Man off the Moon

by FiendLurcher

A rusted hero let loose in a galaxy of myriad grays, walking the familiar steps and seeking answers beyond death at the end of that long, ever-winding road. (Currently editing ch22, took a break last month cuz of flu&brainfog)

23. DO NOT FEED THE LOBSTERS

The darkness was absolute.

Emiya could not see a single thing no matter where he looked or how he tried to focus. A hundred meters; ten; a single arm's length ahead?

It did not matter; it was all equally obscured and unknowable. There was nothing beyond the dimly glowing HUD that could be seen in this world of the deeps. Though he had long since turned all of those off as it was simply more expedient to directly monitor everything with his cybernetics. That, and the dim lights had become increasingly blinding as he got more and more used to the darkness of the sea. Through the suit, he could distantly feel the slight vibrations of the RX-5 sea scooters that were propelling him through the sea at a clipped 20 kilometers an hour. It was not a speed with which he could effectively get to Ulee, but it was enough to get him out of the immediate surveillance zone around Serrice.

Once he was far enough away, he could kick it up a notch and really start working it. But not quite yet; just to be safe.

In the void that surrounded him, it seemed as though nothing existed beyond himself. He could hear nothing but his own breathing and heartbeat, as the rushing water against his helmet turned to white noise in his ears and began to fade with every passing minute all but lost already to his perception. His sense of touch was equally muted, the pressurized and normalized state of his hardsuit keeping him safely sealed away from any of the abyss' cold touch. Even his sense of smell and taste seemed to be confused by this state, as the oxygen from his suit seemed to take on a curious odor and taste; he found himself breathing through his nose and tasting the air as if he was sipping an aged wine and trying to oxygenate the beverage by the act. He would have been more worried if he hadn't been able to just write it off as an after-effect of the drone EMP attack he was still sorting out in his head.

Though eventually he had to judge that it was merely his brain becoming bored and trying to find anything interesting to sense, rather than a lingering malaise from that event. Nonetheless, this state of affairs and slow travel left him with plenty of time to think and look back at what had happened so far.

Stifling another yawn, he focused on keeping his eyes open. It had effectively been days since he had last slept; the return trip from Dretirop, meeting with Hosin, returning to his house, the subsequent siege and escape...

There hadn't been any time to rest and his body was still only human. Later. Can't stop or rest yet.

He tried to focus on what he thought relevant; Tela Vasir; the STG; the turian and the unknown Matriarch who had suddenly appeared and tried to attack him. Were they all connected, or were they various factions at play against one another? If he could play them off one another, it would give him more openings and options to work with, he knew. Yet his thoughts inevitably were drawn back to Tyra. He could feel the touch against his cheek again and for a moment he almost tried to brush it away through his helmet with a flare of some unknown emotion.

It wasn't quite anger, but there was definite annoyance in his heart.

After all, he had felt like he had understood the asari a little better now. It wasn't that they were too alien before, it was that he hadn't been able to see them for how similar they were to humans, too distracted by the various factors at play in molding their peculiarities. The human concept of femininity didn't quite apply to them, but at the same time many of humanity's feminine archetypes fit them to a T. It felt like he could understand many of the seemingly illogical choices and decisions he had seen in the past week a little bit better, by framing it in that protective-mother-warrior ethos. It wasn't like he could understand the asari as a whole now or that he knew the way, but it was a definite seed from which a whole understanding of their logos could—would sprout one day.

Which was exactly what he had not wanted. It was the very opposite of his carefully laid plans and efforts, having something like that simply dropped into his head was making a mess of everything.

"Damn it, Tyra..." He grumbled, even as he knew how she had felt. How many scenes and tales like that had he seen in passing?

For the asari who predominantly mated outside their own species, how much hardship and struggle did they have to face to succeed? Certainly, they were attractive and alluring—but they were also exceedingly alien and overwhelming.

It was an unusual inversion of sorts; the asari may have looked female, but it was they who predominantly had to woo their partners proactively. This 'courting' was just as complex and varied as most all things the asari did; it began with understanding and probing, moving onto befriending and seducing, and when that failed onto more overt signs of affection. And finally moving onto outright melding with the other, when nothing else worked.

Humans wrote, enacted and enjoyed epics of various kinds. But oftentimes it was conquest, exploration and success in the face of overwhelming odds that appealed to most. Be it by wit, luck or sheer fortitude, the act of heroic spirit seemed to manifest the logos of humanity to such an extent that it spoke to the soul of all who witnessed it.

It was why humanity so enjoyed sports and competition; to see others rise to the challenge, to meet head on with the impossible and to surpass it through blinding brilliance. The asari also had something like that; something similar, which spoke to the very core of their being.

Wasn't that the premise of that one vid he had seen? The 'Antilin Affair', or something?

He vaguely remembered it, having watched it through his cybernetics while tinkering with one thing or another some years ago. It was nominally based on actual events that had happened a long time ago, the kind of historical romance that shaped the future of the galaxy for decades and centuries afterwards. A young asari meeting an equally young salarian Dalatrass out in the Antilin system, where the salarians were struggling to build up a new colony. The emotional and vibrant asari Maiden who had come as an ambassador's daughter, playing off with the to-the-point and serious salarian female leader of the new colony, the budding friendship slowly growing into something more, until the Dalatrass—burdened so greatly by her duties and the necessity of using her gender for crafting alliances with other clans through breeding contracts—broke off the friendship.

The vid was a long one, where all of these various stages of asari courtship were showed in great and realistic detail—according to the various critics at the time of its release at least, though it was still considered a classic several hundred years later. And it showed perfectly that last stage of almost forceful melding; the one desperate, last ditch effort that had become the classic climax to any great asari love story.

Melding with them as goodbyes were made, to bare their whole self and cut past all that lay between two souls to declare with their whole being;

'I love you!'

Of course Tyra would do something like that, he realized now in hindsight.

Her entire damn culture glorified the act of falling in love with a member of another race and managing to overcome their differences to arrive at a mutual understanding, more than anything else in the entire galaxy.

No wonder professor Baliya called me 'maidenbait', when I tried to express my annoyance with tiresome neighbors, he thought with annoyance afterthought. I must have seemed straight out of a story to some; a lone member of a new race, alone and closed off. Silent and sullen, simply begging for someone to open up to... Or something like that.

Emiya shook his head, closing his eyes at the growing headache he could feel pulsing in beat with his heart. With some annoyance, he simply flicked off the pain receptors and felt as his mind cleared again.

He should have seen it coming a mile away yet he hadn't, having closed off such thoughts thinking them nothing but a hindrance. Perhaps that was the root of his problem; just as he had now compartmentalized his annoyance away, so too he refused to deal with anything that was not directly related to his... What can I even call it? My 'quest'? 'Mission'?

He shook his head. Here he was paying the price now for all that.

This seed had been lain by a living asari,willingly handing him the key to understanding her race. He didn't have any Protheans lining up to do the same thing with their race, now did he? The plan he had been working by was to begin by using the i'usushij—the various asari swords in the museum—as his 'seed'. To learn how to learn. That way, he could learn how to do it more easily with the gunblade.

But his carelessness and one asari maiden had shattered that plan well and truly, now; he had come into too close a contact with an asari; his mind had been given a cheat-sheet that would make learning the rest a much simpler matter; his sample had been contaminated. He may well have to start all over on some other planet, seeking to learn their logos from the beginning again.

Five years. Five years he had spent on Thessia. Every day working on trying to crack the asari logos, with very little to show for his efforts. Had it been wasted? Was it all for nothing, now? He couldn't quite say. But if he had to say right at that moment what he thought, then...

Emiya shook his head, focusing on his present surroundings once more, instead of dwelling on his aggravation. He had made mistakes but dwelling on them at this point was meaningless. And that damn headache was pressing at his temples again, despite his efforts to ignore it. Taking a long breath, he forcefully repressed the throbbing in his head.

For the nth time, he wondered whether he was in the right heading before he repressed that urge to swim to the surface to make sure. On a still enough ocean, anything popping up to the surface could be spotted hundreds of miles away with lidar, and if the area was being monitored with orbital surveillance he might be spotted, depending on the cloud coverage. He had to stay beneath the water for as long as possible.

Without the RX-5s's internal sensors that could accurately map out heading and velocity as it superimposed it against the inertial navigation system and mapping, he would have no means of navigating this deep underwater. It wasn't a standard program either; he had had to copy and apply some old human submarine software to work here. There weren't many ways around the problem of navigating underwater; radio and light-signals simply diffused too quickly in water to be of any use and there weren't any maps of the Thessian seafloor that he could use as the asari stayed the hell away from the deep waters. Hell, at this depth even if he vacated his body he would not have to worry about any signal escaping his cybernetic parts, even if a ship capable of intercepting it were to be right above him by the surface. Water was just that troublesome.

With just his human senses he would not even be able to tell up from down, much less which way he was actually headed.

The fact that it was night did not help either, but he knew that at this depth it would not make one iota of difference whether it was day or night. Judging from the pressure sensor, he knew he was some half a kilometer below the surface. At this depth, he was experiencing more than fifty times the atmospheric pressure he was used to on the surface. The crushing pressure of all that water above him was dangerous in more than the mere mass of the liquid pressing into him, too.

On Earth, at 40 meters depth in water the amount of nitrogen in 'air' being inhaled would cause one to become intoxicated—almost drunk—and the deeper one went the worse the effects would become. The Raptures of the Deep, the Martini effect or simply Narcosis, was something that occurred with most if not all gases short of helium. At 60 meters depth, oxygen itself would become highly toxic and could even cause seizures. At the depth of a 100 or more meters, pressure would become such a major issue that it required slow decompression for hours for someone to safely return to the surface.

The deep sea was dangerous.

And that was just on Earth; on Thessia the higher gravity and amounts of eezo made things even dicier. Worse yet, for all the love the asari held for the sea, very few had any interest in deep sea diving—for good reason, he knew—which made the amount of information available to him of the dangers he might face ever scarcer.

With such a hurdle, he had certainly hesitated when first considering using the Serrinan sea as his escape route. But once he considered how unlikely pursuit would be, he accepted the risks and set about in making it become possible for him to dive away.

Of course, he was cheating as usual.

Wearing the hardsuit he had left behind for a day just like this one, he was essentially diving in a small pressurized personal submarine. All those problems with diving at various depths and having to depressurize slowly to return to the surface? No longer a thing he had to worry about at all; the hardsuit kept him completely sealed and safe. The hardsuit had even been modified to be able to withstand the pressures of the extreme deep as well.

Another one? He frowned, coming to a halt with a mental command to the pair of RX-5s on his forearms.

Some four hundred meters ahead, a cataclysmic shift suddenly occurred and he had to reverse thrust to avoid being sucked in. It lasted a whole minute, before the waters calmed once more. He exhaled as he began to move out again, trusting his ability to sense the shifting to keep him safe.

The asari aren't dumb to stay the hell away from here, he thought again. Without my ability to sense mass effects directly, I would have never dared to come here.

As he had left Serrice, he had followed the bottom of the long beachfront for a good five kilometers before he could properly submerge to depths where he felt safe from surface scans. Of course, they had used small floating buoys to try using sonar, but he had been able to evade them with relative ease by following the contours of the seafloor. The bottom of the Serrinan sea had been quite shallow, fifty meters at most for the majority of the way until it started deepening. After that, it was akin to running into the edge of cliff as the bottom vanished into darkness deep below.

