Chapter 31

Ezio Auditore: You are... gods?

Minerva: (laughs) No. Not gods. We simply came... before.

— Assassin's Creed II

July 2220

"A Prothean vault, sir." Jorell repeated dully, his eyes half-lidded in a dull appearance of disbelief, as if he was being told an awful joke and wasn't finding it funny at all. "Forgive my insubordination, but... Are you serious?" The Protheans were an enigma even to the Council, and they knew far more about them than anyone else in the galaxy. In Human space, they were viewed with some amount of contempt and disdain, because they'd watched over Humanity during its infancy and had simply packed up and left, no reason, no gifts left over, nothing at all save for some rusting ruins.

Borrison understood Jorell's stance, he'd shared it for as long as it had taken to get him to the vault itself. "It's an underground complex that our AI's guessed could be… Well, very, very old. They don't have the proper equipment to make anything better than an educated guess, so it's either the Protheans or this planet had its own race that killed itself off a long time ago." Borrison stated, his tone as dull as Jorell's look, as if he weren't surprised at all, or was so surprised that he was in shock and was simply operating on auto-pilot until he had time enough to digest the information. "Normally, I'd leave it alone and say we've got more ruins to look at... But our scouts think this vault is different from the other ones."

"How so, sir?"

Borrison's face didn't change, "you'll see." He said, switching on the flashlight on his shoulder pauldron.

After a few minutes of descent, Jorell did see. His own flashlight shone on the ever-steepening cave wall, and lo and behold, a painting. Jorell nearly walked into another wall in shock, there were literally six examples in the known galaxy of Prothean artwork, each one was 'owned' in a sense, by the Citadel Council, and if they sold even one – ignoring how utterly priceless they were – the profits from such a sale could buy them twenty eight solar systems with enough money to spare to buy six more garden worlds and a small moon. The only thing worth more than Prothean artwork was functioning Prothean technology; even Quarian art and architecture was valued less than the Protheans'.

The paintings on the wall were simple, the first one he saw was of several stick figures with pointed objects in their hands, surrounding some massive animal which, from the looks of it, seemed to be fighting them, or perhaps defending itself from them, Jorell couldn't quite tell. Continuing through the winding, descending caves, lit by the harsh white synthetic light of the Marines' flashlights, continued the story, and Jorell noticed how the paintings got more complex and intricate in detail as time and distance continued on, Jorell wondered if this was the Protheans making some kind of subtle statement, because the more attentive to details the paintings became, the more advanced the stick figures seemed to become. Their enemy stayed the same for several paintings, until one of the paintings depicted a stick man laying down his narrow black object and picking up a bright, almost pearlescent, silver one. The man with the silver object gathered his brothers and sisters, who all quickly similarly picked up silver objects and fought to slay the animals.

Soon after that, the pictures began depicting the silver man leading his people to build villages and settlements, and with the Silver Man being chosen as their leader, they soon were depicted entering a prosperous age, with them making food, shelters, and children. When the Silver Man was depicted dead and buried, his silver son took his place, just as his silver grandson would take his son's place, and so on and so forth. The pictures, Jorell noticed, seemed to be depicting the aliens' history.

Wait... Are these even Protheans? The Quarian wondered, about to voice his question, but one look at the man told the Quarian that the Lieutenant didn't seem to be in a talking mood, given the ponderous scowl on his face. He looked back to the paintings, as they continued their descent. Protheans left beacons, these people... Left pictures. Did they not have books, or something else to show us their story? Wondered the Quarian as they continued down the winding cave systems, with more and more paintings guiding their way.

Eventually, the Silver Man's village discovered blue objects, which, with the accompanying lightning bolts, Jorell quickly surmised as the aliens depicting their discovery of technology. The Silver Man's village quickly expanded into a city, which expanded into a nation, expanded into an empire. Multiple paintings depicted enemies attempting to combat the Silver Man's legacy, but his descendants always won out, always being depicted as led by a new Silver Man. Interestingly enough, for the detail the paintings were quickly gaining, always this species was depicted as stick figures, there were no defining characteristics, just black lines depicting limbs and bodies.

As they descended, the story continued. Eventually the Silver Man's Empire encompassed their entire planet, and it expanded to their planet's two moons, before finally their starships catapulted out of their solar system and into the vast galaxy beyond. Dozens of pictures depicted a golden age of societal development, as the Silver Man's Empire encompassed all that it saw, until one picture depicted a new species. These new ones were painted with violent red strokes, and were shown to be larger, thicker, uglier and angrier than the Stick People.

The New Race was depicted as meeting the Stick People on a neutral, gray planet, or, Jorell considered, it may have been a moon, or an asteroid. Regardless of where they met, the pictures depicted the tale easily, the New Race grew angry with the Stick People and struck out against them, violently slaughtering they who had greeted them, ripping them apart in gory displays of red, bloody showers. This picture had more details than the others before it, it depicted the massive black and red beast shoving its clawed hand through the chest of a Stick Man, as the Stick's brothers desperately fought against the other Reds, but they were eventually defeated.

