Codex Entry: Crystallized Eezo.
Like most elements, Element Zero has a crystallized form, but the process to which crystalline Eezo is created is almost primitive in nature. The one way that it has been created, due to the experimentation of Cerberus on Agent Ares is the extreme condensation of element zero in an organic body. This causes Element Zero to seemingly grow out of the host, causing crystallization of the body and internal organs. It is unknown what happens when the body is completely crystallized, though it is assumed that the subject will die. Agent Ares, the only known host to crystallized Eezo, despite the degree his body has changed, has not yet died of organ failure, despite 80% of his lungs, 10% of his heart, 33% of his digestive system, and 42% of his body being crystallized as of March first, 2181.
Conversation, captured on March 1st, 2181, by AMMO security devices between Michael Arias, current CEO of AMMO, and Samuel Shepard, presumed dead since 2172.
"The more you use the B.A.D, the more your body is going to continue to crystallize, look at these charts. We don't know what's going to happen to you Michael. You are my friend, and as far as I know, the only person who knows what the hell is going to happen in the future. We can't exactly rely on Sean to give us information, as his predictions are only true half of the time."
"Sam, I try not to use the device, but sometimes it is needed. Cerberus agents need to be dealt with. If it is realized that I'm not dead, then it won't be a stretch to figure out that you aren't, and neither of us want that. Don't worry, I've been taking precautions in case I don't make it as far as I've planned. Sean will be able to lead us, along with Kil'tasi's cooperation, we'll have fleets in the terminus ready for the Reapers."
"What good are they if they don't have their admiral?"
"Sam, I wasn't the one meant to lead them. Athena is, as much as you oppose it. She will be the first SpecTRE, she will find the conduit, which I've already given the go ahead to recover it after she uses it."
"You put so much trust in someone else, haven't you learned your mistakes? We can't trust other people to do what needs to be done, look at Lawson, as soon as we let her in, she turned on us. So much for thinking you had an ally in her."
"It was naive of me to think we could turn her so fast, I'll admit that, but Shepard will do everything we need her to, as long as we don't try to stop her."
"Michael, we need to be smart about this, how can we influence Shepard to become the person we need her to, if we have no idea what she is thinking?"
"Don't worry, I have a plan."
"You always have a plan."
"Yeah, well this one isn't thought of on the spot. I've spent seventeen years thinking this up. How is recruitment going?"
"We've been able to convert half of the blue suns mercenaries that we've hired into AMMO security, a quarter of the eclipse, and five percent of the Bloodpack, mostly Krogan that have a bone to pick with the current leaders."
"Acceptable numbers, that gives us a sizable army, continue recruitment efforts, the less we pay the mercenaries for their help, the more reliable the armies become. What about the Silent Truth?"
"It's last report was received a month ago, right on schedule. They reported something on their long range sensors, large and plentiful. Do you think-"
"Activate the Quantum Entanglement Comms relay, I need to give them these next orders myself."
"Its still experimental, we have no idea if it works."
"It'll work, trust me, and we don't have the time to let them dawdle out there, especially next to the reapers. They should be completely deactivated right now, waiting for Nazara to activate the Citadel relay. We need the crew of the Silent Truth to tether one of the larger ones away so that they can strip it down and study it with the experimental neural dampeners."
Kyon took a deep breath as the door to the ruins closed, and the AC installed in the doorway turned on. He was about to say something when he remembered that him complaining would be taken the wrong way considering the only other person with AC in their suit, would be Tali, and even he didn't know if she actually did or not. He only assumed. He looked around and sighed, "So, anyone want to bet that there is some sort of lava river in the walls of this place?"
"Wouldn't surprise me if the Prothean ruins built here were geo-thermal powered," Michael replied as he pulled out his sniper rifle, then removed the scope from it, "if they did, that means they could still be active."
"Who cares, let's get the Asari and get out of here," Athena told them as she switched to her shotgun, "Unless we trigger some sort of self-destruct mechanism, I don't think we have to worry about lava gushing out of the walls."
