MASS MISCALCULATION
Episode 3- Lamenting on the past
Finding the bridge took longer than Aaron would have liked to admit, but on the bright side he was finally at the bridge. seeing all three merc bands shooting a lone, helmeted turian sniper clad in blue Aaron hopped to the bridge he assumed was the one he was looking for, he saw A LOT of bodies on the bridge. As members from all three merc groups tried to cross the bridge, bodies were literally spilling over the edge as the lone turian sniper shot them all. 'Jeez, wonder who this guy is? Wish he didn't have the helmet… well, better go say hi. Dude better not shoot me when I sneak up on him…' Aaron thought as he landed on the elevated floor of the room Archangel was in. Aaron closed his eyes and waved, smiling and saying, "Hey, sniper dude, how's it going, I'm- Jesus, what the hell!?" Aaron suddenly shouted as he narrowly avoided getting shot at by a surprised Archangel. "I was only saying 'hi' and you shoot me!? The hell's your problem!?"
"You're the one who sneaked up on me!" a familiar voice said through the helmet.
"Wait, that voice… never mind, we gotta get you out of here before you end up like my 'we need you' poster in my old high school dorm!"
"…What?" Archangel said after a moment of confusion.
"I used it as a dartboard for knives, can we just go or not!?"
"Not yet. I was looking through my scope and I saw commander Shepard. We need to wait for him"
"What the hell for!? The plan was I get you while he sabotages the mercs!"
"He's with you?"
"Yeah, and he'll meet us later, now let's bounce!"
"I can't just yet"
"They're better be a damn well good reason before I go Archdemon on your ass…"
"There are some high-ranking targets from all three merc groups that have been causing trouble I need to kill. I do that, then we can leave"
"Sonofa- what if I just go down there right now and kill them all?"
"Yeah, good luck with that"
"Thanks!" Aaron shouted as he jumped onto the middle of the bridge.
"What the- I didn't you you were serious, damnit!" Archangel shouted down to him. All of the mercs immediately stopped shooting and looked at Aaron.
"Um… what's a kid doing here?" a Blue Sun asked.
"What the hell- that's Aaron! Everyone! Forget Archangel, this guy has a bigger payoff, kill him!" A salarian Eclipse merc said. Aaron chuckled, dark eezo arcing across his body.
"Hey, how about this, you let me and Archy go, and I'll let most of you live" Aaron offered. Most of the mercs snickered as they fired at him. "Ah well, I needed the practice anyway" Aaron said as a circular ripple appeared in the air with a black energy ridge, indicating a deployed energy shield. All of the grain-sized bullets hit the shield, magnetically suspended in the air, before they all became black warp shots, shooting in random directions back at the mercs, killing a dozen. A large amount of dark energy arced around Aaron's arms as he raised them, sending the energy into the air. All the mercs looked up in confusion before black lightning with a cyan hue hit the bridge, heading towards the mercs. They all tried to take cover, which was a fatal mistake, seeing as the majority of them were fried anyway. "Okay, I'm out of that stuff… well, still got these" Aaron said, firing a fire blast at the mercs as he pulled the hilt of the lazor razor out, flicking it and causing the cyan plasma blade to extend out of it.
"Where's the damn mechs!?" someone shouted.
"They're not responding! Someone hacked them all into permanent shutdown! We have to-gah!" another shouted as he was shot by a still sniping Archangel. Aaron gave him a thumbs-up as he jumped at the rest of the mercs, slashing the salarian before in half, dark-green blood splashing on the ground as a krogan followed by two others came out, biotics flaring around his body.
"Time to end this, clan killer!" he shouted.
"Jeez, every krogan, you guys just won't let that go, will you?" Aaron sighed.
"You stole thousands of gallons of ryncol!"
"Yeah, well, I needed that ryncol. So your from Blood Pack, I presume?"
"Yes, and when I kill you, the krogan will- eh?" he said as Aaron turned his O.M.G into a mine thrower, shooting a mine at his feet.
"So, yeah, um… that's kind of gonna explode… never mind" Aaron said as the mine exploded, blasting apart all three krogan. When Aaron turned around, he saw Shepard shoot the rest of the mercs, nodding his head. "Well, that's everyone, let's go- wait, something's wrong"
"What?" Shepard asked.
"Well, there was the Eclipse leader, the salarian, the Blood Pack krogan…. We're missing the Blue Suns leader!" Aaron shouted as a dropship appeared next to the building where Archangel was in, firing a missile into it. "Damnit, no!" Aaron shouted, jumping up to the dropship and cutting it in half with his sword, the two halves exploding and dropping off to the abyss under the bridge. When Aaron, Shepard, and Mordin went up to Archangel, they saw dark blue blood everywhere as a wounded Archangel choked on his own blood, his helmet being blown off, along with a segment of his blue armor. "Is it me, or does he seem familiar?" Aaron asked upon seeing the holographic visor on one of his eyes.
"Oh my god… it's Garrus!" Shepard gasped, rushing over to his fallen friend.
"Well, how was I supposed to know!? All you aliens look the same to me"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Mordin asked, narrowing his large eyes.
"…Nothin'…" Aaron said, quickly turning to the almost dead turian. "Yeah, so I guess we should get him to a hospital, otherwise he's smoked"
"There's no time! We have to get him to the medbay on the Normandy!"
"Wait wait wait, hold up, that got blown up"
"Cerberus made a new one, can you take him back, your faster than us!"
"Yeah yeah, it parked in that one docking bay next to the club?"
"Yeah, just go!" Shepard yelled. Aaron carefully picked Garrus up and slung him across his shoulders, sprinting and jumping across the buildings. Eventually he found the docking bay, with what looked like a perfect replica of the Normandy parked… with a giant Cerberus insignia painted on the sides.