The next few pictures depicted the Silver Man's Empire's war against the New Race, and it was clear that the Stick People had been on the verge of defeat, until, almost inexplicably, a new element arrived. The latest Silver Man, taller than those before him, commanded his people to dedicate themselves to a new project, a machine of some sort, this one painted in blue and in silver, most likely to showcase how revolutionary and important it was to their people.

"What is this?" Jorell wondered aloud, as they continued down into the caves, lit by the light of Ryan's smart watch, and Jorell's mask's night vision.

"Not our concern." Borrison stated, as the pictures showed them completing the device.

Now the pictures showed a map of their empire, almost all of it save for a handful of planets was red, depicting how far the New Race had gotten, until the next picture depicted a Silver Man placing a red object on the Silver Device, activating it. The next picture was different in how it was drawn, the Sticks were still painted in the steadily increasing detail of the paintings, whereas the Reds had suddenly been cast to details – or the lack thereof - similar to that of the first paintings. The New Race was no longer depicted as an insurmountable enemy, now the paintings showed the Stick People – led by the Silver Man – conquering the New Race.

Eventually, the map of the Silver Man's Empire was entirely blue again, signifying their victory. The next image was of the newest Silver Man rallying his people, obviously preparing for their counter war. But when they arrived at the New Race's empire, they only found Reds warring against each other, their own machines all destroyed and their empire in flames. The Stick People destroyed the New Race's empire and was depicted simply exterminating the New Race, the Stick People gave no quarter, every painting now depicted dead and dying Reds.

After several paintings of a steadily increasing mountain of Red corpses, the paintings now depicted the Silver Man's Empire's map, with the New Race's next to it, as both quickly became blue. Soon the Silver Man's Empire was depicted as recovering, and very soon after at they began advancing even more, new paintings of more advanced starships and larger blue maps, until a massive painting of an object both Jorell and Ryan both recognized.

"A Mass Relay." Said an awed Jorell.

"That's why some men think this is Prothean." Borrison mentioned without any invitation, " likely because they made them."

"Hm..." Jorell wasn't trying to be disrespectful, but he was more focused on the details of the Relay, with the Stick Peoples' Ship off to its left. Whereas the ship was painted elegantly, the Relay was painted almost with a sense of dread, it looked as if the paint had drooped down, causing almost tear-streak like marks on the inky black and electric blue surface of the Relay.

Now there was a painting of the galaxy, most of it gray, but a quarter of it was blue. The Blue began expanding as the Silver Man's Empire utilized the Relay System to see the rest of the galaxy, and soon the entire galaxy was covered in blue paint. There were several pictures of other new species, Brown, Gray, Yellow races, but each time the Silver Man's Empire met them, a war was depicted in which the Stick People conquered these newer races and forced them to stay on their own homeworlds.

At least, until a picture of a massive planet was shown. A new race, this one depicted in Green, was shown. It was depicted as the Greens fought everything that came to them, animals, the elements, and even their own planet at some points. The Stick People were soon shown to be respectful of the Greens, going so far as to treat them like children who must be educated and taught.

Now the pictures were of the Silver Man's Empire and the Greens, as the Stick People advanced, they nurtured the Greens and taught them their ways. Soon the Greens began being painted with mixtures of silver, though Jorell didn't know if that meant the Greens were advancing, or interbreeding.

The pictures kept going, until they stopped suddenly for several feet of cave.

"We're almost there. Here, is where the things get... Odd."

"Odd how, sir?" Jorell asked.

"You'll see."

As they descended further into the caves – Jorell noted how the slopes were leveling out now – the paintings did, in fact, become different. There were several paintings of the Silver Man's Empire, the entire blue map, until one part inexplicably went black. The inky color stayed firmly on one piece of the galaxy, a few pictures of ships traveling to the blackness and then disappearing, before finally the Black began spreading, like a virulent plague, enveloping larger and larger portions of the galaxy in its disgusting lack of color.

A new picture depicted the Stick People, now with their blue weapons and technology, fighting a gargantuan black beast. It looked terrifying, with a single bright red eye and tendril-like tentacles ripping apart the Stick People. This war took up even more cave space than the war with the New Race, as it was depicted that the Silver Man's Empire threw everything they had against the Beasts, but nothing worked. There were few victories, and many many more defeats, quickly their map was filled with the inky black presence of the Black Beasts.

Eventually, attention was brought back to the Greens, who seemed to be regarding their teachers with a quiet curiosity, before the Stick People violently cast them aside, setting their planet ablaze and abandoning them. There was a new picture above the devastated greens, it looked like lettering, but Jorell couldn't even hope of deciphering an alien language, so he didn't try.