Since then he had stuck to the half a kilometer depth, thinking himself safe there.

Early on he had been able to see the moon and stars with some clarity along with plentiful fish and plant-life, but as he had sunk through the threshold into the 'Twilight Zone' of depth, all signs of plant-life seemed to disappear. No doubt due to the vanishing amounts of light that could shine through the water above.

Emiya had been moving out for well over an hour by now. At this depth and distance from the shore, he reasoned it would be safe to pick up his pace. Simply put, he had been taking it slow until now to remain undetected. Though radar and lidar turned mostly useless at this depth, sonar remained very effective. And there were two methods of use for sonar; active and passive.

Active was similar to how lidar and radar worked, and how certain species of bats could 'see' in the dark. By bouncing forward a sound and listening to the returning echo, it was possible to fairly accurately judge what was ahead and how far away. Passive sonar was essentially simply shutting up and listening. Since water allowed sound to propagate faster and at places further, it was a very good way of keeping track of one's surroundings. Additionally, by shutting up one usually could also avoid others who might be listening in at the same time.

Simply put, if he went too fast he would be loud enough that anyone with an 'ear' in the water would be able to hear and locate him, making his means of escape worthless. There was no point in escaping to the water if someone could simply fly over the water and keep tracking him with a sonar until he decided to get out of the water, after all.

But he judged it was time to finally kick it up a notch and get some distance. The sea scooters could handle it, but he still needed to make one more modification.

"—Trace, on"—begin synchronization,

Exhaling, he focused on the right-hand RX-5 until he found the propeller. As he would be setting it to higher rotations and no longer needed to worry about the sound it generated, its shape would have to change accordingly. Propeller design could not achieve everything with a singular design; speed, power and sound. There would always be a cost equal to the benefit each form could offer. Thus, as it was time to switch from silence to celerity, it had to change.

That, and if I simply kick up the rpm in this form the cavitation will shred the propellers in no time. I need something that can handle the rotational speed, he thought as he began to change the shape, number, alignment and angle of the propellers with his magical energy. It was quite easy, something he had originally found surprising. But what was a propeller, but a blade meant to unevenly part gases or liquids? He even had a nice collection for reference in his reality marble, even if he never bothered to bring them out.

As he repeated the exercise with his left-hand RX-5, he exhaled and cut off the connection.

Alright, let's see how well these perform, he thought as he resumed his journey. The sound was surprising and overwhelming for a moment, though not nearly as much as the sudden increase in velocity was; his arms felt like they might pop out of their sockets for a moment as his body resisted the speeds at which the pair of sea scooters was pulling him forward. The inertial navigation system could not keep up as it seemed to cap out at four times his previous velocity, which meant he could only judge his heading for now.

At some point he would have to surface and refer to the stars to confirm his position and heading again. Well, what would be, would be. Making himself as flat as he could he imagine himself momentarily flying through the air before he shook his head. Well, flights of fancy from boredom are good in a sense, it means nothing is—

—CLICK

Emiya paused as suddenly felt like someone had slapped him in the back of his neck. He blinked, realizing with sudden surprise that he had been pinged just now with an active sonar pulse. Which meant that someone had been listening around with passive sonar until now and he had been found. But I made sure that Serrice had no vehicles capable of deep sea exploration! How did...

He focused, throwing aside his jumbled thoughts as he analyzed the situation.

Consulting his inertial navigation system, he proceeded to sink another 200 meters as he continued moving at more than 80 kilometers an hour. Running Structural Analysis, he made certain that the whole of the hardsuit was able to handle the pressure with each descending meter. He had not yet Reinforced it, but at this rate it might just become necessary as he continued descending into the sea.

—CLICK

As another 'slap' hit him, he cursed under his breath. Fine, change of tactics—Trace on, begin projection,

Creating a sound absorbing shield of anechoic tiling—a sound absorbing design that worked by having numerous small voids inside of a polymer material, all designed to absorb sounds of varying frequencies at different depths—he turned off his RX-5 and let himself slowly continue sinking. Taking cover behind his makeshift shield, he continued slowly monitoring his depth and how well his suit was handling it as he waited. As he began to cross the one kilometer depth mark, he decided that he didn't want to take any risks.

While carefully Reinforcing his hardsuit, he began to swim by kicking with his legs while using the massive shield as a rudder of sorts. The hardsuit had attachable flippers at the feet and the sound shield he had made was large enough that it should cover most of the sound his feet made, so as long as they didn't get close enough for a visual he should be safe.

Of course, this was much slower than the use of his RX-5 sea scooters. But such was an underwater game of Marco Polo.

He counted at least four additional pings that would have revealed his position again, before he finally spotted something approaching. First he could sense the approaching mass effect field above him, some four hundred meters to his left and above. As it continued to move around in a spiraling search pattern and come ever closer, Emiya finally could begin to see the thing with his eyes.

It had numerous lights on all sides, which was all he could see at first. But as it went past him, he could finally recognize the vessel for what it was; a salarian starship. The STG made something like that, huh? I really underestimated them. At this rate, it's just a matter of time until they find me.

Well, he wouldn't make it easy for them.

Continuing to slowly sink, he swam onward at a sedate pace. The starship-cum-sub occasionally moved past him still some hundred meters above, as it continued to look for him. It continued pinging around, he realized as he saw a school of dead Thessian fish slowly rising upwards. A powerful enough sonar is lethal to aquatic life. Just how strong a pulse are they using?

Well, sooner or later they would start looking elsewhere. Though how he would keep moving fast enough to escape them was—

Emiya blinked, realizing with growing horror that something was building up at his exact location. Or rather, in a region of the sea that stretched on for hundreds of meters in all directions from his position; the very things he had been seeking to avoid for all the time he had been submerged. I need to get out of here right now!

Kicking aside the shield he turned on the RX-5 and began to kick away at full speed to support the sea scooters' acceleration. It wasn't even in the direction he had been traveling in before, but rather toward the direction that would most quickly get him the hell out of the danger zone. No one sane came to these deep waters and there was a good reason for that; there was an incredible amount of fine eezo particles in the ocean, more than in all the mines the asari had been working for millennia even. Eezo which was highly conductive and receptive to the electrical charges the oceans induced in dynamo-like interaction with Thessia's magnetic fields.

Simply put, the various seas could use biotics on a scale that boggled the mortal mind. Mother nature was top Matriarch, even—or rather, especially—on Thessia.

The salarian starship instantly noticed him as he began to hastily move away from where he could feel the incoming mass effect field building up. It was like the slow rolling pressure of an incoming typhoon against his sense of the world; a humongous and swirling thing, almost alive in its own right as it sought to manifest itself in the world as a massive storm. The salarians turned around and began to make chase and were quickly beginning to catch up. But he paid no mind to that, counting the seconds as he could feel the build up of the truly massive charge that was being created by the Serrinan sea itself feeding into a mass effect field of a size beyond anything short of the Mass Relays behind him.

It was like the ride up towards the highest peak of a roller coaster, only rather than an exhilarating ride down all that would await him would be a biotic storm like nothing he had ever experienced or particularly wished to experience.

Emiya kicked forward for his life as he realized what was forming behind him. A 'whirlpool'; a massive phenomena where water would begin to be sucked as a mass effect field formed below the surface, that began to make the water's mass increase causing it to fall towards the bottom and thus pull more water from above to fill for what was being pushed downwards. At least it did not seem to exceed the Voaszia Critical Threshold, meaning it would be a relatively minor whirlpool, as far as such events could be called minor. But if he was caught in it, it would drag him to the bottom of the sea in as if he had been flushed down a drain.

An experience he had no intention of going through.

He was already a hundred meters beyond the outer edge of the field itself, but he knew that wouldn't be enough since it would begin guzzling water soon to fill in for all the water it would be spouting down. Once it had enough to form a self-feeding loop he knew he would be safe, but for that he still needed to be at least over a kilometer away.

The further, the better.

He swam at full force, pushing the RX-5 to their utmost limit as he accelerated beyond anything the machines had been rated for, even after he had tinkered with them. IF he had to keep this up for much longer they would overheat and begin melting down, surely.

—CLICK

Behind him the salarian starship was catching up to him, but it was obvious they had not realized what was going on yet. If they had, they would not bother with trying to find him with their sonar but rather would be using that prodigious speed they had displayed before when they were looking for him to get the hell away from the whirlpool.

Shit, it's already started sucking in water! Emiya pushed magical energy into his body, Reinforcing it even beyond its normal limits as he tried to swim away. It wasn't enough to continue advancing at the speed he had before, but for the time being it seemed to be enough to keep away from the massive mass effect field behind him, his velocity enough to keep from being dragged in.

The salarians seemed to finally realize something was going on, as suddenly they were slowing down despite their best attempts at catch up to him. They were still above him, behind only some hundred and twenty meters. But it was close enough to the edge of the black hole-like whirlpool to affect them much more than him. He was near the half-way point of the whirlpool, where it would be pushing water downwards, where as the salarian starship-cum-sub was much nearer to the top of the whirlpool where it was sucking in huge amounts of water.

That height difference was more than enough to negate all of the massive engine output of the starship and slowly start dragging them in. The RX-5 were running at full blast, the shaking of the propellers enough to make his teeth rattle as he continued to kick forward at all his might to keep from being pulled backwards. Just a little bit more... Just a little bit more!

Suddenly the current pulling him backwards eased and he began to shoot forward at nearly full speed again. The whirlpool had formed underwater, but as it reached the surface of the water and managed to bring it down, it would stop pulling in adjacent water directly as it began to spin instead and pull the water in at an angle, much like an emptying drain or sink. With that, he was free from the majority of the whirlpool's pull.

He realized only a second later that the salarians had not been so lucky; they had been taken in by the whirlpool and suddenly become airborne as a deep chasm had been pulled down into the Serrinan sea with them inside of the emptied cone. It was a massive hole into the ocean, swirling waters emptying out through like a hole in the bottom of a sink.

Only the bottom of the whirlpool was some kilometer from the surface of the water. And this isn't even a big one, he realized with some latent horror as he tried to re-adjust his heading. The mark of a large whirlpool was that it also included a warp field from having surpassed the Voaszia Critical Threshold. After that, it would be like a snowball rolling down hill, only growing more and more potent as it fed off of its own movement.

Had that been the case, he doubted he would have been able to get away at all.

Emiya slowed down as he realized the salarians did not have enough time to recover. It's a starship, can't they fly away?

He could sense as the vessel was caught by the whirlpool and pulled down into the depths. Shaking his head and figuring he had gotten lucky, he turned to leave. He would have to surface to check the stars to adjust his heading once he got far enough away from the whirlpool for it to be safe, which would leave him at risk of being found. Though it was probably too dark for satellites or orbital surveillance to find him, on a relatively still sea radar and lidar could be used to detect anything above the surface of the water. He would have to find a spot with high enough waves that he would not be discovered.

It was only as he began to pick up speed that he noticed something.

The mass effect field disappeared? He blinked, slowing down with a mental command to the RX-5s. Peering into the darkness, as if effort and frowning could pierce the veil of absolute black before him, he tried to sense for the starship's eezo core. It was nowhere to be found. That could only mean something had happened; no one would willing turn off their engines at the bottom of the sea, right?

How deep were they pushed? Did they hit bottom? Is their hull strong enough to even withstand that kind of pressure? He hesitated despite himself. He could almost imagine what would happen to a starship once it was pulled too deep. Depending on how strongly the ship was built without the support of mass effect fields, they might still well be alive down there. Or it might have been instantly crushed. Perhaps the hull was merely leaking massively at the moment and they still survived. Or maybe they were simply re-booting the engines and were completely fine. It wasn't like he had time to be leisurely, but at the same time...

