MASS MISCALCULATION
Episode 8- Catching up
Boss and the other Saints stood motionless as they stared at their long-lost friend, Aaron just smiling warmly at them. There were so many questions they had for him: like why he looked so young and how he happened to find them. But right now the only thing Boss did was walk up to Aaron and locked their fists together, pulling him into a bro hug as they patted each other on the back. They let go and Boss said, "Good to see ya, Aaron. Thought I lost ya"
"Eh, you know me, I tend to bounce back from these kind of things. I thought you'd leave me stranded here. Also, what the hell? I thought you didn't like power armor" Aaron said in a confused voice, pointing to Boss's power armor.
"Well it gives me super powers, so… anyway, we came as soon as we found out where you were… plus it didn't really look like you needed saving. I saw what you did to the five-armed station thing, and I have to say… funniest thing since you tagged the entire high-school on graduation day"
"Eh well, I had to do something, you were taking your sweet time getting here, I honestly thought you would never find me. I mean I had this entire song planned out for if you ever found me, but I forgot what track on the dubstep gun it is, so a song for another day"
"Bitch we came here two days after you got sent here!"
"Two days? It's been two years here"
"Well, ZJ did say that the time thing was different in each dimension"
"Um Boss…?" Pierce asked as soon as the ground started to shake.
"Aw man, more thresher maws are coming. Boss we can catch up later, but we got to get out of here. Like, NOW" Aaron shouted as he put two fingers to his ear and activated his comm unit, saying, "Aaron to Glass Bones, Aaron to Glass Bones, Shepard's taking too long, so pick up"
"Joker here, and if you want me to pick you up your gonna take back the 'Glass Bones' thing" Joker warned over the comm.
"Okay, sorry for calling you Glass Bones, it's just there's a deadly pack of thresher maw's coming towards me and the Saints, so if you could, ya know, pick us up that would be swell!"
"Damnit, where are you!?"
"Um, We're in a field, there's debris, fire and radiation everywhere, with the sense of death looming over us"
"So all of Tuchanka?"
"Well I didn't exactly ask where I was, it's not exactly like there's a sign or anything! Okay, fuck it, look out your window" Aaron said as he formed the Saints CAIN, aiming it straight up at the sky and firing it, watching as the three slugs flew up into the atmosphere and into space, exploding. "Ya see that!?" Aaron yelled at Joker through the comm.
"Yeah, you almost blew me up with it! Hang on, locking onto heat emission trail, locking position, okay, ETA five minutes for pickup"
"Couldja pickup a little faster?" Aaron asked as the ground started to shake more violently.
"Hey, I'm making a run that would take a normal guy ten minutes to make, so chill" Joker concluded as he killed the comm.
"Ah son of a bitch, if the guy didn't have bones made of glass I'd punch him…" Aaron muttered.
"So what now?" Keith David asked as the blue tentacles of thresher maws started appearing from the ground.
"Hold out here until Joker gets his crippled ass here" Aaron said as he formed the minigun and started revving it up. All the Saints readied their rifles, CID also readying his weapons.
"So who's in the mech suit?" Aaron asked.
"CID" everyone said.
"Oh. Well, better than a metal ball that can't even shoot" Aaron shrugged as three thresher maws popped out of the ground, immediately spitting acid at the group of Saints, the Saints opting to shoot at the giant worm, dodging acid. More thresher maw's started popping out of the ground, CID flying into the air and shooting rockets at one of the maws. Said giant worm screeched in pain as the others started spitting acid on the airborn mech, the suit instantly starting to dissolve.
"Guys, CID's melting!" Kinzie called as she continued firing, a tentacle coming out of the ground next to her and attempting to crush her, Kinzie rolling out of the way. Eventually CID couldn't take it anymore and fell out of the sky, hitting the ground with an earth-shattering 'thud'. Kinzie immediately ran over to the fallen mech, Aaron asking, "What are you doing!?"
"The mech is badly damaged and I doubt this place has anything that could fix it, but I can still save the drive that contains CID, if I can get that out I can find a way to put it into something else!" the hacker explained as she started to work her way into the mech to get to CID's drive.