Very quickly, the tale went from bad to worse. The Silver Man's Empire tried throwing everything at the beasts, but nothing worked. Eventually they tried the Silver Machine, but something went wrong. Where the Beasts were supposed to lose their detail, suddenly the Stick People did, going from the elegant looking beings to the brutish people from earlier in the cave. The Black Beasts destroyed what was left of the Silver Man's Empire with painful ease, before the inky black map was suddenly wiped away from blackness, only gray left.

One ship from the Silver Man's Empire remained, in it was a Silver Man himself, they seemed to have escaped the corrupted Silver Machine and the Black Beasts' wrath. But soon, they too vanished, the map now focusing on a small star cluster, a single solar system. It featured a solar system with several planets, and highlighted the single point of blue in the entire system, with another set of words written above the pale blue dot, three rocks over from its star.

And after that, there was nothing. After the single, solitary planet with the lonely lettering looming above it, Jorell and Borrison encountered Humans. Jorell snapped out of his silent reverie and looked forward, a sniper and his spotter were standing alongside a half dozen Force Recon Marines, all waiting loungingly in the small nexus point before a large, looming, silver blast-door.

"Tell me, Private Sahn." Borrison mentioned, as he allowed the Quarian to take in the sight before them. "You read the history books, correct? Have you ever wondered what went through the minds of the astronauts who were charged with exploring Mars' Prothean Ruins?" He asked, turning his gaze from the forest-green suit of Quarian flesh and blood, and Human armor and munitions, to the silver door of unmistakably alien design. "I like to think that they knew that, no matter what they found, they would change the course of history irreparably, that their actions that day would decide the course of Humanity's further advancement forever." He sighed, and then nodded towards the door, Jorell followed him, Smart-Watch flaring to life as he neared it.

"I'll need some time." Said Jorell, slowly, as his mind began speeding up, going over countless possibilities, countless ways in which he could open this vault.

"You'll have it. Whatever is in there… Well, we think it will be worth it." He didn't speak his best-case worst-case thoughts; best case – they found weapons which they could use to assault the Rebel base and finish their mission faster. Worst-case, they only found data troves and history documents, but even that would get them a priority flag in the eyes of Higher Ups – which meant that they would get far more reinforcements far faster. "Just work as fast as you can."

"Yes sir." Said Jorell, he opened up a few applications on his Smart-Watch.

Time would start flowing much faster for the increasingly giddy Quarian engineer, as he worked tirelessly and endlessly upon the alien door. He scanned for everything – access panels, wires he could cut, anything that used power that he could jump-start, everything. Whatever the aliens did, and whatever opponent they faced, they were as thorough as they were paranoid – there was no readily apparent way to open this door.

Jorell took a few steps back and leaned up against the cave-wall, idly contemplating whether or not he should bum a dextro-cigarette off of any of his fellow Quarians. It wasn't a question of was he missing something, it was a question of what he was missing, so what was it that he was missing? What did he know about these people? They weren't Prothean, so all he had to work on was a giant, looming, silver door, and the pictograms they'd had leading up to it. Was that some kind of clue? Maybe they hadn't evolved any kind of language ability, and instead spoke through pictures? But if that were the case, what the hell did he draw on the door to make it open?

Cutting it open had entered the Quarian's mind, but it was the number one Alliance assumption for unknown alien beings: Assume hostility. He had to go with the assumption that messing with this thing in any overtly hostile way would get himself killed. He idly watched as a few guards, who themselves were idling about, watching him work and waiting for some kind of threat, went up to examine the vault-door for themselves, likely under the assumption that they could give him some kind of idea he hadn't thought of already – when he said he had tried looking for everything, he meant everything. Talking to it with his translator spewing out every known language – Prothean included – hadn't even worked.

Of course it wouldn't work... He really wished he had a cigarette now, he needed some kind of habit that could kill time whenever he wasn't fixing things. They knew their language would die with them. That's why they left fucking pictures instead of written tales or video logs. He shook his head, considering running back up and down the pictogram wall again to find a clue. Maybe it's got something to do with those green people... Or that planet there at the end? He tried reasoning, before one of the Marines was shot from one end of the room to another with a loud crack of thunder.

Maybe I should – wait, what?! Jorell snapped out of his reverie just as the other Marines started scrambling for their buddy or for some semblance of cover. Jorell looked from the smoldering Marine to the Marine's buddy, running away from the door at top speed, to the door itself – which was opening.

"What the fuck did you do, Marine?!" Jorell shouted out, grabbing some cover of his own just in case there were million-year-old kill-death droids on the other side of the vault, ready willing and able to lay waste to everyone trying to break in.

"Paxson's down, he's not responsive!" A medic called out after the Marine in question had been dragged across the alien stone to his position.