"It's not like I can just abandon them, either."

Emiya exhaled, fogging up the helmet's insides as he sensed the truly massive whirlpool in the distance. It was like an underwater tornado, pulling everything down and slamming it into the ocean floor once it was through with it. A monster that could not be opposed, only moved around and avoided.

Sighing, he began to approach it again as he continued to go even deeper. The lower he was in comparison to the center of the mass effect field that was generating the whirlpool the safer he would be, as it was only pulling in water from above itself.

Soon enough he could see it. It was a shining blue spire that seemed to reach out of the dark depths, connecting seafloor and surface in a pillar of light. The flaring blue light of the dark energy emissions were staggering in their beauty, sparkling and shifting with otherworldly undulations that were almost hypnotizing. He had to stop and admire the thing for a moment, though soon enough his awe was replaced with a healthy concern and respect for the thing as he moved to avoid it. Hardsuit or not, his mortal body would be cracked open and crushed in an instant if he was pulled into that whirlpool.

Shaking his head he began to descend towards the bottom, letting the sea scooters pull him deeper and deeper. If the starship-cum-sub had been pushed down, then it couldn't be too far from the bottom of the whirlpool he reasoned, the increased mass would have surely made it sink to the bottom of the sea. He could only look around blindly, groping in the dark as without the ability to sense its mass effect field, he was effectively completely blind here.

He turned on the headlights on his helmet, testing that it worked and how far it was able to light his surroundings. Powerful and illuminating, they provided some 3000 lumens of light at the cost of tripling his power consumption. Satisfied that the light worked and that he couldn't see a damn thing anyhow, he turned it off again.

The sea scooters continued pulling him down, but after a moment he noticed something was wrong.

Emiya stopped, realizing that the RX-5 were beginning to struggle with the depth. Reversing his heading he pulled up some fifty meters as he examined the two sea scooters for damage. There was a crack along the inside of the frame, where the swooping lines of the aesthetic design created a structural weak-point for compression. They're fine, but the frame can't handle the pressure at these depths, huh.

He hoped that the starship was made more robustly than the RX-5, since he wasn't even anywhere near the bottom yet. Checking the measurements he noted he was already at some two kilometers below the surface, yet the bottom was nowhere to be seen. ...Weren't the military submarines of my time rated for half a kilometer usually?

The designs of a starship that sought to escape the trappings of gravity and a submarine that sought to withstand the massive pressure of the underwater had two utterly opposed design philosophies on paper. How could something that was usually made to be as light as possible possibly be sturdy enough to handle these depths?

Should I give up? They're probably dead already... Shaking his head, he removed the two sea scooters from his arm and tied them together with a projected rope. Noting that he probably wouldn't find them if he simply let go, he also projected Kanshou and attached it to the rope's end. With that, he turned on the internal ballast tanks. They filled with a lighter-than-water gas as a pair of balloons popped out of their frames. Letting go, he watched as the sea scooters and sword vanished upwards, pulled upwards as their density was overwhelmingly lesser than that of the surrounding water. Only a second later did he wonder whether the whirlpool might pull them in and destroy them anyhow, as the whirlpool widened near the top.

Sighing and deciding that what was done was done, he turned around and began to look downwards again. Deciding that the easiest way to sink was to simply sink, he projected one of the great 10 meter long bronze swords from Norway and grabbed the hilt with his arms as he set to stand on the crossguard.

The massive blade began to sink rapidly, parting water with the point of the blade as he continued to pick up speed. Exhaling, he closed his eyes and focused.

'—Trace, on'—begin synchronization,

Given that the sea scooters couldn't handle the pressure at these depths it was obvious that he should be worried about himself as well. The mental image of being crushed like a ripe tomato by a massive hand ran through his mind's eye unbidden, though he knew that he could probably survive even without his hardsuit for a few minutes.

Pushing his magical energy with care outwards, he took the utmost care to Reinforce the hardsuit in every manner he possibly could. From the outer layers to the inner lining, the seals and joints, the oxygen supply system and the metallic wireframe that resisted the pressure of all the surrounding water and kept the internal pressure normalized. This wasn't the place for a quick hack-job; this was the time and place if there ever was one to take all the time in the world to make sure his work was flawless.

With a slow, almost shuddering exhale he faced the abyss below him. He chuckled then, realizing that the root for the word 'abyss' stemmed from the Greek word for 'bottomless' with a sudden flash of recollection. And it was also the word used on Earth to describe the ocean four kilometers below the surface; abyssopelagic layer. I hope I won't have to go that damn deep.

Then again, given how quickly he was sinking on top of his huge bronze sword, he might well have already reached such depths minutes ago. For now, his hardsuit was holding and he had enough air to keep breathing for another six hours.

Something flashed in the distance, a dancing pinprick of light that disappeared as soon as he spotted it.

Emiya blinked, shaking his head as he wished he was able to rub his eyes for a moment despite the helmet. Frowning, he peered into the depths below. He wasn't certain if he had seen some deep sea creatures that created light to lure in prey, or if he had seen some flare of dark energy created by eezo and oceanic induction or if he was simply beginning to see hallucinations due to some side-effect of going so deep. He performed a set of slow breathing as he continued to sink, ignoring the occasional flash of ghostly lights in the corners of his vision.

"Just prisoner's cinema," he said with a scoff. "Nothing more."

He turned around suddenly, blinking as he felt like he had suddenly heard someone whispering behind him. Frowning as he reached up, he blinked as he wondered at the resurrected sensation of someone touching his cheek.

It's nothing, he thought as he cycled his magical energy and focused on what was below him. Turning on his headlight he peered down, but as he saw nothing he turned it back off to conserve his power. A second later he thought he might have seen something large swimming above him as he continued to sink in the darkness. ...Was that just some huge sea creature? No, I must have imagined it. Nothing that big could survive this deep down.

He waited, realizing that he was nervously tapping his fingers as he continued sinking. Pointedly forcing himself to stop, he exhaled. Turning on the light again, he blinked as he realized something was rapidly coming up below him. It was the bottom of the sea. Checking his suit with Structural Analysis, he was satisfied that it was still holding up to the pressure.

Surprisingly, it wasn't difficult at all to move either. He would have expected the pressure to have made it more difficult to move at the bottom of the sea, but apparently it wasn't. Jumping off the sword before it sunk into the bottom of the sea halfway the length of the blade, he looked around as he slowly sank next to it.

He landed beside it with some ease, looking around with the headlight in all directions. There didn't seem to be much of anything this deep down, he noted as he began to move around.

There was just the white, featureless bottom of the ocean floor that stretched as far as his light could reach, along with the small particles of something floating in the water as his movements kicked up things from the bottom.

Taking the rough direction he knew to be the rough direction of the whirlpool's center above, he started looking around. Strangely enough, it didn't feel like he was swimming at the bottom of the sea despite everything. The fact that he was swimming aside, it felt like he was simply moving along on a dark winter night, given how white and smooth the ground beneath him looked and given how little beyond the immediate range of his light he could see.

More than anything, it simply felt timeless down here.

In the dark abyss of the seafloor, nothing was moving beyond the seafloor he was kicking up with his passing. The only thing he found of note was the sensation of something in the distance, just beyond his range of detection. It's not a mass effect field, but...

Before he could focus on it, it seemed to disappear. This happened several times, even as he continued looking around with slow and methodical care. Until finally...

Emiya paused as he heard a sudden sound. Tilting his head, he frowned. It sounded like someone was hitting a rock; a high pitched click like two stones being banged together. The kind of sound that would travel effectively through water due to its high pitch, echoing in your bones as it passed by. That's not sonar... Can't be good, he thought as he picked up his pace and tried to find the source.

Swimming faster and slowly finding the source of the strange sound, he found the salarian starship. He halted, looking around with the headlight as he beheld the starship stuck in the bottom of the sea. It looked to be in relatively good condition, even if parts of the ship seemed to be leaking, judging by the bubbles of air escaping slowly through dozens of small cracks. What's making that sound...?

Moving around he came to a complete halt as he beheld a lobster-like creature behind the sunken vessel. It was standing on the bottom of the sea, facing the ship by the looks of it and prodding at the hull with its limbs. Even under the direct light, it appeared a white-ish hue that made it difficult to perceive against the bottom of the ocean floor. Twice his height and six times his length, it was a strange creature, especially given where he was. Something that large shouldn't...

Emiya blinked as he realized what was making the sound; it had a pair of club-like appendages against its torso that it snapped forward with monstrous velocity, as it tried to crack open the salarian starship's hull.

"Oh, wonderful. A car-sized mantis shrimp," he noted with a dry tone.

The creature hadn't reacted to the light at all yet, but the moment he spoke it turned towards him, small beady eyes turning in his general direction. Does it see on some other wavelength, or is it some other kind of sensory organ?

Looking up at him swimming above it, it immediately backed away from the starship and raised four of its frontal limbs to threateningly wave at him. There was a series of clicking sounds, as if it was trying to warn him off.

"Sorry, but I can't let you have these guys," he said as he reached for the two i'usushij at his back, sinking down to be level with the creature on the sea floor.

Fighting underwater, huh. Might have to project a trident or harpoon. Slashes and cuts just don't work as well, he thought as he kicked off the sea floor and swimming backwards a pace as the creature moved forward, trying to threaten him. It might also be necessary to project weights onto my ankles to help keep me grounded...

The sea creature clicked at him, its forelimbs twitching in synchronization with the sounds. He looked at the various limbs, noting and trying to figure out what to expect from the thing. It didn't seem willing to back away, some territorial instinct or underlying aggression making it face him head on. At this angle as it was 'standing upright', this creature could strike at him with three pairs of limbs, he judged. The top-most pair looked like some forms of spears or harpoons, making him think they would likely be used for piercing attacks. The under-most pair were the club-like arms that were launched off of the creature's belly, much like a mantis shrimp's from Earth.

It was the middle pair of arms that worried him, as they did not seem to have any obvious purpose. No claws or appendages that could be used to manipulate objects, nor did they appear to be feelers of any kind. The whole creature seemed impossible; it was too large for one. In the ocean at these depths, all food would be coming from above and falling down. That meant that nutrition was scarce, as every other thing above this creature would have chance to eat first. Moreover, how could it support such a large frame? And for another, animals usually only had one means of fighting, sometimes two. What possible advantage could there be to having multiple limbs capable of harming another creature, when the complexity or the organism increased manyfold with each additional unique limb.

It almost struck him as intentional, somehow. As if the creature had been made to have multiple means of fighting as redundancies.

Emiya shook his head as he moved a little bit closer, trying to make the creature back away.

However it reacted to the show of hostility instantly by shooting forward one of its spear-arms. Like a bolt of lightning from the clear sky, it almost ran him through in that instant. The water made it difficult to parry and he more swayed out of the way using the resistance his swords offered to the water than anything else as he avoided the attack.

Yeah, as expected this is a bit difficult. Before he could recover, the second spear-limb shot forward.

But this time he was prepared; his right-hand blade shot forward to bat aside the limb as the left-hand blade came in a reverse grip to grab onto it from the other side, locking the limb between the two blades. Pushing with his right hand as he pulled with the left sharply, he felt something give way as he tore free the entire limb from the creature while swimming backwards out of its range again. How hard is this thing's shell? No, better off with blunt force than trying to pierce through it, huh.