"A'ight, fine, just hurry up!" Aaron yelled as a thresher maw sunk back into the ground. The ground shook even more as it rose from the ground behind Aaron, picking him up in it's jaws and throwing him up into the air. Aaron for the most part just aimed the RPG at the maw and fired as he was falling down, the worm going back into the ground as Aaron landed back on the ground. Eventually Aaron heard the screech of the Normandy coming in, everyone looking up to see the ship coming, Boss saying, "Aaron, did you do that? 'Cause it's beautiful" upon seeing the paintjob Aaron gave the ship.
"What can I say, the old one was pretty bad" Aaron shrugged the Normandy fired her weapons at the threshers, causing all of them to slink back into the ground. The ship hovered above the group of Saints, the airlock opening and Joker sticking his head out, asking, "So how are you guys gonna get up here!?"
"You let me worry about that. Kinzie, CID out yet?" Aaron asked.
"Yep, got him right here" Kinzie said triumphantly as she pulled out a small, black box with blue lights containing CID.
"In that case, you can go first" Aaron said as he picked Kinzie up with telekinesis and threw her up to the Normandy and through the airlock, then proceeded to launch the other Saints. After launching the last Saint, Matt, he jumped into the airlock, the door closing behind him.
"Okay, Joker, you know where Shepard is, I wanna kick his ass for not being there to pick me up" Aaron hotly said.
"After he left he got Jacob and they did Grunt's thing, then they were gonna come back to the ship and wait for you. Last I heard they were fighting a thresher maw"
"Well good to see they were busy too. Hey guys, I'm gonna have to explain everything to you, so let's go to my room" they nodded and Aaron made a move to leave, but before he could the form of EDI popped up and said, "I have detected an additional AI currently aboard the Normandy"
"Uh, Aaron, do these guys have a AI?" Joker asked.
"Before I say anything, did Shepard ever fill you in on the whole 'dimension' thing?" Aaron asked slowly.
"Yeah, I thought he was crazy, but seeing the stuff these guys have, I guess I owe him five credits"
"To what is it you are referring to?" EDI asked.
"Nothing EDI, just a... gang name" Aaron lied. "Anyway, concerning the credits, that you do, now I will admit, one of the Saints happen to be an AI and we kinda… had to bring him on-board"
"So what's the problem here?" Kinzie asked.
"AI's are kind of illegal here" Aaron muttered to her.
"What!? Why!?"
"Well I think it all started a few hundred years back when a race of aliens called the quarians invented these robots called geth that became self aware and when the quarians attempted to kill them they went 'Terminator' on them and kicked them off their planet. So after that everyone started using VI's"
"VI's?"
"Virtual Intelligence, basically they have no sentience, look I don't know the specifics, if you have questions ask our over-caffeinated scientist Mordin, he's over there in the labs trying to figure out which crewmember contracted that varren disease"
"So the AI isn't gonna be a problem, right? 'Cause I don't want a repeat of that entire moon-base incident thing the Alliance had" Joker nervously said, not noticing EDI fizzling slightly at the mention of that base.
"Relax, CID is cool, he probably won't go crazy and murder everyone" Boss assured.
"Probably?"
"Plus he's stuck in this containment drive, so it's not like he can go anywhere 'till we install it into something" Kinzie explained.
"Alright, alright, just… I need to fly the ship, so Aaron, take your crazy gang and go lay everything out for them"
"Fine, fine, later Joker, EDI" Aaron waved as he and the other Saints walked out of the cockpit and towards the elevator, any crew they passed giving them odd glares, and eventually reached the elevator, albeit being a tight squeeze for the large group of Saints.
"Now I have to warn you guys, these elevator's are pretty slow. But unless Ben get's off I'm pretty sure this thing will just fall down"
"Hey!" Ben shouted, socking Aaron's arm.
"Ouch, kidding, kidding"
Aaron's room
"Alright, everyone comfortable?" Aaron asked as all the Saints squeezed into the small room… with there barely being enough room to breath.
"Room… could be a little bigger…" Pierce gasped as he was struggling to find a place to stand.
"Look, it's not my fault it's a small ship, now here's the deal on this universe: basically it's like this, there are these things called 'mass relay's' that are able to shoot ships to other star systems, each system having a relay, and because of this aliens were able to easily find each other and build a highly-advanced civilization with a council living on the Citadel, the five-armed station, then a while ago humans came into the equation, then- I swear to god Kinzie, this better be a good question" Aaron sighed when Kinzie raised her hand.
"So, who built the relays?" she asked.