"He just touched the damn thing! I told him he should have put his gauntlet back on, but no -"

"Shut the hell up, Private! Anyone got eyes on? What's in there?!" A Marine called out, "where's Jorell? Where's the engineer?!"

"I'm up!" Jorell called out from behind his rock.

"There's nothing in there, we're clear!" Someone shouted.

"The hell we are." Jorell's HUD told him that this voice belonged to a Corporal by the name of Dosdon. "There are no lights in there. Who's got a flare?" He called out from wherever it was he was at – the sniper seemed to be hidden away in his own dark corner with the best view.

A moment passed, and then a bright green flare exploded into bright flames, and then its previous owner over-hand tossed it inside. It lit up the inside of the vault with an ominous green glow, everything had horror-movie worthy shadows stretching from the center of the previously pitch-back room. Jorell took a peak above his small rock, the inside was largely empty, there was a catwalk that was under the floor, which led up to a three-way turn to three other doors, each of which had a terminal-like device set up right in front of them. They looked like they were meant to be painted, but it was all a uniform silver, mixed with the bright green of the flare.

"Clear!" A Marine shouted out.

Everyone cautiously stood up and out of cover, and slowly strode over to the door. "Sahn, I thought you said this thing didn't have power?" He said, indicating the now wide open door.

"It didn't, my watch would've detected a power source otherwise." Jorell stated firmly, "someone call the ell-tee, get us some updated orders."

A few minutes passed as a Marine spoke with their lieutenant. He gave a few 'understoods' and nodded before he cut off his radio. "Alright, orders as follows: Investigate the alien ruins. They're working on a plan of attack and they say we've got six hours to find something useful or call it ruins and get out of here."

"Why haven't they called for reinforcements?" Dosdon asked, running a hand over his sweat-covered, buzz-cut head. "This op is a lot bigger than we initially thought, we need more men."

The radio-man shook his head. "Rebels are jamming this entire zone. Short range helmet-to-helmet still works, but anything past that and it's snake city. Don't know how, but they are, so we've got to make do with what we've got."

"Of course..." Dosdon shook his head, and then gave a look to their token Sergeant.

The Sergeant cleared his throat, "alright Marines, let's move out. Search for any kind of weapons vault. Keep our engineer covered at all times. In an out, we'll be fine." He nodded his head and took a deep breath, "let's go." They all formed up, two groups of five, and entered the vault. None of them felt particularly safe doing it, but they had their orders, and they would rather be doing something that was likely unsafe, than be sitting topside doing nothing, waiting for orders to do something that was likely unsafe.

Entering the nearly pitch-black, ancient, ruined vault gave the marines about as much as they were expecting: Nothing. The only thing that was routinely surprising Jorell about the place was how well kept it was, there wasn't any dust anywhere, and all of the metal didn't have an ounce of rust – it was as if this entire place had been set up, put in stasis, and then left, for whatever purpose, only the builders knew.

Jorell was currently scouring the place for anything resembling a generator room, but even if he found one, he doubted he'd even know what to do with it – even nuclear reactions couldn't last more than a few thousand years, and no one used geothermal energy these days, so even as viable as that option was, he wouldn't know what to do with it. This was all ignoring that this was an ancient alien vault in the first place – how was he even supposed to know what to do with their technology? Some 'universal' facets of Human technology had left quite a few former Migrant Fleet engineers somewhat terrified – Humans color-coded their wires backwards, according to his mother, who had apparently nearly blown up all of Mount Rushmore during the Second-Contact war, because she'd mixed up Human black wires and Quarian black wires.

The most interesting thing about this place, though, was that despite its general pristine look and lack of any visible power sources, various squads were reporting things working just fine, so long as there was a direct interface. The problem was, the machines seemed to like Humans more than Quarians – Jorell had tried opening a door by taking his suit's glove off and placing it on the door, it did nothing, but when he had one of his temporary squadmates touch it, it opened almost immediately. So there was power, but very little, or perhaps it was used and stored in a way that Jorell couldn't recognize, and if that were the case, Jorell had no idea what to do.

Exploring the various rooms this facility had yielded little else than empty rooms and terminals and computers that wouldn't turn on for Quarians or Humans. The most exciting thing they had seen was when they had entered a massive, cavernous room, which held within it rows upon rows upon rows of pod-like devices, all hanging from massive, sturdy-looking steel girders on the ceilings and walls. The odd thing about the room – other than the fact that it had to be as large as the entire vault, and then some – was that none of the pods were inhabited, it was like they'd had Noah build an arc, and then they'd abandoned it for someone else to sail.

The pod room had Jorell convinced beyond the shadow of the doubt that this was some kind of arc, some kind of vault for the most precious thing the stick-men knew: Themselves. But if they were being threatened by an insurmountable enemy and this enemy had clearly fought them off the planet before they could seal themselves in this vault, then why was the vault still here in the first place? And while it was certainly safe to assume that there had to be something this race had in terms of defensive weaponry, stored somewhere in here – it would have been dumb of them not to keep weapons in their vault, in a time of war – would it even be safe to go for these weapons? They hadn't had any reason to think so, so far, but what if the Black Beasts had left something here as a trap? If there were any stick-people still alive – or if there had ever been any still alive – they most certainly would have checked back in on their vaults and way-stations.