"Oh, hell no, that has got to go later on…" Aaron said as he jumped to the ships open cargo bay, remembering where the elevator was and hitting the button. "Come on, come on, come on you fucking slow elevator…" Aaron said, tapping his foot impatiently as they opened into the middle deck. "Hey, Gardener or whatever your name is!" Aaron waved to the cook as he rushed into the medical bay, dropping Garrus into a bed. He turned around to see a shocked doctor Chakwas behind him. "Oh hey, Chakwas, so, um… we found Garrus, and he's, well… dying, so can you fix him up while I go?" Aaron said, leaving the medical room before the doctor could utter a word. He jumped back into the elevator and rode it back down to the cargo bay, leaving the ship and running into the market district. "There is no way in hell I'm going to be riding around in that thing, not without some style, at least…" Aaron muttered as he jumped away.
Garrus and Shepard were walking away from the briefing room, Garrus rubbing his now permanently scarred face. "Shepard, I swear, you had time to hack those mechs, but you couldn't have blown up the dropship or something as you walked by it? You said you were alone after you electrified that batarian"
"Look, I'm sorry, but at least your not uglier than you used to be"
"Still gonna get more girls than you"
"Hey, you know where Aaron is?"
"I'm right here" Aaron said suddenly, popping up from behind them, startling them both. "Damn, Aaron, where did you come from?"
"Um, just came back"
"From where…?"
"Oh, I saw that Cerberus insignia, so I made some… modifications to the ship"
"Joker's not going to like that…"
"Oh, relax, it's an improvement, honest! Come and see" Aaron said, beckoning to them both. "Hey, Joker, come out with us" Aaron called out to the intercom.
"Yeah, sure, just give me a minute" he said. When they all went outside, they all stared at what Aaron had done to the Normandy. "What the hell did you do to my baby!?" Joker yelled.
"What, I just gave her a new paintjob"
"Aaron, how did you do that in a few hours?" Garrus asked.
"You know, super speed, Omni paint, heat blast to dry it quicker, was pretty easy"
"That doesn't make any sense, work like this would take AT LEAST a week…"
"Super powers, son"
"But-"
"Garrus, don't argue with me, super powers is the answer to everything. And Nanomachines. And thirty-one" they all stared at the newly painted Normandy, Garrus in confusion, Joker and Shepard in horror, and Aaron smiling. The parts that were painted black remained black, with the white upper half painted purple, the Cerberus insignia on both sides being redone to be a Saints fleur a darker shade of purple, the yellow line glossed to look gold. "Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you… the Saints Normandy!" Aaron said proudly, gesturing to the ship.
"…The Illusive Man is not gonna be happy about this…" Shepard commented.
"Eh, fuck 'im, guy already hates me anyways"
"Why, what'd you do?"
"That fact I know his name is enough reason for him to try to kill me. And my powers. And I blew his base up…"
"You what!?"
"Well not the main base he lives on, just a secondary but yet still major base. I'll tell you guys later, but Joker, you have to admit, a fleur is better than that Cerberus insignia, right?"
"What is the meaning of this!?" said a female voice. They all turned to see a pissed-looking Miranda staring at the purple ship.
"This is art, Miranda. You try painting a ship like this in a few hours!" Aaron yelled.
"I can't believe this! No, I won't have this, the ship needs to be repainted, right now!"
"I would, but… you know, I'm out of credits for paint, and, well… I don't really want to. I also don't want to"
"I'm not giving you a choice here!"
"I thought Shepard was the commander here?"
"That doesn't- wait, are you really out of credits?"
"Naw, I got, like, forty-two hundred billion"
"What!?" Shepard shouted. Aaron shrugged, smiling awkwardly. "It was a busy two years, dude" he then started walking back to the ship, saying, "And don't try to take it off, because I'll know. And if you hire anyone to paint over it, I'll kill them. And if you blow the armor off so we're forced to get a new paintjob, well, your just being reckless at that point" Aaron chuckled as he walked back into the ship, leaving a fuming and sputtering Miranda behind.
"Shepard. How goes you mission?" the Illusive Man said through the holographic projection. They were off of Omga now, heading towards the prison space station to pick up 'Jack', a overpowered human biotic. Shepards was in the briefing room now, talking to the Illusive Man now.
"Good, we got all the people we needed to get on Omega" Shepard answered.
"Yes, speaking of which, I'd like to talk to you about one of those people…"
"Let me guess: Aaron?"
"Correct. Shepard, do you know what exactly it is you have on that ship?"
"From what I know, soon to be a pain in my side. Why?"
"Shepard… forgive my language, but do you know how much trouble that bastard has caused for me?"
"You seem infuriated"
"And I have good reason to be so. That man has caused more trouble for us than anything else in the entire galaxy. At first, we just tried to talk to him, do a few non-harmful tests on him. And what did he do? He destroyed my secondary main base of operations. I'd rather not say how, it was so idiotic, but… Shepard, EDI tells me that he painted over the Normandy. Is this true?"
"Yeah, I wasn't going to mention it, why, do you want him to paint it back?"
"I rather doubt he's going to listen to a word I say, just… leave the paint, I suppose. I warn you, Shepard- Aaron's very volatile, if you don't keep a close eye on him, something bad can and will happen. I'm just warning you now, as to prevent future catastrophe"
"Thanks for the warning, but I think I can handle Aaron. He's stubborn, but nonetheless loyal, and he also seems to want to end the abduction of the human colonies, like we do"
"Excellent. Well, I'll leave you to your mission. Gather the rest of the team up. We'll need them if we are to stop the collectors" the Illusive Man said, deactivating the hologram. Shepard sighed, running his hand over the orange, glowing scars on his face as he walked out and into the elevator, heading to the messhall for some food. When he arrived, he saw that Mordin, Garrus, Jacob, a Cerberus soldier, and Zaeed, a mercenary and bounty hunter Shepard picked up as part of his team, seated around him, all chuckling.