It clicked madly, thrashing with its legs as it charged after him. Damn invertebrates; not enough sense to know when to back off, Emiya chided as he reacted. The club-arm came smashing in at him from below and as he blocked it, the impact felt like a shotgun slug against his arm.

Just as he moved to strike at the club-arm's first joint, he saw out of the corner of his eye as the middle arms shot forward. Pulling back, he set up to guard against an attack. But unexpectedly he was suddenly pulled down and hit the sea floor with an impact, as if he had fallen from a great height, his flippered boots sinking into the soil without much resistance. It was as if his weight had suddenly tripled.

Biotics?!

The spear-arm came for him again and Emiya roared inside of his helmet, cycling magical energy as he jumped aside while cutting with the i'usushij at the spear-arm's second joint in passing. The tip of the creature's remaining spearing limb pushed into the ground at the same instant as his blunt blade smashed into the joint and broke something on impact.

Kicking around, Emiya tried to avoid the club-arm coming for him again, but stuck in the water as he was with little purchase he could only block it head on. Taking the impact he could feel the blade bending a little under the impact as he was pushed back. Turning around in the water he kicked off and swam a dozen meters away before looking back.

Getting himself back under control, he looked at the creature as it continued to rush at him, following him intently. Sheesh, this thing just doesn't give up. Fine, I'll settle it with one blow.

Inhaling, he looked at the thing as it moved to rush in at him again. He sank to the sea floor again to be level with it, his boots hitting the soil again as he stood straight.

The creature made a clicking racket as it reached him, moving immediately to attack.

The club smashed forward from below, and he jumped off the bottom of the seafloor to avoid it; the range of motion unable to go above parallel with the seafloor due to the creature's carapace and range of motion. The spear-arm tried to shoot out at him, but the shattered joint made it only wiggle uselessly as Emiya went over the creature's head, kicking his feet in unison as he pushed forward and over the creature's head in a slow front flip. It tried to move in time, but it was too late as he was upside-down behind its head, lashing out with both swords in unison and drawing an X as he struck out.

With nothing to take leverage against, swords were very difficult to use effectively when submerged in water. If you tried to perform a regular overhead strike, the motion of striking down would have such resistance from the water that your feet were likely to come off the ground. The motion would in fact push you back so much that most of the strike would go to waste. To counter that he simply used a breaststroke-like motion to cut outwards with the i'usushij, using the two opposite motions to draw leverage from and pull himself forward at the same time as he struck. The crack of the blunt blades against the creature's carapace echoed through the water, much like its club strikes had echoed from hitting against the starship's hull earlier.

The creature wobbled for a second as it tried to move, before it fell over like a puppet with its strings cut as Emiya completed his underwater front-flip, landing on the carapace covering it's tail-end. That about does it.

To survive in these depths, an animal had to be extremely densely built, without anything like compressible lungs in their body. That meant that the shockwave from a strong blunt impact would travel inside of the creature extremely well, causing massive damage to its internal organs in the process. Just like how this creature bludgeoned its prey to death, so too had it been killed by sheer brute force shaking its insides apart.

Turning around the water, Emiya exhaled slowly as he moved to put back the two blades onto his back. Where the hell did this thing even come from?

Looking around, he couldn't find anything it could have possibly fed on anywhere around here. Creatures of this size would need a lot of sustenance to keep going, much less grow to the size it had. It couldn't be a natural creature of this ecology; herbivores of this size had to constantly eat while carnivores needed to feast on herbivores to survive. It must have sustained itself on some completely different method. Hell, it could have been some ancient mythic beast of asari past for all he knew. Swimming down, he moved to take a closer look at the creature.

Giving it a solid hit on the head again to make sure it was really dead, he lifted it over and inspected its carapace more closely. It had sixteen limbs all in all, with the six frontal limbs he had noted earlier included. Though the top-most, spearing limbs were completely broken as a result of the earlier fight.

Emiya blinked, turning his head around and peering into the dark abyss of the ocean around him. The headlight did not penetrate far, the diffusion of the water meaning he could barely see for fifty meters in the depths. He hoped his light wouldn't bring in any more of these creatures or its like. No, it seemed blind to the light. Sound will probably attract them more effectively.

Then there was the matter of the strange undulations he could sense in the deep, around him near and far. Though so diffuse that he could not quite identify what they were as they quickly disappeared, they were undoubtedly still there. It felt like mass effect fields, but at the same time they didn't. It was like the feeling one got when one walked near a massive electrical conductor; the hairs on one's body standing up, even as it was impossible to quite sense what was going on directly. There was something going on out there, but he didn't have the time to go exploring right then and there.

Shaking his head, he ignored it and turned to the starship-cum-sunken-oversized-paperweight.

Swimming over to it, he placed a hand against the hull and ran it over the material. He couldn't quite feel anything through the hardsuit, but the material seemed like nothing he had ever seen before. Then again, with expensive mass effect field generators it was possible to compress and create very strong materials that he wouldn't have ever heard of, so it hardly surprised him.

Pushing forward with his magical energy, he used Structural Analysis as he closed his eyes.

Most of the internal space is flooding into, but it's pretty slow. The engines are all dead, but it seems like there are survivors. They must be using hardsuits for life support. As they've locked themselves in the engine room. Rooting through the starship, he moved along the outside of the ship. Hmm, the floating emergency beacon is a wreck and can't be let out so they can't even call for help. Well, for now, I'll seal up the leaks with Reinforcement...

With all the water above and around them, no radio- or tightbeam could possibly penetrate with a call for help to the surface. The salarians inside must have realized this, as they seemed to have resolved for death already. Not a one among them was moving around much or trying anything, simply sitting in the sealed up inner-most compartments of the engine room.

It seemed like they had tried to fix the engines and create a mass effect field, but had realized it was too far gone to be repaired and had given up already. I should take a closer look first.

He stepped out of his body, looking around with caution as he tried to see if the conditions here at the bottom of the sea would affect him. Good, nothing so far. Need to put my body somewhere safe where it won't drift off.

Putting himself against the starship's hull on the seafloor, he phased through the side and entered it.

It was partially filled with water from the leaks he had closed and completely dark. Looking around, he noted that it was an access way between the bridge and ladders to the other layers. Walking around, he noted that nearly all of the electronic equipment was completely ruined, with cracked and shattered equipment lying on the floor or floating on the water everywhere he went. Counting as he went, he found four dead salarians who had been left to float in the water. Shattered bones and blunt trauma seemed to be the common factor between them.

There was a small cargo hold, too. It was more of a airlock with various forms of underwater equipment like diving suits and drones, that could probably be fielded while the starship was submerged. The external airlock had broken, thus it was entirely filled with water. He guessed much of the equipment wouldn't be rated for depths such as these and would probably be broken already.

He found the rest of the salarian crew huddled in the engine room. It was a tight fit but as the room had the strongest walls and doors, it remained the only one that had not been even partially submerged. It looked like most of them had injuries and broken limbs of some form, but none of them seemed to be in a critical condition. They were quite good at first aid, he noted. Additionally, several of the panels and walls had been opened up to give them access to the systems and wires. They must have tried to get something working but have given up.

Only one salarian was still working on something, but it was obvious he was growing distressed by his lack of progress already.

Stepping back outside the starship, Emiya returned to his body. Exhaling, he sat up and turned around to run a hand over the hull of the starship. Technically it was his fault they were here, at the bottom of the sea. They had come chasing after him and in that pursuit had been put into danger. But it wasn't that. He wasn't going to save them out of some sense of guilt; he would have come down here even if they were completely unrelated.

He realized he was smiling as he stood up. Shaking his head he wiped the expression off of his face.

"Time to play hero."

---

;

---

Miranda sighed as she walked out from the meeting, back into the guest suites where Rasa and Kai Leng were waiting for her.

"Well?" She asked as she crossed her arms. "Have you found him?"

Rasa looked up and after a second shook her head.

"I gotta say I like the man already," Kai Leng said with a smirk as he lowered his legs from the table and sat up straight. Nodding towards Rasa, he continued speaking. "She got into a few lines and we've been keeping tabs. Our man is giving them the slip at every opportunity."

Miranda said nothing, simply nodding once as she moved to sit down to think about what she had discussed with the Matriarch in whose abode they currently were.

Simply put, the asari wanted more power.

Which given how the Thessia direct e-democracy worked was much more difficult to achieve than simply stating it. She had realized quickly enough that she was being tested, when she noticed that the Matriarch was not simply telling her what to do.

Human-asari relations were generally very simple and to the point, but here it seemed like Trellani wished to maintain a sense of asari decorum. Glancing at Kai Leng and Rasa, she understood why she had been called in for this assignment the way she had. Neither of those two would stand for being played around with the way Trellani was.

But it wasn't like Miranda didn't understand the underlying message.

She had designs into which Cerberus fit in well and neatly, Cerberus had design into which she fit in neatly and well. Quid pro quo, 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine'. But there was a catch. The kind of help the Matriarch needed was sensitive and delicate in nature.

'If you cannot decipher the truth of my words then how could I possibly rely on you?' the message seemed to be.

And it made sense.

They had been brought in under careful watch to make sure no one had seen them, meaning that Matriarch Trellani still wished to keep her alliance secret. Given how the Thessian democracy prided itself on its transparency, would she really wish to bring in a wild band of humans to burn half a city down?

Miranda shook her head, inhaling as she focused on what she had been told.

The asari all had equal power in their democratic governments. In theory anyhow. In practice several among them had a de facto-authority that far exceeded that which was writ in law. Simply put, a single Matriarch's words could sway the opinions of swathes of younger asari. There need not even be a good argument behind such words, as the cult of personality that many of the eldest had accrued regularly proved far more powerful than logic or reason ever could.

Perhaps the reason why individual asari are so easily swayed to causes is due to this eschewing of de jure-authority. In their direct democracy they do not vote upon policy makers or who should be in charge. Rather the over presence of de facto-authority figures has made it so that as a society they are prone to following charismatic individuals on a cause. It would explain how the Illusive Man managed to acquire Matriarch Trellani's support in the first place, Miranda mused.

Of course for every Matriarch who could change the course of history by their lonesome with a carefully phrased opinion, there existed thousands of 'lesser' Matriarchs.

Those who had not managed to excel in anything of note, but were still considered authorities in their own de facto-right. For the asari age meant wisdom and experience. When all other things were stripped away, age was what mattered most. In nearly every election and matter of vote, if one wished to predict the outcome one only needed to look at one number to make exceedingly accurate predictions regarding the future outcome.

Sum total of added lifespans on either side.

On the two sides where asari argued either for or against a case, the side which possessed a greater collective age would nearly always stand victorious.

Trellani may be a Matriarch, but she was relatively young still. A mere 780 year old Matriarch had relatively little power among her peers. A fact that she had noticed within decades but had found little recourse for. She had been someone who had excelled always, from babe to Matron she had always been the best as quickly as she could.

But in political discourse, none of her efforts seemed to matter. Simply, because she was not the oldest to speak.

Miranda shook her head. In theory the system seemed fair enough; all had an equal amount of time, given no outstanding health issues or other life-threatening crises. Being the oldest asari Matriarch was not a stable position, given that even among their long-lived species the generation gap was not that substantial.

What Trellani asked for was simple enough, though it required the greatest of caution from her nonetheless. It was the reason the request had been made in person with no electronic devices anywhere near them. Why such roundabout and probing words had been used to make the whole of the matter understood.