Jorell felt his heart slow down, he was now very fearful of what they would find around the next corner, or the one after that, or any of the rooms he had his allies open up so they could clear out. What kind of traps could last for over a hundred thousand years? It couldn't be machines, even the Protheans didn't have power sources that powerful, nor could it be their footsoldiers – no one lives that long, it is physically impossible for a body to keep itself together for that long and still be in fighting shape.

"Hey, Engineer Oh-One, we found something." Said a comms-tag marked as Richardson, as Jorell and his men opened up and were disappointed by another room.

Jorell cleared and swallowed his dry throat, "sit-rep." He requested, nodding to his two guys to let them know they could mull around while he talked.

"We opened up into what looks like a command station, big central screen on the far wall, computers lining the walls and a viewing platform for a leader, I'd assume." Said the Marine, "but what's interesting is these... Orbs, it looks like." Said the man.

"Orbs?" He'd seen computers, beds, empty picture-frames that didn't respond to anyone's touch, and doors that responded to Human touch, but he hadn't seen any orbs. "What do they look like?"

"I'd say... 'Bout the size of a beach ball, maybe bigger – no, definitely bigger. Twice as big." Said the marine, "they come up to my thighs. They're jet black, but don't look like any glass, or anything the like. They don't reflect light, no crease marks... They're just... Orbs."

"Don't touch 'em, Richardson, I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Got it, I'll drop an – Hey, Homer, what're you doing?"

Jorell felt his heart slow down again, "Richardson?"

Richardson didn't respond, but his next words made the oppressive darkness around them feel stifling – constrictive, even. "Homer – Jack, what the fuck are you doing? That's alien tech, don't touch that!"

"Richardson, what's going on?!" His squad was giving him a look, they were listening in and they were just as concerned as he was.

"Jack, god damn it what did you -" The ground shook just as a massive explosion roared its way through the ancient, darkened halls. There was no damage to the facility due to the quakes, but something told Jorell that those things weren't bombs, but catalysts.

It fell into place just what kind of weapon would last the ages, just as he heard it roar loud enough to be heard even without the radio blaring it right into his auditory canals. What kind of weapon would last a long-ass time?

A biological weapon.

"Everyone out!" Jorell shouted to everyone in the vault, but he was already getting 'enemy engaged' flags from the squad-leaders' HUDs. A few Marines from another squad had gone ahead of Jorell and went to check on Richardson once he'd said he'd found something, and now they were fighting something. "God damn it, someone give me a sit-rep!"

"Jesus Christ, they're everywhere!" The ground shook again, but this time it was less from explosions, and more from the massive vibrations of an ancient machine. "What the fuck are these things?!" The Marine died screaming just after he uttered his last words.

The facility suddenly came to life, lights lit up and alarms started blaring deafeningly loud. Jorell's head shot up to glare at the bright blue light, but he decided to vent his frustration on his squadmates, he looked to the both of them, they were at a loss, "MOVE!" And move they did, after snapping out of their trance, they followed Jorell and started storming through the ancient alien death trap. "All Alliance Marines in the alien ruins, evacuate right now! We are under attack by an unknown enemy, get the fuck out and regroup! Anyone who can hear me, acknowledge!" He didn't care if he was a Private issuing orders to a few dozen people, nor did he care that a good quarter of those people were probably of a higher rank than him, they were under attack and they had to get out and into the arms of their reinforcements before they could do any good.

"We hear you, man!" Someone called out, but Jorell was too focused on getting the hell out to worry about getting a name. "We're trying to get in contact with the El-Tee, but it's hard as fuck with the entire planet on top of us!"

"Just get it done!" Jorell and his squad sprinted around a corner, but they would wish they hadn't, after they saw what was waiting for them.

Six of them, with at least one more if the body that was being dragged across the threshold of the door was any indication, they were tall, gangly looking beings with a humanoid shape, but with the features of a horribly disfigured and skinned robot, they had oily gray goop dripping from their crusty gray skin and it looked like there were colonies of nanomachines swimming all over their body, only to die after just a few moments and turn into the goop as they all coalesced and collected. They had metallic piercings all over their dense bodies, and there were bright red power cores practically replacing their stomachs, even their eyes hadn't escaped the horror, with their impossibly wide eyes staring at the newcomers with terrifying red glares.

The one closest to them slowly raised its arm, its hand hanging limp, until it pointed at the Marines, who were paralyzed with fear. They all, like clockwork, grasped their heads in agonizing pain as the thing roared its loudest and began charging, moving far too fast for something with its muscle-mass – or lack thereof.