"So the council threatens to arrest me after I insult them, then I take my sword out and threaten to cut Udina's tongue out, next thing I know, all of C-sec is gunning for me. Anyway, long story short, stole a frigate, flew to Illium, had some fun adventures with a drell assassin, and basically bought another apartment there and have lived there ever since"
"How about the one with the dreadnaughts?" Garrus asked. Aaron was about to speak, but then he saw Shepard.
"Ah, Shepard! Pull a seat up, I'm just telling some stories" Shepard complied, pulling a chair up, then asked,
"Okay, so what's this one about?"
"Oh, this is how I blew up that Cerberus base , you'll love it. Anyway, it all started when-"
Illium apartment, "Aaron's crib". One year six months ago
"Alright Thane, I've been planning this for three hours now, I think I have it"
"Is this really the best of ideas?" the drell assassin asked.
"Yeah, it is. Three months ago, Cerberus started gunning for me and blew that sweet apartment up… now it's time for some payback. Anyway, you got a ride your not that emotionally attached to?"
"No, why?"
"Ah, shoot. Guess I'll just steal one. I need a ride to the Citadel, and I need you to come with me, I need an extra pair of hands. Oh, but one thing first, can you pilot a dreadnaught?"
"It's one of my many skills. What are you planning?"
"I'm gonna steal some dreadnaughts"
"…What?"
"It's all part of the plan, anyway, can you do it?"
"…-sigh-… what shall I be doing?"
"It's simple, when I give the signal, just jump in the cockpit of the dreadnaught I cleared out. I'll use the RC possessor gun on my O.M.G on another, and I'll pilot a third. We'll store it in that garage depot you know that doesn't ask questions, then we can start phase two"
"Which is…?"
"I'll tell you when we get to it. Now, can you help me?"
"You can pilot two ships at once?"
"Eh, probably, how hard can it be?"
"You know I can't take innocent lives"
"You're not, I'm doing that. Plus I need these ships. And you owe me for when I saved you getting your ass full of holes from that job on Thessia. Please…?"
"Fine, then. I will help you on this quest for vengeance, but know I don't offer this on any occasion."
"At least until I save you from getting swallowed by a thresher maw"
"That will never happen"
"Boss didn't appreciate that kind of negativity, and neither do I, now, let's steal us a spaceship!"
"We can just take mine"
"…You said you didn't have one!"
"I said I didn't have one I wasn't attached to. Let us depart" Thane said, gesturing to the door, and Aaron complied, leaving the crib with the assassin they got to the garage where Thane kept his ship, and Aaron whistled.
"That's a pretty nice ship… kinda small, you sure it can travel through mass relays?"
"I've done It before, now come on" Thane said as they both got into the ship. From what Aaron remembered of it, the ship was about half of the size of the Normady, sleek, and of course, thanks to Thane, black. He always needed black things.
"I wanna know what happened to that black widow sniper rifle I lent you, you know how hard it was to get that thing? Only spectres can use them, and even then, it's beyond regulation"
"Oh, I may have lost it while doing a small job involving a turian dignitary and a volus beneficiary"
"You dropped it down a building and it exploded, didn't you?"
"I apologize, and will find a way to acquire a new one for you"
"No, just- just forget it, I'll get it myself… you still owe me a couple hundred grand of credits though, jackass"
"Fair enough" Thane said in his usual calm voice as the ship flew off, hitting the mass relay and veering off into space, leaving an electric trail behind as the ship headed to the Citadel.
"I'm gonna take a nap to pass the time" Aaron said, slumping in his seat as he passed out.
His shoulder being shoved woke Aaron up from the strange dream he was having. In it, he was in a room full of billions, possibly infinite galaxies, and Aaron was there, along with five other people, who all seemed to be fighting, and a man he couldn't make out in a white suit trying to calm them. The last thing he remembered was a guy in a blue hoody stabbing him with a claw before Thane shook him awake. "Aaron, we have arrived, I'm docking now"
"Uh-huh, yeah, just park anywhere, we need to find out where the Fifth Fleet keeps their dreadnoughts"
"They're parked in that docking bay right over there"
"Yeah, that's nice Tha- wait, what!?"
"Yes, it seems they are on shore leave"
"Well, then this will be easy! I'll jump out, jack the ships, you pilot one, I'll pilot the other two, we take them to the depot, easy as swallowing a hanar!"
"…What?"
"Yeah, before I knew what they were, I though they were free samples of alien seafood that just kinda floated in the air, you know? So I swallowed one, and, well… I found out what they were… look, don't give me that look, the guys fine, I spit him out. Jeez"
"You realize that there will be heavy resistance? They aren't going to just let you steal three ships, they could follow us through the relay"
"I got a very simple solution to that"
"Which is, if I may ask?"
"I'm gonna slash apart any ship that follows us, then jump back to the dreadnaughts, we go through, lose 'em, stash the ships, easy as what we're about to do! Bye!" Aaron shouted as he jumped out of the ship… only to land on the ground surrounded by Alliance soldiers. "Hey, uh, soldier dudes… look, I'ma level with you, I kinda… need to borrow three of those dreadnaughts… hey, they're all empty, right?" When the soldiers nodded their heads, he hummed as he unsheathed the lazor razor. "In that case, I'm gonna go take a few of 'em!" Aaron said, vaulting into the air and avoiding the gunfire the soldiers were raining down on him. He sprinted to the ships, cutting down anyone in his way, and jumped into one, making sure it was empty, then jumped into another, making his way to the cockpit of the massive ship and forming the RC possessor, shooting a control dart into the dashboard of the cockpit. He jumped into the final one, making sure it was empty, before sending a fireblast up in the air, signaling Thane to sneak by while Aaron gunned down the remaining soldiers. "Okay, grab the one on the left, I got the other two!" Thane nodded in confirmation, and Aaron hopped in the cockpit of the third dreadnaught. Considering the size of the ships, it had overall taken Aaron ten minutes to clear them out. "Okay, now then… I got no idea how to fly this thing!" Aaron shouted. He heard a whimper, and saw a lightly armored soldier hiding behind a chair. "Hey, do you know how to pilot this thing?" Aaron asked the soldier.
