite terminal, leaving the tram to spring the ambush, while they followed behind. After the Ambush was sprung, Candidate Isika used her 'Night Spark', a destructive spell derived from her masters 'Master Spark', to clear the terminal of hostiles, as well as significantly weaken the wall at the far end of the terminal. After confirming the location of both the objective, and the primary Target, the rouge spectre. It was decided that Candidate Isika would confront Vasir alone, with the intent of drawing out her reserve forces, while the rest of the candidates waited with breaching charges on the weakened section of wall. After engaging Vasir in banter, during which she managed to ascertain Sarens interest in Rachni Queen, being the species collective memory, she engaged the spectre in combat. After a brief fight, Isika managed to both disable Vasir's primary weapon and injure her with a stab wound to the foot, which prompted Vasir to call in her reinforcements. The other Candidates then entered the room and made short work of the enemy forces. Vasir then fled the scene but was then pursued by Isika, which thanks to the injuries she received during both the fight and the breach, went down easily. However, before finishing her off. Vasir revealed that she had until that moment had been under some form of mind control, which was presumably disrupted by a blow to the head she received when she fell. She then revealed that the information Saren was seeking was the position of an until then lost Mass Relay known only as the Mu Relay, although confessing she did not know why. She declined being taken into custody, as the mind control was trying to reassert itself, and asked instead to be killed before she could once again succumb. Candidate Isika offered her an Asari prayer, and used her Ardact-Yakshi condition to painlessly euthanize the target, as well as extract additional intel.
Upon Returning to her Squad, she then entered Dialogue with the Rachni Queen, who was capable of some form of telephonetic communication. The Rachi queen revealed that the reason for the Rachni hostility was due to their removal from her as eggs resulted in an inability to communicate, driving them mad. The Queen was proven to be both docile and cooperative, and after questioning by myself, she has been moved into Alliance custody as a refugee. Addendum, upon arrival to Arcturus station, The Queen has been handed over to the Alliance military, and is being transported to a safe location, with Candidate Isika and Candidate Uno acting as interpreters, I have been informed that they will be returned before their assessment is due to be completed.
After killing the remaining feral Rachni, I declared the mission successful, and both the candidates and the VIP boarded the Daydream with only minor difficulty due to the Queens large size. End of Report. Mission transcripts and more detailed combat logs will be made available on the Operative network shortly after this debriefing, as well as data on all research being performed at peak fifteen prior to this mission."
'Sometimes I wonder if Desida makes her reports this dry on purpose.' Reimu thought as she started the second section of the report and began listening.
"My Assessment goes as follows, in no particular order." Desida began.
"Ika Musume, floundered a bit in the early mission, as that was largely espionage which she is totally unsuited. But from the moment it was declared weapons free she was allowed to show her true capabilities. She is quick on her feet and her extra appendages give her a large area of control, which combine to make her a very highly mobile area denial specialist and a very deadly one. Her aquamancy is very simplistic, but she is capable of using it to great effect to control the environment and add to her already formidable destructive power. I believe that counting Rachni kills she has the single highest kill count of anyone deployed on mission. That said she is rather headstrong and fairly simple, preferring direct attacks, and simple strategies, making her unsuited for command, or deployments requiring guile or subtlety. She also has lower durability then other Youkai in her destructive weight class, but she wears specially made armour to counter this weakness, and regenerates most combat damage within a number of days. In summary, when correctly deployed Ika is a one Youkai engine of destruction, but is best deployed with others for more complicated missions."
"Jessamine Summers, despite being under higher scrutiny then her fellow candidates, still operated above and beyond expectations. While she largely functioned in a support role throughout the mission, her Meteromancy providing both protection from the harsh climate and battlefield control during some of the more intense combat encounters, managed to still pull her weight in actual combat with a respectable bodycount and demonstrate enough skill to prove she is capable of more than just support. She also addressed one of the largest concerns people had with her talking part, by showing a remarkable amount of restraint with her ability, only using it once, and only when the mission called for it, demonstrating that she is a competent enough magician to not need it. Despite being deployed with friends however, her antisocial tendencies were still somewhat apparent, and while still co-operative with the squad, this might not be the case if she was deployed with strangers, which might result in poor teamwork. In summary, Jessamine as a candidate has a high utility both in and out of combat, and is capable of changing the outcomes of entire battles, but is a high maintenance teammate and her ability makes her too awkward and potentially risky for a leadership position."