"Shit... Open fire!" Jorell raised his rifle and started firing wildly, but his bullets were going wide and even when they hit, the husk-like creatures just kept coming, like horrible, implacable, techno-zombies.

The other marines in his impromptu squad opened fire as well, but the lingering pain in their head and the fast-moving targets meant that they wouldn't hit much. When the husks got about halfway to them, Jorell made the retreat order – not that it was needed, their weapons were having no damn effect on them, not with the practical rivers of nanomachines swarming any injury sights and repairing the damage in seconds.

Jorell and his marines fled as fast as they could, but he could tell from the terrifying roars and the thunderous footsteps that the husks were gaining on them. He had to act fast, but he was a damn engineer – he had power tools and a smart-watch, he didn't have grenades or anything that could do damage enough to keep them off of his tail for long. What he did have, however, was a massive, potentially hostile facility with doors that only opened for Humans.

Fuck it! What was the worst he'd lose? His life? He chose the first door that looked promising and marked it in his HUD as he and his squad thundered closer and closer. "One of you open that damn door! We need cover!"

"They aren't shooting at us you sickly motherfucker!" One of the marines shouted.

"If you have a better fuckin' idea you goddamn monkey I'm welcome to it!" He roared as they got to the door.

The marine slammed the palm of his free hand into the center of the door as he, Jorell, and the other marine aimed their weapons at the sprinting husks and fired. Their more precise fire had more of an effect and more of the husks' defenses were stripped away and torn apart, but it was too little to have a real effect. Jorell didn't notice that the miniature robots that fell from the husks were actually following their former masters, he was too focused on getting inside that damn room. The door thundered open far faster than any of the other ones, and the Marines rushed inside.

"How the fuck do I close this thing?!" The ungloved Marine practically cried.

"CLOSE SESAME!" The other Human slammed his armored foot into the area just to the right of the threshold of the door in a futile act of anger and desperation.

The door slammed shut, and if the clicking and thunking sounds were any indication, it locked itself after it was closed.

The Marine whipped around and held his rifle in the air triumphantly, with a victorious, ridiculous look on his face. "I AM THE DOOR GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!"

"How the fuck did you do that?!" Jorell demanded as the husks bodily slammed into the sealed door.

"I have no fucking idea! But whatever I did, worked! And if we survive this, you're all buying me a motherfucking Salarian Beer!" He paused, "no, fuck that, you're buying me the whole damn bar!" He had the world's biggest grin on his face as he strode forward and forcibly turned Jorell around. Jorell blinked, the lights in the room revealed to him what had to be the most beautiful thing in the world – this world specifically.

Guns.

Rows, and rows, and rows, of ancient alien guns.

"Take the biggest fucking thing you can carry and find a trigger!" If the stick-people were able to fight these monsters, it meant that their weapons worked where Human weapons would not.

The other two didn't need Jorell to tell them twice, they each grabbed the first things they could find. Both of them ended up grabbing a bulbous, egg-shaped device that almost literally came to life in their hands, transforming from the egg-shaped creaseless machine into a rather recognizable rifle shape. The silver machine had split into three main parts – the barrel at the end of the gun, the stock at the back end, and the bottom splitting into two parts with a pistol grip in front of them. One of the marines – Willard was his name, Jorell finally decided to see in his HUD – shouldered the weapon, but found something to his dismay.

"Where the fuck is the trig-" He squeezed the pistol grip and a bright green lance of energy leaped forward and smashed into the wall, bending it backwards and melting it into slag at the same time.

"Great job, dumbass! Do you want to shoot the door next?!" Jorell demanded as he picked up his own egg-rifle.

Nothing happened.

The other Marine, Henry, picked up his own and it transformed immediately into a rifle shape, but Jorell's stayed eggy.

"What the fuck?!" Demanded Jorell, he looked to Henry. "Give me yours! Quick!" The husks were slamming onto the door now, and some dents were starting to appear.

Henry handed Jorell his rifle and Jorell handed Henry his, but the moment the rifle touched Jorell's gloved fingers it immediately retreated back inside its shell, and when Jorell's egg touched Henry's similarly gloved fingers, it became a rifle.

Jorell growled lowly, "goddamn aliens don't like me, then fuck it!" He tossed the rifle away angrily, "we'll figure it out later!" He looked around for anything that looked like a bomb, and found a basket in the center of the room, filled neatly with small egg-shaped devices. "Willard, come over here and grab one of these!" Willard dashed over and picked one of the small eggs up, it transformed into a glowing device with a button on top. "Perfect!" Jorell started grabbing as many as his hands could carry at a time and started chucking them at the door.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Henry practically shrieked.

"These have to be bombs – they have to be!" If they weren't, they were as good as dead; even with the alien guns, they probably didn't stand as much of a chance. "So when they break in, you shoot 'em!" Jorell took the bomb from Willard and threw it too at the door, a small pile of them was starting to form.