Michael looked at Athena and sighed, "You are batshit insane Athena," he told her as he kept moving forward.
"Shut it, you were thinking the same thing," She responded smiling as she moved forward, obviously happy that she was able to perturb the Spec Ops officer.
"Yeah, but I would wait until I know we can get out first, then I would blow the place to hell."
"Can we stop talking about blowing up a fucking volcano?" Kyon interjected as he walked in front of the two trigger-happy psychos, "I mean, I would really like it if I got out of this place with all of my limbs attached to my body." He took a deep breath as he looked back at the group, "So, unless you want to stand in this godforsaken place, let's get a move-"
Kyon's rave about the insanity that was Shepard and Michael was cut off by the sound of pulse rounds hitting Kyon's kinetic barrier, "Get down, dumbass!" Michael shouted as he tackled Kyon to the ground, his sniper rifle flying from his hand as he landed badly, "Athena, Tali. Singularity, Overload."
The two women responded on instinct, and followed Michael's commands, the resulting combination creating an explosion and throwing the two Geth over the railing. Michael stood up and looked in the direction his sniper flew in, and sighed as he saw only the scrape marks left from it falling over the rails, Michael silently cursed as he pulled out a pistol and knife.
"What are you going to do, stab them to death?" Ashley asked as she offered her sniper rifle to Michael, "I think this will be a bit more effective than the pizza cutter."
"Never underestimate the usefulness of a throwing knife in a world of kinetic barriers Ashley," Michael told her as he started walking forward again, "Especially when they are custom-made."
"Sorry about that," Kyon said as he stood up, looking to the side. Kyon mentally kicked himself for being useless, it wasn't a feeling he liked very much. In fact, it probably contributed more to his affinity to technology than anyone would ever know. Kyon made sure his Bio-Reg was working, and hit it a bit, "Prototypes," he muttered under his breath as he followed Michael, and followed by the rest of the group.
"So," Ashley said after about thirty seconds to break the silence, "It seems like you and Shepard know each other, Ares. Would you like to tell us how you two met?"
"Old friends," Athena said before Michael could answer, looking at him to see what he would say.
"I put her forward for the N program," Michael said after a few seconds, deciding it was safe to tell them that, "Then advised the Admiralty board to consider Athena for the honor of being SpecTRe," Michael shrugged as then came to an elevator, "All aboard."
"You put my name forward?" Athena asked as everyone got into the elevator.
"Not officially no, I'm still dead in public records. I had the Quarian-human ambassador do it for me, he's a good friend of mine from my days in university, Edward Torres."
"Uncle E.T.?" Tali asked as she was taken aback, "I didn't know he had become an ambassador."
"Only person suited for the job Tali," Michael said as he looked to the side and pressed the elevator button to go down, "Hear that?"
Everyone was silent as they tried to listen to what Michael had heard, "Rotors?" Kyon asked as he realized what they were, "drones?"
"Good ear, drone rotors," Michael said as he smiled at Kyon, "now why can't we see where these drones are?" Michael threw his knife, which was connected to his wrist via an Omni-string. The knife stopped in mid-air, and revealed a drone that was hiding with a cloak, "Interesting, I've never seen Geth use this type of strategy before."
"What strategy?" Tali asked as she watched the drone, "That drone doesn't have a weapon,"
"It's observing us," Michael pulled the drone towards them and grabbed it.
The rotors on the drone turned off, and Michael examined it even more, "The rotors are just for show, they weren't doing anything besides making a little noise," he said as he turned the drone over and opened the back of it, "It seems even the Geth have factions," he said seemingly to himself as he pulled out a OSD, "Smart bastard," he said to himself, "Disappear for a few weeks, then give me a message in a place you knew I would be."
"What are you talking about?" Tali asked staying as far away from the drone as possible, "What if that thing was booby trapped?"