"Uh.. Y-yeah, I do, I'm the pilot, why?" he asked. "Oh, that's great! Now fly this thing before I put a bullet where the information to fly this thing is" Aaron deadpanned, holding his black pistol to the pilots head. He nodded, getting into the pilots chair and preparing to fly the ship.
"Any location in particular?" the pilot asked. "Just follow the other two" Aaron said, pointing his gun to the other two leaving dreadnoughts. The pilot nodded, the ship starting to take. Aaron kept the gun on the pilots head while piloting the possessed ship with his RC gun, commenting, "Alright, just like controlling a toy spaceship… a giant, super-destructive spaceship… eh?" Aaron asked upon seeing about twenty Alliance frigates closing in on the dreadnoughts. "Uh-oh… hey I need to go for a minute, steer this ship off course and I'll space you" Aaron said to the quickly nodding pilot, Aaron nodding and heading to the cargo hold, leaving through the airlock and standing on the outside of the ship. Since he was the virtual being he was, he didn't need to breath, and seeing as how he didn't have blood, just those blue pixel… things, he could easily survive in space. And since space didn't have gravity, when he glided through the air, spreading his limbs, he actually flew through space, so reaching the frigates was an easy matter. "Alright, now to- wait, let me try something…" one of Aaron's powers was 'death from above', as Matt put it. Apparently he was going to give it to the Boss after he freed Gat, so Aaron was a guinea pig for it. Basically, while in the air, he could be suspended in it and choose precisely where to land, flying towards the landing spot rapidly and creating a small explosion where he lands. The best part was, if he was, oh say, a few hundred feet in the air, the force at which he could fly down was big enough to cause a nuclear explosion- one that was slightly larger than that a CAIN heavy weapon makes, with a much bigger blast radius. Aaron wasn't sure whether a death from above nuke would disable a frigate in one hit, but it was worth trying. At the very least it would heavily damage it. With a shrug, Aaron jumped into space, and after about ten second of flying straight up due to the lack of gravity, and hovered in the air suddenly, aiming at the closest frigate he saw. "Alright, this should he high enough, this is one of those moments… DEATH FROM ABOVE, BIIIIIIIIIIITCHEEEEES!" Aaron screamed as he rapidly flew down, a nuclear explosion the result of him hitting the frigate, a small, neon purple mushroom cloud forming. Aaron jumped off of the ship as it exploded, taking a few of the other frigates out with it. "Oh-ho-ho-ho, that worked. Better take out the rest…" Aaron muttered, doing the same thing to the remaining frigates. When he was done, all of the ships chasing them were now smoldering debris fields, and the Citadel was in chaos. Again. Aaron nodded in approval at his work and jumped back to the dreadnaught that he was supposed to be in right before it went through the mass relay.
"Well, thanks for the help, pilot dude, but… uh… I can't really have any witnesses, so… yeah, sorry about this. -Bang!-. Anyway, Thane, thanks for your help, there's just one more thing I need from you. Umm… can someone get rid of this?" Aaron asked as he shot the Alliance soldier and turned to Thane, a mechanic picking the body up. They were in the secret garage Thane knew of, the garage itself imbedded in a large meteorite, away from prying eyes.
"Aaron… what you did… it was such a waste of life…" Thane whispered, his hands pressed together in prayer. "Look, Thane, I know your into that whole drell religion thing, and I'm okay with that, this brother don't judge, but I had to do it"
"Do you realize how many soldiers were in those ships you killed?"
"Probably a lot… anyway! You think some of the workers here will do me a solid?"
"If you pay them enough, yes"
"Well, I need their help with phase two of the plan"
"What about me?"
"Oh, I just needed to know if the workers would do what I wanted, I don't need your help anymore, but thanks for helping me with the dreadnoughts! You going back to Illium?"
"Yes, I still have work that needs doing… enlighten me, exactly what will you be doing with the dreadnaughts?"
"Weeeelp, first I need ryncol, so I'll be heading to Tuchanka"
"Why do you need ryncol?"
"Well, I figured, 'the biggest explosions are always nuclear', right?"
"Well, not all, but most…"
"And ryncol is nuclear and flammable, right?"
"Yes… oh, no…"
"So… I was thinking-"
"Aaron, you aren't…"
"Look, Thane, that was one of the best apartments on the Citadel Cerberus blew up…"
"I thought you were going to sell those ships, or use them to attack Cerberus!"
"That would be stupid, my stealthy, green friend. You see, at first I was just gonna put some explosives on the dreadnoughts and ram them into the base, then blow them up, hoping that the mass effect drive cores would be enough to blow the base up, then I found out about ryncol. So basically I'm doing the same thing, except I'm gonna load the ships with ryncol before I blow them up"
"Aaron, that's… well, I suppose it's an insane enough idea to work… how do you plan on acquiring all of that ryncol?"
"That's where Tuchanka comes in. There's a distillery there that has almost all of the ryncol in the galaxy, it's where they make it. We're talking hundreds of thousands of gallons of ryncol"
"Do you know how much that is going to cost? I don't even think the krogan are going to give you a drop of that ryncol"
"They're not, I'm gonna kill all of the krogan at that distillery and steal it"
"Of course you are… exactly how are you going to do this?"