She's telling us to 'clear the way' ahead of her. To make some space by making older Matriarchs either disappear or become so disgraced as to no longer matter. It wasn't even that difficult a matter, given Cerberus' organizational specialization and information network.

She looked at Kai Leng who she knew had been eyeing the various asari around them for the whole day with a glint in his eyes. Some of them had taken it as interest or curiosity, but she knew he was eyeing them up as enemies more than anything. To that man, there lay nothing of worth beyond humanity.

"What?" Kai Leng asked, narrowing his eyes at her as he noticed she had been staring at him.

Miranda sighed again. I suppose that makes him perfect for that job, then.

---

;

---

Alright, this should work, Emiya thought as he eyed his work.

The corpse of the sea creature had been hauled up on top of the starship and was being held in place by the two i'usushij that had been stabbed through its corpse into hull. Rather than piercing through the starship, it was more like the blades had been welded into the ship, a feat accomplished through his Reinforcement once he realized it was necessary to anchor the beast to the ship. He had run some numbers in his mind and had noted that the starship-cum-sub was actually rather small all things considered. Perhaps it was expensive to create such dual-purpose vessels, but the ship was essentially a small destroyer.

Which was a good thing, considering he would have to lift the whole thing up from the bottom of the sea to save the salarians.

He had gone through several ideas, before settling on this one. He had thought about something like projecting numerous ping pong balls inside of the starship, but given that it hadn't been able to float even without the hull breaches, he didn't think it would work. The ratio of airspace to weight was simply too skewed, it seemed. Additionally, he would have to leave behind thousands of ping pong balls which would raise questions in the salarians and drain him considerably of his magical energy. Alternatively, he thought he could use an ice-sword to freeze the water around the salarian starship until it began to rise up towards the surface. But that had the similar problems as the first plan in terms of how many questions it would raise. Additionally, there was no way to make sure that the ice did not crush the ship or freeze the salarians inside too.

And it wasn't like he could simply pick up the ship and swim to the surface either. He was strong, but he wasn't that strong.

He had considered entering the ship to fix it so that it could rise up under its own power, but on closer inspection it seemed like it would take hours or even days to fix all of the damage inside and no doubt the air supply would run out in that time.

Finally he had settled on using eezo somehow. If it could bring something down, it could lift it back up. Probably.

Just as whirlpools and waterspouts could pull down or push up water, by the laws of buoyancy as long as the mass per volume was less than that of water, then it ought to rise to the water's surface. Emiya wasn't really sure what to think of the fact that he was relying on properties that Archimedes had extrapolated in his plan, but he was fairly sure the man himself wouldn't have cared one whit for the salarians' plight.

You needed two things to create mass effect fields; eezo and an electrical current. Both of which he had access to, in fact.

The problem was trying to figure out how to get the eezo in the water to work for him. This deep down, the concentration of eezo and salinity were very high, but that did not mean that he could simply create mass effect fields out of nothing. If you wanted a useful mass effect field, you needed eezo that was aligned so that it would create a specific effect. Something which was in short order in the ocean, he had noted.

The fine eezo particles in the ocean were all in disarray, meaning that simply running a current through the eezo would not necessarily contribute in any meaningful fashion.

So he had to find a deposit of already aligned eezo to use. The ship's core was one, but cracking that open would be a little bit difficult. In the silt and soil of the seafloor, there was doubtless a great deal of eezo to use as well, but the same chaotic alignment was still a problem. With enough time and electricity, he could probably get it sorted out.

But he had neither in excess currently. He finally almost gave up and decided to simply project some and leave it at that, even if it would be exhausting and force him to leave behind an obvious and questionable source of eezo to keep the starship afloat until someone could come and rescue the salarians, something he had wanted to avoid. But he had realized that there was another source of eezo he could use, one that wouldn't draw as much attention to him.

The mantis shrimp-like sea creature had used biotics, meaning it must have considerable eezo deposits stored in its body that were aligned enough to be used effectively. He could not even imagine how the creature must have metabolized and ordered the eezo from its surroundings, given that the fine particles were so small that it was almost impossible to see them with the naked eye.

But it had, somehow.

Analyzing the creature more closely, he had figured out how he could use it. Starting from its middle pair of front arms, running all the way back along its carapace, lay nearly perfectly aligned eezo particles that created a functional eezo circuit. Meaning that as long as he could supply electrical current, he could use the carcass as an eezo core.

So, needing electricity he had pondered taking his hardsuit's power source. But that seemed like a terrible idea, given that he needed it to breathe. He couldn't generate any usable current through any other means, so he decided to see if he could use something on the ship instead. He had broken through the airlock into the water-filled cargo hold of the starship and looked around until he found something he could use. Most of the gear had been crushed by water pressure already, but there were several salarian hardsuits similar to his that could mostly withstand the water pressure.

Taking two dozen of the suits' power sources, he had put them in serial connection electrically and hooked them up to the two hands of the creature. It had been able to make him heavier during the fight, thus it only made sense that it should also be able to make the starship lighter as long as he reversed the current. He had some trouble with the seawater short-circuiting the eezo circuit at first, but with some creative Reinforcement he was able to sufficiently insulate the whole thing to make it work. He had to test around a little bit to figure out which way was the positive direction, but quickly enough he had figured it all out.

"Nothing to it but to turn it on."

Looking around, he nodded after making sure that he hadn't forgotten onto the hilt of one of his swords that was stuck to the hull, he inhaled slowly. Then, he flipped the power-switch on.

Nothing happened.

"...What?"

Emiya frowned, turning it off and on again. The circuit works just fine, but it's not raising the ship. With all these batteries in series and the amount of eezo in the creature, it should be more than enough. If a human being can lift a skycar with just the eezo in their body and the use of an amp, then this should be enough to lift the ship...

Which meant he was forgetting something. He turned off the switch and frowned as he tried to analyze the situation. This really wasn't his area of expertise, thus it could not be helped if problems such as this arose occasionally. The important thing was to not get too distracted by his attempt not working and to instead work out a solution that would work. Swimming off the top of the starship, he went around and circled the bottom where it was in contact with the ground. It did not appear as if the ship was stuck anywhere, nor that the bottom was acting like mud. The fine-grained sediment seemed loose enough that simply grabbing a handful would be enough to—Hmm?

He blinked, realizing that his hand at the bottom of the ocean floor seemed to almost be stuck. He hadn't actually touched the seafloor until now as he had been swimming around instead. It was like something was sucking him in, or pressing him down.

"Something about the difference in matter? Water pressing down on something that's in contact with another matter, like some sort of surface tension...?" He pondered out aloud, not quite certain but starting to figure it out. It was like how carrying something underwater was easier than actually pulling them out of the water; a phenomena he had experienced first-hand while jumping into waters to save someone who was drowning. So, the eezo circuit might be enough to actually lift the ship but due to this 'surface tension' it's got an initial resistance...

But what could he do? If he tried to lift the ship by force he would probably just end up pushing himself down into the seafloor sediment up to his hip—superhuman strength did not quite matter when he couldn't quite leverage it against anything. It was the same problem as with the sea creature and trying to use his swords. Perhaps he could project some swords and put them flat against the ground to act like strange snow-shoes? No, that's probably not going to work either.

He closed his eyes and crossed his arms, inhaling as he thought. Think of it like a physics problem; the mass of the water above must be pressing down directly onto the ship. I need to get it clear the ship off of the seafloor for buoyancy to kick in—probably.

Opening his eyes he turned to look at the ship. It was quite dissimilar to the angular human starships and the sleek asari vessels he had seen, nor did it look like any submarine despite ostensibly having been designed for underwater use in mind. Perhaps it was the result of salarian aesthetics, but the ship almost looked like it could fly aerodynamically. With hovercraft technology it was not quite as important to be able to fly through aerodynamic design-supplied lift, but perhaps with the focus on submerged operations that had been a concern. Noting the mobile fins on the starship, he nodded. I shouldn't try to life it up and fight against the water pressing down directly, instead angle the fins and push it forward so it rises by itself against the water.

Nodding, he swam around the ship and forcefully turned all the fins upward and locked them into place. Checking that everything was in place he got back up and turned on the eezo circuit and the mass effect field expanded around the salarian vessel. Swimming back down and behind the ship to where he could push it forward most easily, he exhaled.

"The things I do..."

Pressing his hands against the hull he began to swim forward. He felt somewhat ridiculous as he kicked with his feet, moving water with every motion. It was like trying to push a car with just one hand. Or not quite, he realized. With the mass effect field at work, it was more like he was trying to push an empty cardboard box that had a car atop of it, pushing it down against the ground. It wasn't that he was trying to move the car's mass, but rather something that was being pushed down against the ground by the car's mass. It moved. Just a tiny bit at first, but as the initial resistance was overcome it became easier to move.

Slowly, it picked up speed. Little more than an acceleration of a fraction of an inch per second squared, but it was still there.

He inhaled with measured breath, noting that the hull was holding still despite the relatively small area he was pushing against. Given how small his hands were, him pushing through it rather than pushing it forward was a very real concern. But the mass effect field was enough; the force necessary to move the ship through the water in its lightened state was less than it took to push a hand through the hull. Still, this would not be enough. He would plateau in speed before the vessel would begin to rise up, even with his superhuman strength.

If I just need it off the ground and I have forward momentum, then maybe a ramp of some kind? He exhaled, focusing ahead of the starship as it slowly moved. Low friction surface, long blade with a distal taper that allows it to work as a ramp. Should be possible.

"—Trace, on"—begin projection,

It was something that had never existed before; something he had simply created for this moment using schematics and materials in his mental landscape. A teflon-coated blade a bit more than the length of the starship with a very distinct distal taper that went from a needle tip to a half a meter by the crossguard. The coating would help get the ship even with the ramp resisting its advance forward. He would try to glide it off and get the whole starship off the ground that way and hopefully it would be enough.

The nose of the ship reached the tip of the giant sword-ramp ahead and slid onto it with ease as his acceleration suddenly rose and continued rising. The teflon-coating is working, good. Kicking into overdrive he began to swim at all of his strength as he pushed forward the salarian ship. As the ship was completely over the sword he could feel how the angle had changed; the nose of the starship was pointing up now. If he had enough speed he could launch off the sword and get wholly clear of the ground for long enough that buoyancy would kick in.

The front of the ship was now clearing the end of the blade and coming upwards with nothing but water beneath it as he continued to swim. Sweat was pouring down his brow as he could feel his legs and arms burning with the effort. But as half of the starship was over the end of the ramp he realized he hadn't had enough speed; the starship was beginning to tilt and fall back downward. It was slow, but he could feel how the nose was dipping and the rear where he was pushing was starting to rise up. Like a seesaw, the starship was starting to kip over the highest point of the ramp. Even if I keep pushing forward the ship will just hit the seafloor again!

But Emiya had one more ace in his sleeve, however. As the ship was kipping over on top of the sword, now only a smallest bit of the bottom was not supported by the water. He could feel it; as more and more of the ships bottom was getting clear off the sword and water hit the hull, it felt like the ship was becoming lighter. It wasn't, but with the water below pushing upwards it was starting to balance out the weight of the water above pushing down. If he could get the whole ship surrounded by water so that no part was touching the bottom, he knew that it would start to rise.