"A race of aliens called protheans who went extinct around fifty thousand years ago, no-one's ever seen 'em, now anyway Shepard, who is the captain of this ship, got turned into the first human spectre, spectre's being basically super-cops that are above the law, they can do whatever they want, and the only people that can tell them what to do is the council. Anyway this one spectre, a turian… which are like bird things, I'll show you one later… went rogue and recruited the geth and attacked this one human colony, Shepard going to stop him, aw damn I messed up, Shepard wasn't a spectre yet, so anyway there was a prothean beacon on the colony which beamed ancient pictures into Shepard's head, Shepard went to the Citadel, gathered a team, now he's a spectre, did some thing's around the galaxy, discovered that the protheans were wiped out by a race of giant robot's called reaper's that commit genocide against a galactic species every fifty thousand years, and the ship Saren, the rogue spectre, rode on was a reaper that corrupted his mind and attacked the Citadel, so Shepard went there, killed an army of geth, killed Saren, saved the council, killed Saren again after the reaper sovereign possessed his body, and while Shepard said the reaper would have been destroyed, we'll never know because I came in and killed the reaper like a badass. After that I joined Shepard, took a nap for a couple of weeks, these human-sized biped bug things called the collectors blew the Normandy up and killed Shepard, after that I just did whatever I wanted to around the galaxy, effectively becoming the most infamous space pirate, after two years Shepard found me, who apparently was revived by Cerberus, a terrorist organization, who also rebuilt the Normandy, and was on a quest to stop the collectors, who is abducting human colonies as we speak, and right now we're recruiting new people for the suicide mission where we attack where they live and solving their personal problems so they're focused for it. Okay, now you're caught up, any questions?" Aaron asked after the lengthy explanation on current events.
"Yeah, where we gonna sleep?" Pierce asked.
"Really? After all of that, your asking where we're gonna sleep?" Shaundie asked.
"Hold up guys, Aaron, is there anything here that could get us back to our own dimension?" Boss asked.
"Um, if there was, I'd have used it a long time ago" Aaron answered.
"Ah shit, we're stuck here" all the Saints groaned and Aaron sputtered, saying, "Wait, you guys honestly came here with the only hope of getting back being that the universe I was in happened to be technologically advanced enough to send us back?"
"Pretty much, yeah" Asha said, lowering her head.
"Ugh, you damn idiots. Well, your hear now, so what do you say? We go from killin' zin to killin' collectors? Then reapers?" Aaron asked.
"Well Saints, it looks like we're gonna be killing some reapers" Boss said, causing the other Saints to nod in agreement.
"Okay, because I think Shepard might be back right now, and the guys kind of a dick, so… just cope, and for the love of god, don't talk to him. At all" before any of the Saints could say anything he left the room and closed the door behind him, sighing and turning around… only to be met face-to-face with Shepard, who Aaron noticed had the increasingly-worsening scars complete with three small red dots in each eye.
"Ah! Jeez, you just pop up everywhere… so how'd the mission go?" Aaron asked.
"Went well enough, at least Grunt's all better" Shepard shrugged.
"Weren't you going to do Mordin's thing afterwards?"
"Grunt wanted to come back to 'contemplate' some things. So, Joker tells me we have some new guests…"
"Yeah, my mission went good, thanks for asking…"
"I'm not concerned with your lowlife friends, as long as they can help with the mission, I don't care. What I do care about is how many there are"
"Did you really just call them lowlife's? Also that had better not be 'throwing the Saints off' talk" Aaron growled.
"There's a matter of capacity, plus EDI told me that they had a AI with them"
"Hey like I said, CID won't go crazy and kill anyone, he's in a damn cube!"
"You know how everyone here feels about AI's…"
"Yeah, and last I checked, EDI was an AI!"
"A shackled AI. How do I know the one in there won't snap?"
"'Cause it's a damn cube 'till we put it into something!"
"Not happening, I want that thing off of the ship"
"What!?" a voice from Aaron's room yelled, the door opening to reveal a fuming Kinzie.
"You can't just throw CID out! What gives you that right!?" she demanded.
"Kinzie, the guy's the captain of the ship, so he has a lot of right" Aaron shrugged.
"Well you don't support this, do you?" the hacker asked.
"No, but what am I suppose to do, throw Keith at him?" Aaron asked.