"Well, first I load some of the workers here in the dreadnaughts and fly them over to that irradiated planet. Then we land the ships at the distillery, I kill all of the krogan there, and I guard the place from krogan that'll investigate three giant ships landing on the planet while the workers load the ryncol on. Easy peasy! Then I'll initiate phase three"
"And I know I've asked a lot of these questions, so forgive my prying, but phase three is…?"
"Blow the hell out of Cerberus. Well, Thane, it's been fun, I guess this is where we depart. Good luck with that son of yours. Bye!" Aaron waved as he walked away to the boss of the vehicle depot. Thane waved back before asking, "Wait, what about my ship on the citadel?"
After talking with the boss of the depot- and paying him to send a worker to retrieve Thane's ship- the boss agreed to lend Aaron the mechanics and workers after promising that they wouldn't be subject to any harm. After assuring they wouldn't, Aaron paid the man, and the workers were loaded into the ships as they hit the mass relay to Tuchanka. When they arrived at the planet, Aaron opted to jump down from orbit and kill the krogan there while the ships landed. During his decent to the distillery, Aaron noticed how irradiated and just… ruined the planet was. He had been to Tuchanka before, but it seemed every time he came back, the planet looked worse. Maybe he was doing the krogan a favor by stealing all of their alcohol. It's not like it was going to be put to waste. All he was gonna do was blow it all along with Cerberus to hell. Oh, wait… 'Well…' Aaron thought as he glided to the middle of the distillery, landing softly as he slit a krogan's throat with his sword, 'Maybe this will show them some restraint. Or they'll murder everyone while going through withdrawal. Oh, well… I can't use guns or fire, don't want to blow the ryncol. Yet' Aaron finished thinking, cutting a patrol of two krogan in half. Thirty seconds later, he was hiding the body of the seventh krogan he stabbed when alarms started blaring. "Shit, they either found the bodies or they saw the ships landing" Aaron muttered as he saw the majority of the krogan in the facility gathering at the entrance as the dreadnoughts were landing. "Arrogant bastards, aren't they? Welp, should probably kill them now" Aaron said as he jumped into the middle of the group of krogan, startling a few but most just shrugging and turning their shotguns on him. Aaron just smirked as he chopped all of their shotguns in half, then cut the krogan in pieces as they looked at their broken shotguns in confusion. "Alright, krogan dead, ryncol about to be loaded… might as well give one last middle finger to the krogan before we leave…" Aaron smirked evilly as he set to work on the distillery.
After a couple of hours of killing straggler krogan and making sure no more were coming- they should really update their security system, you'd think more krogan would show up to save their precious ryncol- Aaron held the detonator to the explosives he had planted in the brewery in anticipation. He had learned long ago that because of the digital nature of his guns, and the fact that since the bullets just digitally constructed rendering his guns with infinite ammo, that the O.M.G could also spawn infinite amounts of C4 charges… along with a detonator so he could blow it all simultaneously. Aaron still didn't know how what he was would be scientifically possible. There was probably some explanation he wouldn't understand, so he just went with the simple answer of 'space magic'. he knew this wasn't the actual explanation, but it gave him less of a headache than what Tali had told him when he had first met the quarian. 'Wonder what she's doing nowadays…' Aaron wondered as a worker came up to him, nodding his head to confirm that all of the ryncol had been loaded. "All a'ight, cool. Just get into the dreadnoughts so I can get you guys back to your garage" Aaron said as he followed the workers inside the dreadnoughts, taking his sunglasses off momentarily as he hit the detonator as the ships hit orbit, the explosion being visible from how high they were.
"Man, I bet they're scrambling to get the hell out of that base. To bad I won't let them" Aaron chuckled darkly as he sat in the chair on Thane's ship at the observation window, the black dubstep gun rested at his side, playing hardcore rap music in honor of the Boss's favorite music, the ship being on a meteorite that overlooked the Cerberus base, yet was far enough away to not be blown up by the soon-to-be-tremendous explosion. After scouring countless labs and countless interrogations, he had finally learned the location of their main base of operations- a cliché big-ass base inside of an asteroid. Aaron had no doubt that they could easily rebuild this base, despite it's size. This was just a messge to indicate what he could do. Afterwords Aaron would lift off of the meteor the ship was resting on and then he would return and afterword relax at his crib on Illium. The dreadnoughts were slowly flying towards the base, having VI's installed into them which he had acquired from a neutral friend in the quarian fleet experimenting with geth after he had stolen the ryncol, and each ship was now on a collision course with the base, each filled to the brim with barrels of ryncol. Aaron had also made sure to slice apart the outer cannon defenses on the base, and jammed all of the blast doors and airlock doors shut, with the finishing touch being Thane's ship having special cameras on it able to record the entire thing, which Aaron would post on the extranet after he got back. "Okay, in ten… nine… eigh- oh, dragged it out to long" Aaron said as the ships collided with the base, Aaron raising a detonator. "Cerberus… you owe me an apartment" Aaron deadpanned, than laughed like a maniac and pressing the detonator button down, the C4 in the ships detonating, and all three exploding in a brilliant, bright white light. Aaron couldn't look away at the beautiful explosion before him. It was like three nukes firing off… times a hundred. After about five minutes, the dust settled, so to speak, the base being nothing more than a twisted hunk of metal, with absolutely no remains of the ships he had just blown up. "Well, I got my revenge on Cerberus! And only a thousand or so soldiers, a hundred krogan, and a ton of Cerberus scientists and soldiers were harmed in the making of this explosion. All in all, a pretty good job" Aaron said, laughing like a maniac as he lifted the ship off of the meteor, taking off back to Illium.
Present time, Normandy messhall
"And that's is one of the many reasons Cerberus wants to turn me into their next giant, mutated killer krogan" Aaron said, receiving varying stares from everyone.