Thus—dismissing projection, halting all processes,

Instantly the teflon-coated sword-ramp beneath him and the ship disappeared. Water rushed in and for just a moment the whole of the bottom was free of anything. It was the moment of truth as Emiya grit his teeth. And a second alter the ship buckled and began to rise. And fast. He barely had time to catch onto the hull and not be left behind by the rising ship, almost losing his grip even as the ship ascended out of the bottom of the sea at breakneck speeds. Like a rocket shooting out from the depths, or a balloon released from the bottom of a bath tub. He climbed forward, one step at a time as he had to fight the rushing water to get up. He needed to get back to where he had set the damn sea creature against the hull. By the time he had gotten there, he must have ascended well over a kilometer from the ocean's depths. He took a moment to grin at his success as he looked around.

Yeah, this is working pretty well!

Of course, he still had to worry about that damn whirlpool above them. If he went straight up, he would just get pulled straight back down. But that was easy enough to handle; with the ship rising upwards and the resistance of water against it, he could make it rise at an angle to the surface. By manipulating the eezo circuit, he could turn around the starship as it ascended. It had been built somewhat aerodynamically, thus he could use the whole thing like a rudder or fin which would give him control in what direction it moved. He couldn't make it move downwards or remain at a flat trajectory, but as long as the ship was ascending he could manipulate which way it would be moving. Sensing the whirlpool, he made certain to steer clear of the damn thing and other similar oceanic induction phenomena as he continued ascending towards the surface while holding onto the sword lodged into the starship.

Despite the mass effect field making him lighter, the rushing water and the acceleration made it feel like he had actually grown several times heavier as a net result. If he hadn't been holding onto the sword's hilt for support he would have probably been dislodged the moment he had plugged in the power supplies into the creature.

As long as this keeps up, getting up should be no problem, he thought. In fact he would be getting up faster than he had fallen down, even. However...

He had a sudden premonition, realizing that even as they hit the surface-level, they wouldn't be stopping. No, the starship would probably be pushed at least a dozen meters off the water's surface and then come crashing back down from all the momentum.

That would probably kill everyone inside. Change of plans, then. He thought as he climbed up enough to reach the creature and the hooked up hardsuit batteries he had stuffed inside of its carapace. The rushing waters made it feel like he was trying to climb up a waterfall, but he pushed through while gritting his teeth. I need to pull the plug before we hit the surface and set it on a weaker current.

Of course the trouble there was that he had no idea how deep he was at any given time. If it was during the day, then the presence of sunlight would help, but given that it might be a cloudy night up above that wouldn't work right now. Cursing that he had decided to rely on the RX-5's barometers until now, he projected Bakuya into his right hand.

Closing his eyes, he sensed outward as he tried to find its partner that should have been on floating somewhere on the surface of the Serrinan sea. His arm stretched out and began to point to where the husband-blade lay with the white wife. Nodded, deciding that this would work for showing him his depth; once his arm was nearing parallel it would mean he was at the surface.

Except...

The damn thing was pointing nearly straight down. Which meant... The damn whirlpool sucked it in! Meaning his RX-5s had also been sucked in and were now at the bottom of the sea in pieces.

Oh for fuck's sake! Cursing in his mind, he dispelled the black blade at the bottom of the sea. Reaching to his waist, he took out an air capsule and held it in the same hand as his Bakuya.

"—Trace, On"—begin projection,

He created a simple balloon along with a string. Holding it, he forcefully popped open the air capsule causing it to begin spewing oxygen everywhere in a curtain of bubbles that completely obscured his vision. Manipulating the object blindly, he put it against the mouth of the balloon and let it fill until he could feel it tugging to get free from his grasp.

Tossing aside the air capsule, he tied the balloon shut and tied the string around Bakuya's handle. Letting go, the sword and balloon shot past his hand and began to rise at easily three times his own ascending velocity. It would surely reach the surface first, since lighter-than-water though the starship may be, it would not be enough to catch up to the balloon.

Projecting Kanshou, he repeated his earlier process as he kept moving away from where he had released the wife sword. The white sword should be far enough away from the whirlpool, but he still wanted to have the salarians even further away so that they wouldn't be pulled in again. Additionally, the further away the two blades were from one another horizontally, the more accurately it would tell his relative distance from each other laterally.

As he noted Kanshou was starting to level out, he pulled the plug on the eezo circuit. Immediately the starship slowed down in its ascent and then began to slowly sink again. Hastily working, he unplugged the whole thing before removing a single power source and connecting it back to the sea creature's limbs again. A mass effect field popped back into existence, but it was too weak and could only slow down their descent. So I need less than 24 but more than 1 power source. That's helpful, he thought. Pulling the plug again, he set three power sources into serial and connected it again. Dissatisfied, he repeated again with six of them.

This time the vessel began to rise again, but at a much slower pace than originally. Good, this way it won't fly into the air or anything.

In twenty seconds he broke the surface of the seawater, blinking as he could suddenly see the moon and stars above again. It was so bright that it was almost blinding to look around, despite the headlight he had been using. Somehow, the contrast of the dark waves and shining stars made him feel like he hadn't seen the surface in days as he looked around. Shaking his head, he turned to the remaining power sources.

Plugging them in series increased the voltage which increased the lifting capacity of the eezo, but sooner or later the power source would run out. Plugging them in parallel would keep the same voltage as individual batteries, and mass effect field output, but would instead increase how long the whole thing could keep running. So, with an additional 18 power sources still un-used, he might as well increase how long the eezo circuit could keep running by plugging the rest into the circuit in parallels of six.

It wouldn't be funny if the starship sank before someone could come to help them once he left, after all.

Satisfied with his work and certain that surveillance would find the starship sooner or later and someone would come to pick out the poor salarians, he decided it was time to move out.

He extended Kanshou in his hand and reached out through it. Finding the partner sword, he pulled as he drew back the black blade. Ten seconds later the wife blade came spinning through the air towards him as he had dispelled the balloon and string. Catching it out of the air, he swung the blades to remove all the water on them, before performing a flourish to sheathe them on his back on the Van der Waals-strips.

Only to realize that they weren't sticking at all. Emiya blinked as he looked at the swords. With a sigh, he dispelled them. Glancing at the i'usushij, he decided to leave them since they were holding the creature's carcass onto the hull of the starship for now. This much should be good; I managed to do all of that without wasting too much magical energy or time.

"Still, with the RX-5s gone it looks like I'll just have to go the rest of the way myself," he muttered as he looked up at the starry vault shining down at him.

He blinked, realizing that he still had the headlight on and any surveillance satellite was likely to have spotted him by now just due to that.

Turning it off, he sighed and shook his head as he kicked off the flippers from his feet onto the starship's hull. They would merely get in the way.

Crouching down, he inhaled as propped his feet against the hull of the ship. Swimming would be too slow, so he might as well run the majority of the rest of the way even if that would leave an obvious trail to follow. He did not possess any special skills or talents that allowed him to float on water, but that was fine. For a human being to run on water, they generally needed to be capable of running at somewhere around a hundred kilometers an hour.

He smirked, figuring that if he was being watched he might as well give them a proper show.

After all, something like a hundred or two kilometers an hour was child's play for a Servant.

---

;

---

Nihlus Kryik sighed as he took another pill and drank it down with a grimace.

The fact that he needed to rely on combat drugs to keep going was starting to weigh on his mind. He knew second-hand how the combat focus tranqs could play havoc with the body stims that kept him awake. The turian wouldn't be able to sleep properly for days now. He felt a sting of annoyance at the various salarians around him; Jondum had excused him nearly two hours ago and soon he would be back, fully rested and combat ready.

The salarians only needed a handful of hours of rest a day, whereas he would need a good six or seven hours at least. That much downtime wasn't acceptable, he told himself. He needed to remain focused on what was going on right now, coordinating the various starships flying around and dropping floating sonar buoys and trying to find any clues of Shirou Emiya's whereabouts. He should be starting to feel it, too. No matter what he is, he can't keep going forever without rest. I should be able to outlast him, at least.

As a Spectre, Nihlus had gone through a complete physical after which a tailor-made program was made for him. He could stay awake for a whole month using the right cocktail of stimulants and drugs with a minimal drop in performance. Even so he dreaded having to detox after the mission's conclusion, it was never pleasant and the longer he went on the worse it would get. The things he did for this job...

"Sir, you need to come see this..."

Nihlus blinked as he walked up to the salarian. As he hovered over the shoulder of the STG operator, he noticed something off with the salarian, though on the surface nothing seemed strange. For a moment, it seemed like—No, he is hiding something.

As a Spectre, Nihlus was expected to be able to operate everywhere in the galaxy, including salarian space. Which meant that it was necessary for him to be able to cold read their body language. He knew the various 'I have a secret'-signals the race possessed. This one was one that told of a great secret that the salarian did not wish for him to discover at any costs. I'll play it dumb, then. I can figure out what he's trying to hide on my own afterwards.

"What is it?"

"Ah, well... The surveillance satellites by the Serrinan sea picked up movement. It's not very clear, but we can follow it with some image quality enhancement algorithms."

Nihlus perked up, all previous thoughts forgotten. "Show me."

"Yes, sir." The salarian pulled the feed to the main screen of the CIC.

Nihlus inhaled sharply as he felt his mandibles relaxing in utter shock at what he was seeing. Is he... running on water?

"That's—" The turian frowned, remembering the sudden movements of the man when they had come face to face. Is there no limit to his physical potential? It was listed that he could rend steel with his bare hands in the original reports, and the movements he showed before were clearly beyond the normal... But this is something else entirely.

"Wasn't the leading hypothesis that he had some underwater vessel? Why is he surfacing now, did he run into a whirlpool or something?" Nihlus pondered out aloud, noting how stiff the salarian seemed at those words. Shaking his head and clearing his mind, he looked at the operator. "Where is he headed?"

"Too early to tell, but the nearest settlements are Inid, Trelle and Ulee, sir."

"What's going on?" Jondum Bau asked as he came hastily up to the turian Spectre.

Nihlus nodded at the salarian Spectre-candidate. "See for yourself."

Rolling his eyes and blinking once at his superior, the salarian look at the CIC mainscreen. There was a silent moment as he simply took in what was happening.

"That is..."

"Quite incredible. But," Nihlus spoke quietly. "Our duty has not changed a bit."

Jondum did not hesitate for a moment as their eyes met, an understanding had been reached between the two. Until this anomalous existence was caught and properly questioned, they would not rest.

"Alright, instead of waiting for him to make land we should target him while he's out on the open seas. How many ships do we have at our disposal again?"

"Thirteen, sir."

"What happened to the two others? There were fifteen in the launch order." Nihlus asked, looking at the salarian who answered him.

"...They had to return to refuel," the salarian answered, clearly surprised that the turian had known the exact number.

Nihlus' eyes narrowed. "Both of them?"

"Yes, sir," the salarian said, the various social cues plain to see to the Spectre.

So, did the ships run aground or crash somehow? Or maybe one of them and the other is looking for it. But why are they hiding it? It probably has to do with the STG factions, Nihlus considered as he said nothing. He would note the individual for later consideration, noting him as a possible leak.

"It doesn't matter. Get all of the ships in the area to zero in on him right now."

Jondum inhaled slowly, considering the plan. "He'll surely try to dive again if we show up. With satellites and orbital surveillance, keeping an eye on him won't be an issue while he's moving..."

Nihlus nodded, waiting for the salarian to continue.

"But when he submerges he won't be able to move as quickly. If he could move this quickly underwater then he could have gotten to anywhere on Thessia already. We can keep an eye on the open seas and force him to tire himself out. And he won't have the cover of a city to use, either. This is perhaps the best place for a confrontation," Jondum concluded.