The door groaned loudly – one piece even came free of its resting place and revealed a group of two dozen bloodied husks bodily slamming into it, trying to break it down through sheer weight of numbers.

"Fuck! Get ready!" Jorell braced his hands against the basket and pushed, it took a lot of effort but it did finally tip over, the last of the bombs rolled behind him and his squad.

The husks didn't let them prepare for much longer, with that one structural weakness introduce to the door's frame, all of their numbers backed off as one, and then charged the door, slamming their entire collective mass into it and causing it to fly off of its hinges. Either the door's locks were horrible, or they were the only ones in this entire building to have actually aged – regardless, Jorell, Henry, and Willard all opened fire.

The first bright green lance of alien death slammed into one of the small eggs, it detonated in a massive green, web-like dome of spinning energy, it expanded for several feet as it leeched onto and burned everything it touched. The other grenades detonated upon contact with the first's dome, and before they knew it, half of the armory had been incinerated and almost turned to slag by the raw heat and energy created by the grenades.

The husks, for all their durability against ballistic weaponry, hadn't stood a chance. Not a one was left standing.

"Holy shit! These things are fucking awesome!"

"Shut up! We need to get the hell out of here!" Jorell shouted, "form up! We're in hostile territory now!" He assumed his position in the middle, Henry took point and Willard had their rear, and they surged forward quickly but carefully, not willing to take a single risk against the hundred-plus thousand year old alien biological death traps. "Is anyone up? This is Private Jorell'Sahn, is anyone up?!" He called out into his radio, his voice not going past the muted audio filters of his helmet, he was met with silence. "God damn it!" He unmuted himself, "we're on our own, no one is answering." He whispered.

"Shouldn't that be enough of a reason to run like hell?! We've mapping out this entire facility, we know where the exit is!" Henry whispered as loud as he could.

"And so does our enemy, and they've had a lot longer to set up than we've had! Now shut the fuck up and keep going!" Jorell didn't appreciate having no alien gun with him, but he'd trust these two enough to keep him safe.

They made it halfway to their goal before another thunderstorm of pounding footfalls told them they were about to be met with a great deal of husks. "Run like hell!" The time for subtlety was over – their motion trackers said they had close to two dozen husks on their six, and they all were running for them as fast as they could.

Jorell, Henry and Willard sprinted, the details of the area around them became a blur, they worried not about the blaring red lights and the clashing blue ones, nor did they care about the bloodstained and bullet-sprayed halls they barreled through. They didn't register that there were no bodies anywhere to be found, just as they didn't really care that blind-firing their alien weaponry as they were could harm them just as easily as it was harming the alien husks, all they cared about was getting out of that vault as fast as they could.

Henry and Willard managed to take down, or at the very least injure, three of the terrifying creatures through sheer luck and blind, wild fire, by the time they crossed the vault's threshold. They saw a few wide-eyed and justifiably concerned Marines waiting for them at the vault's entrance, and Jorell's group didn't even bother stopping as they thundered on past them.

"Run for your fucking lives!" Jorell yelled at them as he screamed past them, the only other encouragement they needed was the sight of two dozen alien creatures slipping and sliding across the ground and smashing into each other and whatever walls were too close for their momentum's sake, before they started trying to gain traction on the ground again so they could sprint after the marines like the rabid men they were successfully trying to imitate.

Jorell's small squad plus the new guys ran faster than they'd ever ran before as they started climbing the caves, "we'll make a stand at the cave mouth! You -" He pointed at the fastest looking new guy, "- run like hell to our FOB and get as many motherfuckers as you can!" He shouted as daylight started covering the ground.

He got a few affirmatives, but didn't care for the ones he didn't get, he was too focused with survival. When they all breached the cave mouth, Jorell, Henry, Willard, and the reinforcements halted wholesale and took up positions at the entrance to the cave, with Willard and Henry having the straightest shots thanks to their heavy weaponry. The Marine Jorell had pointed out didn't even pause in his sprint – he ran faster, Jorell heard him start shouting, huffing and puffing into his helmet radio as he made it out of the cave, but he ignored it, instead steadying his rifle against his shoulder and staring through the sight of his loaded weapon into the mouth of the dark, oppressive cave, as the sound of thunderous, murderous footfalls reached his auditory canals and the ears of his comrades.

"What the fuck are those things?!" He heard a Marine ask.

"No clue! Light 'em up!" Willard shouted before he and Henry unleashed alien death upon the first Husks they saw.