"Ishi Hirata had two primary roles in this mission and performed both exceptionally. Her natural intellect and bag of gadgets had her naturally fall into the role of tech specialist, and she proved her competency in this regard multiple times throughout the mission, to the point where even I have trouble finding any criticism in this regard. Her second role, however, was the team tank, and in this role she debatably was even more effective. Both highly durable and capable of dealing massive amounts of damage with both her ability, magics, and pure brute force, she often took the lead in most engagements, keeping the heat off her more fragile and vulnerable teammates. What's more, her training with the Bladebreakers has mitigated her largest former weakness, which was her limited stamina, allowing her to complete a relatively long deployment without so much as a shortness of breath. If I had to search for a criticism, I would say it is that she is possibly too cautious, favouring careful, calculated actions which, while good for safety, can make her fairly predictable if you can keep her at a distance. Someone of her constitution could afford to take more risks, and often do. In summary, A reliable frontline fighter bundled with a capable tech expert, who prefers close quarters combat and functions best either with fire support, a more aggressive partner, an environment where collateral damage is not a concern, or all three."
"Uno was invaluable throughout the mission, providing fire support, intelligence, and strategic and tactical guidance to the other candidates, the mission would have been far more difficult and a lot longer without her presence, if not downright impossible. Her training, intellect and her friends faith in her allowed her to naturally fall into a leadership position without question, her calls were rarely contended, and her strategies were executed often without hitch. Her Ability granted her constant real time intelligence on enemy positions and movements, giving her the highest command potential of any of her fellow candidates. On top of that, her unique blend of Geomancy and Light magic give her both high destructive power at long range, and area denial at medium range, and this is without even factoring her peerless skill at scopeless marksmanship with her customised 'Starlance' which any Lunalarian or weapon nut might recall as being notoriously unwieldy for a laser weapon. It is accurate to say that she has a marksman's mentality however, and by that I mean she functions best in a team. Her attacks, while powerful, often take setup, and can be disrupted by an aware enough enemy without someone else running interference. Additionally, while not completely helpless in close quarters, it is far from her forte, and can therefore get caught in dangerous situations without someone watching her back. Her weakness, although it could also be considered a strength, is that she her leadership skill is largely dependant on how well she knows the people under her and how well they know her, the more she understands and the more they trust her, the better she can lead, conversely when working with strangers, who second guess her leadership can cause her to struggle, or at worse, choke. In summary, a god of death from medium to long range, with a yet untapped command potential especially when working with close associates or other moon rabbits, but needs a buddy to reach her full potential."
Last but not least, the buddy in question, Isika Valao. This mission showcased her strengths quite well, and she was rarely sidelined throughout the mission's runtime. Her very odd mix of infiltrator, close combat brawler, and magical powerhouse proved invaluable to the smooth operation of the mission, overcoming obstacles that may have proved extremely difficult without her. Her Asari features and her mastery of dark magic allowed her to gather intelligence quickly and easily and move about unhindered in the early mission, as well as create negotiation opportunities and open dialogue with otherwise potentially uncooperative or unreachable targets. Not limited to sneaking about, she is also capable of quickly closing distance and disengaging from melee combat without difficulty where she often greatly excels at, and even when Melee combat is inadvisable she is capable of delivering quite a lot of damage at distance with a veritable toolbox of different magical attacks ranging from Elemental, gravity and mind magics, and this is not including her own personal variant of her masters signature attack, The Night Spark. She is a fairly squishy target, but compensates by being an extremely evasive one, She places consistently high in the interacademy Danmaku tournaments and it shows, and that is not including her ability to dematerialise parts of her body at will. Her weaknesses, is that she can often get carried away, or loose focus on her primary objective, often needing to be reeled back to prevent herself from overextending herself or getting distracted. It is also worth noting that Isika does better in confined spaces with lots of dark corners and potential cover, she can function in large open areas, but it limits her options to ordinary spell slinging and close quarter brawling, and can leave her open to being surrounded and overwhelmed by numerically superior foes without some kind of support. In summary, Isika can function well in most mission environments both alone and with a group and has a variety of skills that lend themselves to most scenarios, but is at her best with a partner to support her, which admittedly, she already has."
In conclusion, all candidates demonstrated their skills to a satisfactory degree, and managed to complete their mission flawlessly, without injury or loss despite additional handicaps given by myself. Functioning well with only minimal oversight, and despite all having flaws, compensated for them by cooperating and picking up wherever the others fell short. With additional experience from further deployments, I can only see them getting better. As their examiner I declare them eligible for promotion to operative."