"You stole… all of the krogan's ryncol?" Garrus asked. Aaron shrugged.
"Well, there's a reason they all hate me, I basically stole all of their booze" Shepard was shaking his head, muttering,
"No wonder the Illusive Man didn't want to tell me how you blew up his base" Aaron straitened in his seat, looking at Shepard with rage-filled eyes.
"When did you talk with him?" he asked Shepard slowly. "Before I came here, through the briefing room's QEC, why?"
"…You think I could have a word with him?"
"No!" Shepard said quickly. The Illusive Man was already upset at having Aaron on his ship. The last thing he needed was a rage-induced Aaron yelling at the man for blowing his apartment up, and the Illusive Man yelling at Aaron for blowing the base up, and whatever else Aaron had ever done to Cerberus. But there was one thing he wanted to get straight with Aaron.
"What was that about killing those soldiers?" Shepard asked.
"You heard me when I said it, why?"
"And you just killed them like that?"
"Jesus Shepard, your not gonna bark at me for killing all of those soldiers, are you?"
"Damn right I am, what gives you a right to kill those soldiers?"
"Shepard, in my old life, I was a member of the Saints, which became the best street gang on Earth, the Boss became the freaking president, for crying out loud! Plus there was that whole S.T.A.G incident, I killed military then, I'll kill 'em now. I don't see why I can't"
"It's immoral! Killing innocent soldiers like that…!"
"'Innocent'? Tell me Shepard, at the battle of Shanxi, how many 'innocent' turians died at the hands of those soldiers? And how many humans died because of the turians?"
"That's not the point! Your just changing the subject!"
"Oh, am I!? How many people outside of your crew believed the reapers were coming? I would think you had a grudge against the Alliance too!"
"That doesn't excuse your systematic murder!"
"There's some fine points your glossing over there, buddy"
"Oh, really? Like what?"
"You know why I threatened the Alliance in the first place? I got one answer: They hate me"
"What?"
"Every council race has a grudge against me: The salrians, they want to study me and find a way to apply my powers to their STG soldiers, even though I kept telling them it was impossible. The turians, because they want to rip my weapons apart and manufacture them for themselves, even though these things are made of pixels to and is also impossible. The asari, because… well, that's my fault I guess because I hunt their justicars for their eezo. And I'm pretty sure someone bribed Udina, possible Cerberus, and even though he's just an ambassodor, he's still getting the corrupt human military to get on me. You know why I threatened them? Because they all had their own agendas, and threatened to kill me. So I retorted. And they sent spectres after me. Which I killed"
"You killed spec-!"
"Don't even start with it, Shepard! You know what, the entire council is corrupt, everything is corrupt! Look, here's some advice. One day, one of those damn races, maybe all of them, will show you their true colors. And when that day comes, just because you're a spectre, your gonna blindly follow them, even though it's wrong. I pray that you'll see what your doing is wrong at that moment and stop, before it's too late. If not, well… I guess I'll have to stop that myself"
"Enough!" Everyone yelled, startling the two arguing men.
"This is pointless, Shepard, plus if you guys yell any louder, Joker's bones'll shatter" Garrus said, mandibles flaring. Aaron threw up his arms and yelled, "Fine! Ugh, I'm mad now… hey Shepard, where are we going after Purgatory?"
"Tuchanka to recruit that krogan, why?"
"How about you just drop me off at that prison ship and I get Jack while you go to Tuchanka, and when you get your krogan you pick us up. How about that?" Aaron asked, hunching his shoulders.
"Why on Earth would I do that?"
"To save time? I thought human colonies were on the line here, and collectors were abducting more everyday?"
"I can't just send you in there alone, that'd be reckless"
"How about this: You'll be walking into a trap. Think about it. It's a prison ship that, and get ready for this one kids, illegal sells prisoners, and don't ask how I know that, because you should know by now that I know everything illegal in this galaxy. Plus it's crawling with Blue Suns mercs, like that isn't a dead giveaway something bad will happen. They wouldn't pass up a chance to capture and make a profit off of the great 'hero of the Citadel'. It'd be worse if I came with you, considering the Blue suns would open fire on me immediately. So I'm saying this: Drop me off when it's in sight, a go over there, bust Jack out, you get your krogan, adding two teammates for the price of the one, it's a win-win. What do you say?" Shepard had to think about this one. He didn't trust Aaron, especially to get someone as dangerous as Jack. But he did have a point: There would most likely would be a shootout, and in the process, the prison ship would likely be destroyed. And knowing Aaron, he'd likely blow the place up anyway when he was done.
Either way, it seemed like the outcome involved the end of Purgatory.
Shepard sighed, waving his hand. "Fine. You can get Jack, but I need that biotiv alive, hear me?"
"Siryessir!" Aaron shouted in a mocking voice, throwing up a mock salute, causing everyone to groan. "Aw, you guys don't have any sense of humor. Joker, get us close enough to Purgatory that you can see it, but they can't see us, I'll just fly over"
"Uh… sure thing, Aaron…" Joker said over the comm.
"What are you planning?" Shepard asked. "Oh, you'll see. And you will enjoy" Aaron said with a smirk, but then frowned, his hand shooting out to his side and seemingly closing around nothing, faint gagging being heard.
"Oh, and the last person to try and use that stealth shit on me got her head shoved up a turian's ass. And that guy's head shoved up an elcor's ass. By then I just vaporized them" Aaron said, the faint form of Kasumi shivering into reality, Aaron using his dark eezo to disrupt the stealth field. "…You remind me too much of Kinzie" Aaron declared, throwing her aside as he briskly walked away. Kasumi groaned and held her throat.
"What was his problem?" the usually giddy kleptomaniac asked.
"We ask ourselves that everyday" Garrus answered.