The alien weapons were proving very effective against the Husks, their raw heat burned the husks to crisps and nullified the machines on their skin healing their injuries. It took a few seconds of sustained contact for the blistering hot beams of green death to pierce their skin and start burning and cutting through whatever was behind them, but the fact remained that these weapons were effective. Bullets, on the other hand, were not as effective, it seemed that for every one Husk that couldn't be taken down by the alien rifles, all of the Human weapons were needed, pouring down lead, to blast them into little, gory pieces and put them out of their terrifying misery. Unfortunately for them, they could never coordinate all of their fire onto a single target, and as such the only ones who could effectively put down enemies were Henry and Willard – and everyone, Alliance and Alien, knew it.

"Keep our heavies covered!" Jorell yelled out as more and more of the horrible husks started going for them, and while the Marines did all shift their fire onto the horrifying, gangly gray creatures that weren't being sliced apart by ancient weaponry, they couldn't hold them off forever – their enemy was too many and they were too few.

Their first casualty wasn't one of their alien gunners but a Marine who hadn't been checking his motion trackers, the Husk's mouth was so large that when he bit into the man's neck, half of it was ripped off in a gory shower of blood, leaving too little for the dying marine to even gurgle. Jorell had the unpleasant honor of being the one to see that pale-skinned Marine die, and despite the maelstrom of death and chaos around him, he couldn't fail to notice the blood gushing out of the man's neck and throat, and the burbling bubbles morphing and popping nearer his chest – the air from his lungs having no where to go but literally out, which led to the vicious display of popping blood bubbles, a macabre similarity to what some of Jorell's Human friends would have done when they were children – blowing bubbles in their milk specifically to watch them bubble up and pop.

Jorell tore his gaze away and poured lead into his target, which whipped around at the exact moment his rifle clicked on empty. Worse for the Quarian, his tactical vest was bone dry for his rifle's magazines. With a terrified shout, Jorell dropped his rifle and whipped out his pistol, but if his rifle did barely any damage to the creature, his pistol did none at all, and each time it barked out another standard-issue bullet, the looming creature simply shrugged it off like a gnat.

With another rifle taken out of the mix, more Husks were able to focus their efforts on the now back-to-back alien gunners, and Henry and Willard's hands were starting to burn as their rifles fired without end. One Husk breached their defenses and hauled the younger of the two into the air, Henry screamed for his life as the Husk slapped his alien gun out of his hands and took a massive bite out of his face. Jorell's Husk was now looming dangerously over him, as if savoring the moment before it feasted upon Jorell's flesh, muscles and organs.

His pistol clicking on empty, Jorell prayed to his ancestors that, at the very least, that this damn thing was levo-amino, so he could give the damned thing, at best, a bad case of indigestion, and at worst, he'd kill it from an allergic reaction. His prayers were answered, however, in another way – with a loud howl, three packs of six Wolf-mechs arrived on the scene, with one gleaming steely machine leaping onto Jorell's Husk and chomping on its throat.

When the mech and the alien hit the ground, the mech quit munching on the alien so its throat-cannon could arm itself and spit machine-gun caliber bullets onto the Husks' face. These massively larger projectiles at point-blank range demolished the creature's face and killed it before it could counter-attack the heavy machine. The moment the Husk stopped twitching, the mech switched-out magazines for its machine gun and sprinted back into the fray.

Now with numbers on their side, the Humans had a far easier time fighting the Husks. An enraged Willard was blasting apart any Husk that got near him or any of his Marine allies, not caring that his hands were now blisteringly hot and would likely come out with first or second degree burns as a result of this encounter. Jorell could do little else but watch – his pistol did nothing to these monsters – but he didn't do nothing for long, because when the last of the Husks were isolated and cornered, the vengeful and livid Humans and their mechanized assistants laid waste with extreme prejudice.

The battle was over, Jorell fell to his hands and knees, exhausted. "Are we clear?" He pleaded.

"Clear!" Said a Marine, as the sounds of vehicles greeted all of their ears.

"Good..." He ripped off his mask and vomited, the first thing Jorell had seen when he'd looked up was the skin-less, shredded, bitten-off face of Henry. The gory display burned itself in Jorell's mind and made its way instantly down to his stomach which, as the adrenaline dump kicked in, couldn't handle all the stress and had to empty itself entirely. In less than one day he'd seen more people die than most people could claim to see in their entire lives, and the ways they had died were simply horrifying to the green marine, he could not have claimed, in his wildest dreams, he was prepared for this. Jorell didn't stop vomiting until there was nothing else, and then he fell face-first in the pool of vomit and lost consciousness, his tired and stressed body unable to even provide him the courtesy of avoiding the pool of sick.

A/N:

Never said the Saltorians would be the only OC Race I'd toss in.
(And if I did, I never said I wouldn't change my mind later. And if I did that, then I'm a fool and I'm scared as to what else I've said.)

That being said, this isn't the last we'll have heard from these Painters, or their 'friends', not by a long shot.

I'm on Twitter, folks! ProfFartBurger .
If you, like me, don't appreciate a character limit, you can always check out my Profile, for more lengthier, in-depth updates.

'Till next time!

-PFB