"Please, Edward's a pacifist," Michael responded as he let go of the drone, "Tell him thanks for the update," Michael said before the drone disappeared, "Did I mention Edward has been to Rannoch?" Michael said as he looked at Tali, who's glowing eyes seemed to get wider. Before Tali could ask about what Michael had just said the elevator stopped abruptly, "But," Michael said as he kept himself up, "that is a conversation for another time."
Michael jumped down to the floor and motioned that it was clear, "I think I see the entrance to the ruins," he announced as he made his way forward.
"Don't go off on your own!" Shepard shouted as she followed him forward.
The rest of the group followed, not wanting to be left behind, or worse caught separated from the seemingly invincible weapons that were Commander Shepard and Agent Ares. Kyon took a deep breath as out of the corner of his eye he saw a green holographic orb on the level below them, where Ares and Shepard were going. He was about to ask Tali about it when the voice in the back of his mind told him to not mention it.
Kyon made a grunt to himself due to his annoyance at his inability to even decide what he could talk about, and this drew Ashley's attention to the red-headed engineer, "What's wrong?" She asked out of curiosity.
"Nothing, just having an internal argument with the voice in my head, and trying not to seem insane at the same time. It's quite hard, I must tell you," Kyon could tell that Ashley thought that it was simply a deflection off of what he was actually thinking, but he was telling the truth. Ever since the voice started appearing, he's had less and less control over what he did. He was starting to wonder if that strange device he made for that alien had other effects other than time travel. He took a deep breath as he placed his gloved hand on his helmet. After the group got down to where the overly eager operative was, he looked at the orb again, but this time had the urge to touch it, "Make up your damn mind," he said to the voice as he walked over to the orb, taking his gun out in case a Geth trooper decided to pop up from the shadows.
Everyone else hadn't noticed Kyon slip away from the group, due to their sudden facination with the Asari levitating on the other side of the blue barrier. Shepard decided to start interrogating the woman while she couldn't get away, or put up much of a fight, but it didn't really work due to her threats not being very feasible at the moment.
"I don't know about my mother," the woman pleaded as she tried to move her arms, but I am perfectly sure that we can discuss this in further detail once we are out of these ruins, and away from the Geth!" She shouted the last part as the force holding her in the air was released, dropping her like a tone of bricks.
Following that event, was the barrier falling down, and everyone looked around, "Hey, where's Kyon?" Tali asked as she looked to their left, and saw the red-headed man picking up some sort of glowing machine from a compartment that had opened in front of him.
"What did you just do?" Michael asked as he looked over at Kyon, "Never mind, the barrier is down, so let's get out of here."
"I agree," Shepard said as she walked over to the Asari, "Miss T'Soni, while I highly doubt you have anything to do with your mother aiding Saren, you still have to come with us," she grabbed the Asari by the arm, and dragged her deeper into the complex, "There's an elevator back there, right? Can you turn it on?"
"I might be able to, last time I tampered with this facility I got caught in some security field though," she told Shepard as she tried her best to keep up with the woman dragging her, while the rest of the group followed close behind.
Liara started pressing buttons on the console, then looked up, "The power has been disconnected," she looked over at Kyon who had just arrived with the rest of the group, "What is that?" She asked looking down at the box he was carrying in his hand.
"I have no idea," he told her as he lifted it up, "I found it inside of some hidden compartment, then all the lights in this place went out."
Everyone looked at Kyon before Michael slapped him in the back of the head, "Next time you have the ability to pull something out of Prothean ruins, resist the urge to act like a child."
Kyon rubbed the back of his head as he put the box down, "Oh, like you wouldn't? Shepard touches everything in existence hoping to find a new gun," Kyon said referencing their little escapade where Athena was searching through a box, and failed to notice the Geth trooper behind her, only half an hour ago.
Everyone then turned their head at Shepard who was examining the differences between two pistols, "What?" She asked as she broke one down into Omni-gel, "Having the right gun for the job is crucial in my line of work. I am a SPECtre after all."
Michael shook his head in disappointment, "This is the person who's hands I put the fate of the galaxy in," he muttered under his breath so that no one could hear it. After a few moments, Michael took the box from Kyon, "I'm keeping this with me for the time being, knowing your luck, it'll explode or something."