"Indeed." The turian revealed teeth. "How is the re-supply of drones coming along?"

"We have two hundred combat-spec drones coming in by the end of the hour through the Mass Relay, ready for deployment. They should work in conjunction with starship support," Jondum said.

"Excellent. What of the AI?" Nihlus asked.

"Nothing so far, sir."

Jondum frowned. "Strange. I would have expected something. Is he truly working alone?"

"It does seem unusual that there have not been any hacking attempts as reprisals for moving out against Shirou Emiya. The false Justicar suggested he is being supported by an organization, but..."

"He seems to have been working alone since then. It almost seems incidental, that would-be Justicar appearing to his aid."

That Matriarch, Aethyta seemed to know something. She had disappeared before the STG thought to take her in. Is she related to that false Justicar somehow? She is strong enough by all records to have done something like that, too. What the hell was Tela thinking? And the STG are obviously rolling with their own plans. How much can I trust Jondum, then? Outwardly Nihlus merely nodded.

"What of the Justicar order, have they managed to identify the interloper at the house?" Jondum asked from one of the STG operators at the other side of the CIC.

"Vasir contacted them and they have disavowed any knowledge of the target."

Jondum nodded once as he rolled his eyes, deep in thought.

"Sir! The target!"

Both Spectre and Spectre-candidate immediately turned to look. They both froze at the empty screen showing nothing but the dark ocean's surface reflecting the moon and stars distantly.

"What happened? Did he jump into the water?"

"No, sir, let me rewind!" The operator shouted.

They looked at the screen and could only blink in surprise at what they saw. "It looks like... he stumbled and fell suddenly?"

Nihlus and Jondum both paused, looking at each other for a moment. Then they scrambled at the same time.

"Send out the nearest starship right now and have someone look for him immediately!"

"Scramble the Inid and Trelle locals, right now!"

They spoke at the same time and salarian operators hastened to obey and relay the orders.

At the same time, a communications operator turned around to look at them. "Kryik, sir. The Council is on the line; they wish for a report."

Nihlus blinked, slowly exhaling as he exchanged looks with Jondum. The salarian nodded, signaling he would handle things here for now.

"I'll take the call in the conference room," Nihlus said and walked out of the CIC.

His boots seemed to echo against the hard floor of the hallway and for a moment he felt like he was walking to face a military tribunal again. He shook his head, dispelling such thoughts as he entered the empty conference room and turned on the displays.

A hologram-display turned on, showing three distinct and life-sized individuals standing before him. He saluted them, the crisp turian military mannerism that had been hammered into him still alive and well, years after he had been freed from the turian military.

"Nihlus," Sparatus, the turian councilor spoke with a slight tinge of disdain in his flanging voice. The councilor was a staunch conservative and military-hardliner; someone who had very little time or interest for Nihlus' type. "Report."

Nihlus spoke crisply and summed up the whole of the situation, starting from the preparations and planning undertaken along with the expected outcomes, moving on to what had happened and the real-time decisions taken as everything began to go pear-shaped.

The turian councilor stood quietly, still as a statue as his sharp eyes bore into Nihlus during the report. At the same time, the asari councilor Tevos was quietly smiling and nodding at his words, frowning as he described the sudden difficulties they had experienced during the operation's progression. The hooded salarian wore a carefully neutral mask, saying or revealing nothing of his internal thoughts.

The triumvirate of the Citadel; the strong-arming militaristic turian, ever-conciliatory and diplomatic asari and the silent and secretive salarian. Alone they are a force to be reckoned with, together... Nihlus thought off-handedly as he finished his report.

Sparatus glared at him, before nodding once. "You're decision to lift the quarantine was wise."

"Indeed, with no signs of additional support coming to his aid through the air it can be safely concluded that Shirou Emiya is working alone," Valern spoke in an even tone, raising a hand to his chin as he rolled his eyes once. "Losses until now, not inconsequential. But manageable. I do believe it was the correct decision as well."

"And what of the two hostages, have you found any signs of them?" Tevos asked, tilting her head slightly forward as she looked at Nihlus.

"I am afraid not, ma'am. Tela Vasir has remained in Serrice, but as of yet I know nothing. Apologies, but it does not look good."

The asari councilor nodded sadly at his words before she continued. "You say that he sought refuge in the Serrinan sea and that he has already managed to make it past the Ini'an straits?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Very well, I shall inform Trelle of the situation. Though they are an independent order, I am certain they may be of assistance to you."

"Councilor Tevos," Nihlus spoke, politely but firmly interrupting the asari who paused. She had taken no offense, tilting her head slightly in a manner that indicated that he could speak. "While the Justicars are powerful individuals, I do not think they are capable of following orders. To capture him alive, I need—"

"The Justicars have already mobilized, according to the latest reports," Valern noted distantly, as if the aside was of no consequence to the discussion at hand.

Nihlus' mandibles fluttered as he tried to imagine what those zealots were up to. It must be the fake Justicar they are after. Who—Vasir, it must have been. I'll have to stay out of their way...

"The Justicars will be made to understand the severity of the situation. They are just as able at capturing individuals alive," Tevos said with a placating smile.

Nihlus nodded, saying nothing.

"Hmm, have there been any cyber-attacks since the operation began?" Sparatus asked, turning to look at the salarian councilor beside him.

Valern raised a hand, with two of his fingers raised. "Yes. Two instances, however due to the scale and complexity of those incidents it is likely they are mere copycats. Unrelated and of no consequence."

"Then it does seem as if this 'Redhax' is just the individual Shirou Emiya. Nihlus, if all else fails you are authorized to put down the target. Remember that," the turian said.

"But if at all possible, spare the head any copious trauma. It may reveal much if properly investigated," the salarian noted.

Nihlus nodded and looked at the last of the triumverate. Tevos said nothing, appearing deep in thought. For a moment he considered asking the salarian councilor about the virtual aliens, or the various factions at work within the STG that seemed to be competing even now.

But he bit down such thoughts, reasoning that nothing would come of it if the salarian councilor had not sought to inform him of it of his own volition.

"If that is all, councilors...?"

"Yes, you are dismissed." Sparatus nodded and the connection cut immediately.

Nihlus exhaled and moved to return to the CIC, noting that his omnitool alarm was telling him that it was time again. Grumbling under his breath, the turian downed another set of pills as he entered the hallway.

---

;

---

Emiya focused on clenching his fist as he shook his head. Okay, I can move again.

He noted that his vision was still strange. It was like a fuzzy pointillistic filter of light and dark points flashing through his vision.

It didn't matter if he closed his eyes or looked around, it was still there.

It was all that remained of his sudden blackout now. It had come unbidden and unannounced, suddenly causing him to lose all control and had ceased just as inexplicably. On suddenly falling unconscious in the middle of his running he had thought he had been under attack or that he had been injured suddenly. He had slightly panicked at first, getting out of his body in his spirit form and moving to get himself deeper into the water to evade detection by the various starships flying above him and dropping floating sonar buoys into the water. He had remade the anechoic shield as he had retreated underwater into the depths, which seemed to have worked for the most part.

Swimming onward and pulling his body along by one hand, he periodically checked himself.

There were no obvious external injuries on his body; he had simply for no discernible reason fallen unconscious. Upon closer inspection he had realized that his pupils were of different size and that almost randomly one or the other would begin to shrink and expand rapidly. He had no idea what that meant, but he did know that usually something like that was a sign of something very bad.

Brain injuries, tumors, intercranial bleeding or aneurysms...

After some half hour he noticed his eyes had returned to normal and he tried to move inside of his body again. And it had worked; whatever it was that had happened, had been temporary.

And here he was, trying to figure what exactly had happened. Shaking his head, he exhaled. The worst part was, he had no idea what it could have been caused by. This is different from the synesthesia pulse, I just lose control of everything when it happened.

Was it an after-effect of the attack on his cybernetics? He had tried to dive in to the cybernetic parts and see if he could find anything, but to no avail. Was it some form of decompression injury due to his rapid rise from the depths, despite his pressurized hardsuit? Had he hit his head and gotten some kind of internal brain injury? Was it the constant sonar wave bombardment? Could he have been affected by the mass effect fields in the Serrinan sea without realizing it? Or had something Archimedes had done years ago left behind something that had degenerated until now?

Even through careful Structural Analysis of his own body, he hadn't been able to find anything wrong. Until now he had been using a lot of magical energy to power through everything, but it seemed that it wasn't working anymore, as it did nothing now.

I can't keep going like this. If I fall unconscious again, then... He thought as he started swimming slowly again. This time, towards the coastline, deciding that he needed to change his plan of action.

Emiya sighed, letting himself sink to the bottom of the sea.

This close to the shoreline, it was only a mere twenty meters deep. As his back touched the bottom, the swaying plants and small fish darting about entered his peripheral vision as he looked up at the surface of the water. I can't stop here; no food or water here so there's no point in trying to rest here. Even if I need medical help, are there any in the system who know anything about humans? It doesn't seem like it's anything immediately fatal, so even if I leave my body behind it should be safe... Right? Calling in some medical help out here would cause them to home in on me right away. Exerting myself might exacerbate my condition, so...

One particularly curious fish approached him from above, coming into contact with his helmet and spending several moments trying to figure out what exactly he was supposed to be. He raised a hand and chased it away as he exhaled.

So I should take note of my symptoms and go ahead and see if there's anything I can find out while leave it behind. Make a distraction and then get my body later again. With a shake of his head, he dismissed the projected flippers on his feet and focused on an image in his head.

"—Trace, on"—begin projection,

If he was going to leave behind his body then it was enough to just have it contained due to the signal issues, but he also needed to disguise it enough that it would pass inspection in case someone came to take a closer look. Something that would also protect his body while he was at it.

In effect, his body was suddenly placed inside of a Faraday coffin hidden inside of a large rock that sank to the bottom of the sea. Once he was done with that, he also created a Kanshou next to himself for ease of locating himself later. He opened his eyes and exhaled, reaching for an oxygen capsule on his belt. Switching out the spent one, he checked how long the batteries in his hardsuit would last. With a fresh capsule and plenty of power left, it didn't really matter whether his body was on land or underwater, so he might as well stay out of sight. Checking everything one more time, he nodded and jumped out of his body in his spiritualized state.

Jumping through the top of his hiding place and out of the water, he landed just at the edge of the sea. Taking two steps forward, he was on dry land again after what felt like days somehow.

Looking around, he noted the lack of any geographic markers he could use to figure out his position. Sighing, he looked up and noted that the rising Parnitha was slowly starting to muscle in on the dawn sky from the east. If I find a mountain to the north, that would put me near Inid. Difficult to tell with how far I could have been drifting.

He shook his head and began to move out in spirit form, leaping forward and quickly building up speed.

---

;

---

Emiya landed on top of the skyscraper and crossed his arms, looking out at the first rays of a new dawn on the city below.

He had moved quite a bit to the east during the night again, so Parnitha was rising a few hours earlier in a sense. Thousands of hovercraft of all sizes were scurrying about, moving from one place to another both below and above him all reflecting the rays of the rising sun off of their polished surfaces.