"Can I just say that I'd rather not be throw into this?" the vice-president asked from inside the small room.
"Admiral Anderson?" Shepard's eyes widened as he looked inside the room, only seeing more Saints.
"There ain't no damn admiral in there, now Shepard, say I happen to have data that I 'procured' from a Cerberus research facility awhile back that shows the plan to build an intricate infiltration mech, and let me say, I saw the testing footage from the prototype, 'Eva' I think it was called, and it is as versatile as any other squad member. And it's also bulletproof!"
"And what happened with Eva?" a now intrigued Shepard asked.
"Well the mech didn't really seem like it would pose as a problem in the future, so I left it alone. I'm thinking, we get the plans, build a male mech, 'cause I ain't putting CID in a female mech, then-"
"Who exactly is going to be building this thing?"
"…Okay we find someone to build it, then-"
Shepard walked up to Aaron and said, "Aaron. I realize that this thing is important to you, so I'm going to let you keep it since it doesn't take up much space. But as soon as this mission is over I want it gone"
"Oh believe me, as soon as this entire suicide mission thing is done with, we're outta here" Aaron grumbled as he grabbed gestured to Kinzie and she nodded as they both walked into Aaron's room.
"I can't believe that guy, wanting to get rid of CID like that!" Kinzie replied hotly.
"I'm not happy about it either, but rules is rules" Aaron sighed.
"Since when have we ever followed rules?" Boss asked.
"Yeah, your right, but at least he's letting us keep CID until the mission's done"
"And where exactly are we gonna go after this entire mission thing's over?" Gat asked.
"Okay guy's you know what, I got a apartment on this planet Illium, we can restart the Saint's empire there, it'll be just like old times, but honestly I'm starting to get claustrophobic from you guy's being in here, so can you just leave?" Aaron pleaded. The Saints nodded as they left the small room to go about their business and familiarize themselves with the ship. Aaron leaned against the wall, eyeing the small cube CID was in next to his terminal.
"I'm surprised I haven't gone insane yet. Or maybe I have. Ugh, what's next, ge- aw, I've done it now…" Aaron sighed as he held the bridge of his nose as Joker's voice came on over the intercom, saying, "Aaron we're gonna have to hold on Mordin and what he has to do at krogan central, Shepard got a dossier on where Tali is, he wants to pick her up"
"Okay, can't you just send me and a squad to pick her up while he deals with Mordin?"
"No" Shepard said over the intercom.
"Oh come on, it went well last time, didn't it? Plus, you know, colonists…"
"No, I'm not taking orders from you, but since I have to file out reports for the Illusive Man you can lead the mission, but I get to pick one of your squad mates, since I know your gonna bring a Saint"
"Alright, fine, send anybody, I don't care!"
"Have fun with Samara" Shepard said in a deviant voice as the intercom cut out. It took a minute for Aaron to realize what happened before he muttered, "You son of a bitch"
Cargo hold
"Gat I need your help" Aaron said as he stepped over the unconscious body of Grunt and found Gat leaning against said krogan's tank.
"What ya need?" Gat smirked as he started picking one of his fingernails with a knife.
"Okay, so there's these blue chicks called asari, they're aliens, and there's a couple that choose to be justicar's, which are basically an asari version's of spectre's, only they have this weird code thing that they follow to the letter"
"And that's important because…?"
"Well, Shepard said I could lead the mission to get a new squad member, but unfortunately I have to bring Samara… who happens to be a biotic"
"So?"
"Gat, these dudes… chicks… whatever take that code seriously! Deadly seriously! And they kind of put it in their code to kill me on sight for what I did, and she doesn't know I'm on the ship, so…"
"So what are you worried about? She can't hurt you"
"I realize that, but I'm scared that she'll tear half the ship apart in an attempt to kill me"
"She wouldn't do that"
"You don't know how seriously justicar's take their job"
"Well what the hell did you do to get blacklisted by them anyway?"
"I don't want to talk about it, the point is I need you to do what you do best, and restrain her so we can have a nice chat that doesn't involve everyone dying of oxygen deprivation"
"Alright, alright, I'll help, where is she?"
"She's meditating in the observation deck… that's literally all she does. So let's go" Gat nodded as they both left the cargo bay, Grunt grunting as he rubbed his head.