Kyon took a deep breath as he looked at his Omni-tool, hoping for an idea to hit him, "How are these Omni-tools powered?" He asked as he turned to Tali.
"Well, that depends on-"
"Fast explanation please," Kyon said as he moved to the control console and ripped the top of it off, "I want to get out of here before lava falls on my head."
"Ours are powered the energy released from our bodies when an electrical pulse flows through our bodies, but when we where armor, they receive additional power from the armors power unit," Tali answered quickly as she looked over Kyon's shoulder.
"Thought it would be something like that," Kyon said as he attached a few of the wires from the console to his Omni-tool, "I really hope this works, if not, I'm going to have a lot less arm."
Kyon opened his Omni-tool, then rerouted the power systems of his armor to power the console. Then he took a couple more wires from the console and pushed them together. Ever so slowly, the elevator started going up
"Why does this feel slower than the elevator on the Normandy?" Shepard asked impatiently as she paced back and forth between two crates.
Suddenly there was a loud crash on one side of the elevator, and when the group looked up, there was a Krogan getting up from its long jump from the top floor.
"Hand over the Asari-" The krogan started, but was soon interrupted by the Shepard's biotic energy smashing into his body, and throwing him into the wall.
"Sorry, what was that?" Shepard asked as she started walking towards the Krogan.
Before she could get to the giant lizard there were five more thumps on the elevator, and each one was a geth trooper following the Krogan.
"Take cover!" Shepard shouted as she dived behind a crate and took out her pistol.
Kyon was in a predicament, because; one, he didn't have any cover by the command console, and two there was a geth trooper that landed right beside him, "Oh great, my luck," he said as he swung out with his left arm and hit the geth's face with his armored forearm, damaging the bio-reg. He followed up a barrage of stomps until the geth's head was practically a plate. While that was happening, Michael took it upon himself to take out the geth juggernaut. He charged the oversized geth trooper, jumped, and flipped in the air so that his feet landed on the chest of the geth. He pushed off immediately, flipping the juggernaut over a crate that was right behind it. Michael hit the ground with his hand as he drew the sword from his back, and swung his feet to the ground. Right after landing, he jumped at the machine again, this time with his sword held upside-down in both hands and stabbing downwards. His blade pierced the CPU of the juggernaut, deactivating the body. Tali and Ashley took cover from the geth's hail of fire, and blindly fired in the relative direction of the geth's position. In the corner of Kyon's vision he saw that his kinetic barriers were about to go down, and picked up the body of the geth and used it as a shield. When Kyon felt the elevator stop he threw ran into cover with the geth on his back.
"Tali!" Kyon shouted over the gunfire as he knelt in cover next to her, but immediately regretted it when he remembered the Geth on his back.
Tali turned to Kyon and almost shot him, "Kyon, don't run around with a Geth on your back!" she shouted as she ducked down, "Do you have a plan to get out of this?"
Kyon looked around and saw that the krogan was a biotic, "Yes, I do," Kyon activated the bio-reg, and ran at the krogan, "Shepard deal with the geth, I gat lizard face!" Kyon yelled as he ran in the direction of the battling biotics, "Hey, lizard face! I got something to tell you!" He touched Shepard's shoulder with his left hand, and smiled as the bio-reg lit up purple.
Shepard, now without her biotics for a second contemplated whether or not to shot Kyon for leaving her vulnerable, but decided that it would be better to get behind cover and focus on the remaining Geth.
"You," Kyon started as he punched him with his left hand, releasing Shepard's biotic energy and absorbing the Krogan's, "Are!" He released some of the energy he absorbed with his next punch to the lizard's face, stunning him "One ugly!" He brought his fists together and slammed them down on the krogan's head plate, splitting it in half, "Motherfucker!" the finishing blow was an uppercut to the jaw, but right as the punch connected, the last of the biotic energy in the bio-reg overloaded and exploded, sending both combatants flying in opposite directions.