A couple of hours later, Aaron was standing on top of the purple Normandy, looking at Purgatory from the distance, pressing the buttons on his glasses, his Saints armor forming on him in a flash of light. "Okay, here goes nothing" Aaron said to nobody in particular, jumping off of the ship and gliding towards the space prison.
Joker and Shepard watched as Aaron flew towards Purgatory, their mouths hanging open. "Is he… flying towards the prison?" Shepard asked.
"Yeah… hey Shepard, Aaron has a positive sanity report on him, right?"
"Just fly the ship, Joker" Shepard said as the ship sped off.
Aaron was walking through the halls of Purgatory now, two guards trailing guns on him. He wasn't actually in danger. He was just letting the guards take him to the Warden for the heck of it. After he had reached the prison, he had snuck in the ventilation shafts, and after setting his plan up, fell asleep in a vent. He didn't know for how long, but eventually a guard found him, and now he was being escorted by a human Blue Suns merc and a turian merc. "So… how has your days been?" Aaron asked the merc. The turian shoved his rifle at his back, shouting, "Keep moving!"
"Alright, alright, jeez…" Aaron sighed as they rounded the hall, he saw a turian sporting a revnant, flanked by a dozen or so more mercs. "You must be the Warden" Aaron guessed.
"You assume correct. And you must be Aaron" the Warden asked, causing Aaron to nod his helmeted head, due to never taking the armor off.
"Heh, well, I don't know why you're here, but when I sell you off, it'll be the biggest payday anyone can dream of. The only question is who to sell you to…"
"Before you do that, you know in those old spy movies from a hundred or whatever years ago where the good guy does something to flip the badguy off right before he dies?"
"What are you getting at?"
"Well, this isn't one of those moments, because I get to live" Aaron said, raising a detonator. Aaron was surprised the mercs didn't take his weapons away. Then again, he put the lazor razor hilt and detonator in a pouch at his waist, so they probably didn't know he had weapons. The Warden's eyes widened, and he motioned for the mercs to shoot Aaron. They did, not all but most of the rounds going through him. And when he said through, he meant through. The bullets went clean through him, killing the mercs in fron of the bullets, leaving only the Warden and Aaron alive, blue pixel-like objects healing Aaron's wounds. "…You should really hire better merc next time. Oh, wait…" Aaron said as he took his sword out, cutting the turian in half. "Your dead. Wait, I can make a better one, uh… there won't be a next time! No, um, er… godamnit, I messed up the one-liner!" Aaron yelled, hitting the detonator, causing the C4 he planted to explode, and causing the control room where he planted about twelve C4 to malfunction, causing all of the prisoners cell doors to open, causing a mass-scale riot. "Alright Aaron, you freed the prisoners, now to bust Jack out" Aaron muttered to himself as he ran down the hall, looking down as the mercs and mechs struggled to subdue the mercs. He saw one bald woman with way too many tattoos effortlessly blast away everyone-including the prisoners- with biotics. "That must be her! Wait… her? Jack a chick? That's kind of an important fact to say, Illusive Man!" Aaron yelled at the ceiling as he sprinted after Jack, cutting down everyone that got in his way. After a few minutes of chopping, he reached the hallway leading to the hangar, seeing Jack blast away a couple of Blue Suns mercs. "Hey, yo! Jack!" Aaron yelled, skidding to a stop a few feet from her.
Jack scoffed upon seeing this guy. First of all, the oudated armor was unimpressive. Second of all his gun a antique. Not to mention his skinny build. In fact the only impressive thing she saw in him was teh sword he was carrying around everywhere. "What the hell do you want?" she asked aggressively.
"Hey, I'm the guy that just busted you out, so be cool"
"Your responsible for this breakout?"
"Yeah, I knda… you know, blew everything up to bust you out"
"Screw that! I'm not going with anyone, especially with someone that has piss-poor armor like that"
"Hey, it's either you come with me, or a freeze you"
"I'd like to see you try" Jack sneered, firing a warp shot at Aaron… causing him to sigh and absorb the ball of eezo.
"What the fuck? Just die!" Jack shouted, sending a shockwave at Aaron… causing him to absorb that too.
"I don't know if this is important, but I absorb eezo, so you can't really effectively use biotics against me. Also, I don't like you mouth, so I'm just gonna freeze you now" Aaron said, firing an ice blast at a protesting Jack, freezing her solid.
When the Normady arrived, Aaron stopped leaning against the wall and whistling and picked a frozen Jack up, carrying her to the cargo bay. When he set her down next to some crates, Shepard and Garrus came up to him, shocked looks on her faces. "Aaron… what did you do?" Shepard asked slowly.
"What? She wouldn't come with me, so I figured, if she can handle getting frozen once, she can handle it again" Aaron defended.
"I can see the logic in that" Garrus said.
"Ugh, fine, can you thaw her out?" Shepard asked in agitation.
"Maybe later, when she cools down"
"I think she's cool enough" Garrus said.
"Don't you have calibrating to do?" Aaron asked. Garrus's eyes widened as he ran out, and Aarron picking Jack up.
"I'll put her in the medbay and thaw her out there, if that makes you happy, but I think I'll wait 'till we get away from Purgatory, nostalgia purposes and all that. That good?" Shepard just shook his head and sighed as he followed Aaron to the medbay.
Aaron and Shepard were in the Normady's medbay now, said stealth ship on it's way to Horizon. Apparently while the Normandy was on it's way to pick Aaron up, the Illusive man had contacted Aaron, saying that the colony had been hit by the collectors… which Aaron had yet to be filled in on what they were. Sure he had heard rumors about them during his time as a space gangster, but he never really looked into it. "So, how did the krogan go?" Aaron asked as he slowly thawed Jack out using a jet of fire coming from his hand.
"Well, he died, but fortunately the old man had a tank-bred pure-gene krogan nicely wrapped up for us, he's in the cargo bay"
"Wait, is the thing still in the tank?"