Ulee was unlike many of the other cities of Thessia in that sense, in that it never seemed to quite calm down and reach that state of serenity that was so commonly attributed to the asari. With a constant stream of traffic, goods and services moving at all times of the day, it was as if not a moment was to be wasted. It was one of Thessia's younger cities, both in that it lacked the long history predating asari space exploration that most other cities had—which gave it a certain inferiority complex-like attitude, when it came to the other cities—and in that the average age of asari in Ulee was well below the Thessian average. Young and ambitious asari came to Ulee, often leaving once they hit their Matron stage and wished to settle and slow down enough to enjoy life. It was often considered the least of Thessia's major cities despite having the largest economy by far.

As such it looked quite dissimilar to both Serrice and Usaru, with a much greater focus on pragmatic building methods and economical design, with far fewer shining crystal spires or the flowing, ever curving architecture that he had gotten so used to. Other cities, such as Serrice and Usaru competed in their perceived status of being the beating heart of the cultural center of the galaxy. Of being the source of all learning and knowledge, of research and experimentation.

Ulee simply made money.

And as such it made a ton of money. Every day, thousands of tons of unprocessed eezo was shipped out into space from this city, fueling nearly a third of all eezo production of the Citadel space. A ludicrous amount of the matter that enabled all of space travel to exist the way it did in the modern world. That alone was enough to ensure the city would have had no need for anything else to sustain itself.

But they weren't satisfied with something of that level. The city's founders had seen how economic power was being consolidated into the Citadel within years of its discovery in the Serpent Nebula thousands of years ago, and had acted immediately to prevent a monopoly from forming. Ulee dealt in everything, with everyone, everywhere, all the time.

It was a common joke that the Ulee asari could shine your credit chit for twice its worth and still have you coming back.

He had in fact founded a small company under another name to start importing coffee three years back with the sole intention of having more industrious asari come muscling in to handle it for him. He had specifically set about the project at a loss to himself as he sold the imported beans to himself, since he only really wanted the coffee beans.

Lo and behold, a month later a new asari company had been started and their representative came literally knocking at his door to muscle him out, selling him higher quality coffee beans for cheaper and with a shorter transit time to ensure the beans were as fresh as could be. He had no idea how they had managed any of it, or how in the hell they were making a profit, but they did and they were.

So he filed for bankruptcy and since then had been a happy customer of R'lii & R'lii Terra Luxury Importers.

Well, really they were an unlisted branch company of Ulee Incorporated, the four-hundred year old mega-corporation that owned nearly all of Ulee and had no intention of losing out on any profits. And he wasn't just set on buying their coffee at a discount, he probably hacked into their systems more than anywhere else on all of Thessia. Really, they were asking for it given how little they seemed to care about legalities in the face of potential profit in all corners of the galaxy.

In fact the Ulee Sapient Rights Council was little more than a thinktank whose greatest concern was that they could keep Ulee's facade spotless so that the cash kept flowing. Everything in Ulee was about profit. It was for that reason that Roane—Hosin's wife and the mother of Hoana—had been taken here, he presumed. They needed to find out who had been selling off eezo to Hosin, didn't they?

Alright, let's see... Find Roane, check out the Sapient Rights Council, do some digging at the Athena Nebula Central Bank, try to see if I can figure out if the symptoms were indicative of anything serious... That was about all, wasn't it? Will the order matter? He nodded, jumping down to the street several hundred meters below. Well, I'll start by just looking around at the Ulee Incorporated headquarters.

Landing without a sound on the pavement, he turned around and entered through the front door, invisible to all.

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CODEX:

6. [ Oceanic Induction and its effects on free-floating Element Zero in Thessian Waters ]

The amount of element zero found on Thessia is unrivaled in all the galaxy, this is a well known and accepted fact. Indeed, many races have expressed varying levels of dissatisfaction or envy over this fact, which the asari had historically ignored with cool grace.

On the surface, this seems like it has nothing but positive effects in the form of easy hovercraft technology and a biotic potential in the population exceeding 99 per cent. But only very little of it is usable or practically reachable for commercial use, as much of it exists underground, or in various bodies of water in the form of fine dust particles. Due to the latter fact, asari culture has grown to revere and fear the deep seas due to the volatile nature of the eezo deposits there.

Just as nearly all living beings on Thessia make use of biotics in one form or another, so too does Thessia itself prove capable of using biotics in a sense. And just as the scale between an asari and Thessia is overwhelmingly different, so too is the scale between the power that their biotics can display. For asari it is primarily their nervous system which feeds the eezo nodes in their bodies. For the planet, it is the rotation of the planet and the gravity wells of numerous relatively near celestial objects such as the moon, the heat differences between water at the poles and equator, or by the night and day sides, all affecting the large bodies of water on Thessia's surface that feed the creation of mass effect fields.

On most planets with electromagnetic fields they are induced by the external ionospheric and magnetospheric current systems. However, the motions of large bodies of water can also create electromagnetic fields through dynamo interaction with the aforementioned ambient geomagnetic field, which can result in fields and currents just as powerful as the ionospheric counterparts along most of the frequency spectrum. Additionally as the salinity of water increases, so too does its conductivity, meaning that large bodies of water not only create an electrical current but also conduct it through itself in a manner that causes those fine eezo particles to be affected; ergo mass effect fields naturally arise as the electrical current grows sufficient.

Of note; while most of oceanic induction is generated near the surface due to salinity increasing with depth in a body of water, generally speaking these phenomena occur deep under water.

Since eezo commonly reacts in one of two ways when used it conducts electricity, there are two noted and distinct phenomena observed as a result of the oceanic induction; mass may either be lessened or increased. These two events are known as respectively as "waterspouts" and "whirlpools". A third phenomena was also later observed and understood, identified as a "still water" oft spoken off in ancient marine ledgers.

In a waterspout—when distinctly referring to oceanic eezo generated phenomena, rather than the general catch all term which also includes the wind-generated "water tornados" that have also been observed on planets with much less element zero—a mass lightening field is generated below the surface of the water, which causes a volume of seawater to rapidly begin ascending much like an air or helium balloon would when forcibly dragged down below the water's surface, generating a pillar of water much like a fountain that can rise up several hundred meters into the air. As liquid is displaced and pushed upwards, even more water is pulled from below which often also becomes affected by the mass effect field, further feeding the waterspout. As the movement of water continues to feed the dynamo interaction, even more electricity is generated which further fuels the waterspout in a continuous cycle that can last up to weeks. Waterspouts have been recorded to reach well over a kilometer along some parts of Thessia, depending on the season and weather patterns.

Conversely when a mass effect field that increases mass, whirlpools are generated. These are much more difficult to separate from whirlpools generated without eezo interaction, as on the surface of the water the two are commonly very alike. As the field occurs, water inside of the volume spanning the field grows increasingly heavy and pushed more and more water down towards the bottom of the sea. On the surface something similar to a basin emptying through a hole at the bottom occurs, as more and more water is pulled in from above and around the mass effect field to push more and more water down. Similarly to waterspouts, the reaction is self-sustaining and can continue for very long times. Though, due to the latter oftentimes occurring deep beneath the surface, whirlpools are commonly missed entirely by observers by the surface and as such they have been less thoroughly documented over the years.

For a long time it was thought that these two phenomena were relatively rare as waterspouts are not all that commonly observed even on a global scale. But as it turns out, once studies were performed into the generation and function behind waterspouts it was quickly noticed that such events are much more common than was previously believed. Or rather as the causes behind the phenomena were understood it became apparent how often such things actually happened in the form of the "third" phenomena.

Still waters have long been noted among those who traveled the seas, as unnatural patches of water where there seems to be no motion regardless of the winds or other natural factors that ought to contribute to the generation of waves. On some rare occasions some have even reportedly walked on top of the water's surface, which proved able to sustain their weight. Due to the prevalence of this phenomena and due to the high availability of eezo related hover-technologies, sea travel never rose to prominence in use for long-distance travel at the seas.

All three phenomena are related, as they are all generated by the fine eezo particles in the sea being electrically stimulated by oceanic induction. As the alignment of the particle affects what kind of mass effect field will be generated, it becomes important to note that at any one time in any one location in the sea, it is generally likely to find a 1-to-1 ratio of eezo particles that would generate a mass lightening field as eezo particles that would generate a mass heavening field given a uniform electrical current.

In other words, as these two equal mass effect fields interact, a Stasis field is generated that will hold everything in place.

As such upwards of ninety percent of all oceanic induction results in still waters around Thessia, as much of the sub-surface seawater is held in Stasis. The observed waterspouts and whirlpools thus only represent a fraction of the true scale of such events. The diversion from an even split between eezo particle alignment necessary for either a waterspout or whirlpool to form is dependent on factors such as the water current, volume of water affected and how much of the eezo particles are stationary.

Known as the Voaszia Threshold after its discoverer; Matriarch Voaszia, it takes around a ten percent deviation for either the water to begin resisting the Stasis effect around it enough to be observable. A secondary threshold, commonly called the Voaszia Critical Threshold—though it was only later attributed to the Matriarch, as her notes only hinted at such an event, as she went missing out at sea, presumed dead at the age of 953 years—where the deviation of eezo particle alignment exceeds 23 percent causes a secondary phenomena to occur.

As more and more water is displaced, the eezo particles that are being held in place by Stasis become dislodged and begin to rapidly spin. Much like how when an alternating current is run through a stationary eezo core, when a direct current is fed through a rotating eezo core, a unique field where mass is rapidly increased and decreased continuously will occur. In other words, as the Voaszia Critical Threshold is exceeded, more and more eezo particles will be knocked loose from the Stasis field and the reaction becomes self-sustaining as a Warp field, inside of either the primary waterspout or whirlpool phenomena. These fields have been noted to be several times stronger than similar fields created by sapient biotics, giving credence to ancient legends of massive storms that are capable of destroying anything that may be caught inside of them.

Much like magnetic fields, mass effect fields also seek to become unified in direction. North pole attracts South pole and vice versa, thus the numerous free floating eezo particles are slowly aligned as the warp field dissipates and the mass raising or lowering field is strengthened proportionally in turn. These phenomena usually die down once all of the eezo has been aligned and the warp field disappears, and the electrical build up begins to slowly dissipate and even out.

As the asari scientific community has grown increasingly aware of weather phenomena on other planets, they have grown familiar with monstrous storms known as "typhoons" and "hurricanes". Such have never been in living memory observed on Thessia as generally the created Stasis fields will contain such a reaction before it is able to take off the ground.

But, were the odds to be skewed just wrong it is theoretically possible for a "warp storm" to be formed. These doomsday theories have led to much popular speculation and theories among some of the more fringe elements of asari society. Some refer to the lost cities of E'lirhan that was according to ancient lore wiped off the face of Thessia by a monstrous storm, but no evidence for the existence of such a storm or city has yet to be discovered. Several feature-length vids and channel series have also been made with such warp storms as the core premise, such as "Last days of the ancient Azure City" and "WARP STORM: Three Decade Doom".

Regardless, this knowledge has put to proof the old asari wisdom that you should stay the hell out of the deep sea.

Several more recent scientific papers also outline the strange interactions between electromagnetic fields and fine eezo particles display when eezo is highly compressed, though very little research has yet to be made into this field.

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AN: Sorry this chapter took so long. Been trying to get my sleep rhythm back into order, so while I wrote like 80 percent of it like a week ago, I ended up re-writing and editing it for all this time because of my mental state. This chapter is sort of filler-y too, which caused me to debate over whether or not it was worth posting for a while, but in the end I figure it was cool enough to warrant inclusion.

As usual, thanks to PseudoSteak for taking the time to read and give me some feedback over the chapter. Also, thanks to my patrons for putting up with me.