Michael looked up from the juggernaut to see Kyon flying at him. He took out his pistol and loaded a concussive shot as he leaped out of the way of Kyon's trajectory. Just before Kyon hit the ground, Michael fired the concussive shot, and cushioned Kyon's landing. Michael then landed on the ground, and rolled over his shoulder into cover a meter away from the last of the geth. By this time, it had deployed its hexagon shield and were discharging the thermal clips from their pulse rifles. Just as it turned to start firing at Ashley and Tali's position, he vaulted over the crate and charged the trooper. The geth turned to fire at Michael, but didn't get the chance as Michael kicked the gun to the side with a spin kick, and followed it up with another kick, sending the geth to the ground. The geth's pulse rifle hit the hexagon shield and bounced right in front of Michael. He grabbed it from the air and smiled at the geth, "Say hello to your little friend," he pulled the trigger and watched as the plasma rounds shredded the internal circuitry of the geth trooper. The gun disassembled in Michael's hands, and became useless, "Well, that was a dream too good to be true," he sighed as he looked over to Kyon. It wasn't until right then that Michael noticed that Kyon's left forearm was missing, "Shit."
Kyon slowly opened his eyes, but immediately wanted to close them again, "What happened?" He asked as he tried to push himself up with both hands, only to fall to his left and feel a blinding pain near his elbow. Kyon rose to his knees as he pulled his arm into view, "My arm..." Kyon started trembling as he shook his head. Moments later he was screaming in agony as all the pain that he had subconsciously suppressed surfaced.
Tali ran over to Kyon's side and applied medi-gel to his arm, "Hang in there Kyon," she said as she tried to calm him down.
It was at this moment that the Krogan, who's face was now for the most part muscles and bone, gained consciousness and stood up. Seeing the redheaded man that had done the damage to him, he started charging at Tali and Kyon. Kyon who now had a semblance of awareness saw the Krogan coming, and pushed Tali out of the way. The krogan picked Kyon up and shoved him into a wall, "You did this to me," he sneered as he brought his fist up to punch Kyon. "Now I'll do the-"
The krogan was interrupted by a shotgun blast hitting him in the back. He looked at the person who fired at him, and saw Tali, "Don't touch him," she said threateningly as she fired again, but again the spray did nothing to the Krogan. Everyone readied their guns, but didn't fire out of fear of hitting Kyon.
"Run," Kyon said as he felt more blood drip from his arm, he looked down and came up with another plan, "Hey, ugly," he weakly coughed out, and as soon as the krogan turned back to him, he made a punching movement with what was left of his left arm, and blinded the krogan with his blood. The krogan let go of Kyon as he tried to clear his eyes of the blood. As soon as he hit the ground, the rest of the team let loose a volley of fire at the blinded krogan, finally finishing him off.
Kyon slowly tried to stand up again, and felt a three fingered hand help him up, "Thanks Tali," he said without looking. He started walking towards the exit of the cave, but before he could even leave the prothean complex he fell to the ground, unconscious from bloodloss.
Message communiqué recorded between Michael Arias and Edward Torres (ET) in 2171
Michael: ET, I've received reports of Geth scouts entering alliance space and leaving after an hour or so, supposedly on the same paths that the flotilla is on, is this in any way related to what you are doing?
ET: I have no idea what you are talking about.
Michael: Sure you don't, that's why you are getting binary messages from unknown senders to your Omni-tool every day.
ET: You know, if you know I'm going to lie, why do you ask the question in the first place?
Michael: Because, I need to know that I can still trust you to do what's in the best interest of the galaxy, not just for the Quarians.
ET: Relax, I already said I would go along with your plans, you don't need to spy on me.
Michael: Can you at least tell me why you are in contact with the geth, or at least how you came into contact with the geth?
ET: Sorry, that would take way longer than I have time for, you know.
A/N: Sorry for the long gap between chapters, I've been writing original works for the time between the gap, so hope you can forgive me. I love you guys who stick with this story, even though it isn't very regularly updated, especially now that I have more to do in my life, like actual work.
Arias out