"Yeah, I was hoping you could, maybe… wake him up"
"…Ugh, fine, but if the first thing he does is charge me, I'm knocking him out and you can talk to him, because if we have a conversation, well, let's just say the dead krogan will have been of better use. Hey, is it me, or are those glowing scars of yours getting bigger?" Aaron asked upon seeing the glowing orange sacrs on Shepard's face bigger than Aaron had last saw them.
"I haven't really noticed a change. Chakwas said that she can permanently fix them, but between the upgrades I'm giving the ship and weapon and armor upgrades, I don't really think it's wise to spend resources to fix cyber scars on my face"
"I guess man, but I think those thing are having a negative comeback on you"
"How so?"
"Well, ever since Cerberus revived you, you've been… I guess the simplest word would be evil. I mean, the Shepard that saved the Citadel was a hero, solving everyones problems as peacefully as possible. Then I start hearing weird things about you when I come back. Things like giving a scared-and-out-of-his-mind quarian to Cerberus, electrocuting a batarian behind his back, when you were recruiting Mordin, denying a dying batarian medicine and letting that doctor guy die… Shepard, you've changed"
"Have not"
"You say that, but is it really true? Look bro, maybe Cerberus did something to you, maybe being spaced knocked somthin' in your brain around, I dunno, not really my place to judge, just… keep the temper in control, okay?" Shepard's face grew in anger and he stepped up to Aaron.
"Now look here Aaron, I don't know what your implying, but-" the rest of his sentence was cut off as Jack came awake after being thawed out… the first thing she committed being throwing Shepard through the medbay window using biotics, and jumping through the hole and lifting a scared-and-confused crewmember off the ground. She was immediately filled with rage as she saw the Cerberus insignia on his shoulder on the uniform. What the hell was she doing on a Cerberus ship? "You have five seconds to tell me where the fuck I am!" Jack yelled through gritted teeth.
"Yo Jack, look, I know your confused right now, but- Shepard, what the hell are you doing!?" Aaron asked upon Shepard taking a pistol out and shooting Jack in the leg, causing her to cry out in pain and drop the crewmember on the table.
"She was about to kill a part of my crew. Aaron, can you subdue her biotics for the time being?" Shepard asked coldly. Aaron sighed and nodded his head, swearing that he saw one of Shepard's orange scars growing by about half a centimeter before he jumped through the hole, putting his hand on a swearing Jack's face as he drained the eezo from her. He didn't drain enough to kill her, just to make it so she wouldn't have the energy to even channel biotics for the time being.
"Okay, she's drained, and good thing the medbay's a foot away. You calm her down while I wake the krogan up" Aaron said, throwing his hands up as he walked to the elevator. "Wait, were is the krogan?" Aaron asked shepard from across the bay.
"Cargo bay!" Shepard yelled back. Aaron nodded, hitting the button to go down.
After asking the two engineers-who Aaron assumed were Irish- Aaron found the liquid and krogan-filled pod in a cargo room. "Okay, so what, I chuck a grenade at it or something?" Aaron asked before a hologram of a blue, spherical object popped up from one of the wall terminals to the side, startling Aaron. "Agh! Oh jeez, your EDI, the A.I., right?"
"That is correct, Aaron" the female-sounding A.I. said through a monotone voice.
"Oh, okay, can you open this?" Aaron asked, gesturing to the tube.
"Are you sure? I strongly advise-"
"EDI, you realize I cut a reaper apart, right?"
"Affirmitve"
"Then I'm pretty sure I can handle a roid-rage krogan. Now can you please open the pod?"
"…As you wish, Aaron" EDI complied, the glass-half of the pod opening, liquid and a coughing krogan clad in white armor with blue light spilling on the floor. The krogan looked up at Aaron with his blue eyes… before he charged Aaron, said virtual being sighing and punching the krogan in the face, sending him into a wall and denting it, knocking the krogan out while his body was stuck in the dent in the wall. "Well, I told Shepard I would do that if he charged me…" Aaron sighed as he headed to the elevator.
After telling Jack she was on a Cerberus ship-which caused more thrashing while she was restrained in a chair- and promising her to look at Cerberus files pertaining to Jack, she agreed to serve on the ship… dubbing Miranda a 'Cerberus Bitch' while doing so. So Shepard was heading to the elevator while Chawas healed Jack's leg- Jack punching Shepard in the gut for shooting her- in order to talk with the krogan. The elevator opened before Shepard reached it and Aaron walked through.
"So how did it go?" Shepard asked.
"Um, well, he's unconscious on account of charging me. So your going to have to talk to him. I'd bring a shotgun though" Aaron said as Shepard sighed and walked into the elevator as it headed for the cargo bay. Aaron shrugged, and figuring Shepard could handle a krogan on his own, headed to the armory. Garrus had mentioned something about having a CAIN stashed somewhere, and the last time Aaron saw one of those, he used it to blow up a Cerberus platoon, and he wanted to see the gun for himself.
After all, you never know when your gonna need gun that fires slugs equivalent to a small nuke.
A/N- Yeah, so bad news is that this is even shorter than the last chapter due to this being a good place to stop considering what I have in mind. Good news is I'm 42% sure this came out a lot sooner than the last one. And if you haven't guessed, I'm using a renegade shepard. Trust me, it'll make more sense considering the things I have planned, you'll see. Oh, and before I go, I'm taking this story into ME3 too. So we're only, like, 15 to 20 % percent done with this thing. Ish. Point is I made a new years revolution to write more, and I sorta made that dream come true!
On a totally unrelated side note, I'm seeing all the mistakes in my other fic, and I have got to do some MAJOR edit/fixing to mistakes and just general errors I made… uh, we all make mistakes? Cya… -sniff-…