Outside Samara's room
"Okay, she's in there, so do what you do best… which is basically go in there and beat her blue ass down"
"Got it"
"One more thing, she has powers related to mass called 'biotics', so good luck with that"
"Wait, what?"
"Just go!" Aaron hissed as he pushed Gat towards the door, Gat shrugging as it opened automatically, Gat walking in. The doors closed as he walked towards a meditating Samara and after the sounds of a brief struggle Gat called, "She's down!" Aaron nodded and walked towards the door, said door automatically opening as Aaron saw Samara pinned down by Gat. As soon as the justicar saw Aaron, she immediately gasped and used a biotic to throw Gat off of her, than charged Aaron, Aaron responding by grabbing her throat and pressing her against the window, the door behind them closing, and Aaron absorbing the eezo from Samara so she temporarily couldn't cast biotics.
"Okay, she's drained, so she can't go biotic for awhile" Aaron said as Gat got up.
"The hell, if you could do that why did you need me?"
"Well you put her in a position to be absorbed, and- look, I was bored, okay? So… Sammy…" Aaron mused, turning his head back to the struggling justicar.
"Skra' liinar" Samara spat.
"…I'm sorry, what?" Aaron asked, confused.
"It means 'demon who steals the force of good-willed' in my language"
"Okay, and I'm sure that there is some story about some ancient demon that did weird things, but I didn't come here for a damn history lesson"
"Than what is your purpose for coming here, Skra-"
"Okay don't call me that, it sounds weird. Look, I'm part of Shepard's crew, and he would be pretty mad if you splattered me against the wall, which you can't do, so cool it"
"Your aligned with Shepard?" Samara gasped.
"Yeah, I would have thought the fleur on the ship would have made that obvious, considering when you justicar's wrote the new article about me in the book and put a fleur as a picture, but the point is I'm with him"
"Why would he affiliate himself with a demon such as yourself?"
"Okay now that's just harsh, calling me a demon. And if you need to know, he's pretty desperate for people to do this mission, so he invited me"
Samara sighed then said through gritted teeth, "then I will honor the code and follow Shepard's wishes not to harm you. But just know that as soon as my oath to him is fulfilled, I will do what is necessary to-"
"Kill me or send me back where I come from, yeah I got the speech from the other's, and good luck with that" Aaron chuckled as he dropped the justicar and turned to leave with Gat, before saying, "Oh, and we're going on a mission to get Tali, a quarian, so get ready, your going with me and Boss" before she could ask who Boss was the door closed, Aaron and Gat walking into the elevator and hitting the button to CIC.
During the elevator ride Gat asked, "Aaron, don't you think that was a little harsh?"
"Your saying I was too harsh?"
"I was just worried that you would break the window and space us. Plus you weren't always… psychotic"
"If your saying I'm crazy, I'm not"
"Just saying, you used to be a little nicer"
"May I remind you that you buried a guy alive"
"You weren't there for that"
"Look, I don't want to talk about the topic of my sanity anymore, can we talk about something else?"
"Yeah sure, like why the justicar's want to kill you"
"-Sigh- okay look, you know how my virtual self was sent here, right?"
"Yeah"
"And that I'm not human but my simulation self while at the same time getting powers?"
"Uh-huh"
"Well apparently one of those power's is absorbing element zero, which makes mass effect fields, which make biotics, ships, guns, and pretty much almost everything else work"
"Okay wait, how does that make guns work?"
"I don't effin' know, all I know is that it puts some field around the bullets which are actually about the size of a grain 'o sand, they pretty much never reload, they just pop in heat sinks 'cause guns with almost infinite ammo tend to overheat"
"Heh, cool. Anyway-"
"Justicar's, yeah, well when I absorb too much eezo from someone with biotics they tend to… die"
"Then why do you do it?"
"'Cause I get this sweet black and blue electrical stuff that boosts my everything, and I get more the more eezo I absorb. Plus I can probably do biotics to, it's just that I already have my powers, I didn't really
bother with it. I mean I can already lift guys with telekinesis and throw balls of fire, what else do I need?"
"You killed a bunch of justicar's, didn't you?"
"I may have went a wee bit crazy when I went to Thessia one time"
"How crazy we talking about?"
"…I really don't want to talk about it…" Aaron sighed as the elevator doors opened, revealing the CIC, with crew bustling every which-way. Aaron walked away, turning to Gat and saying, "Tell Boss to get ready, we're going on a mission"
"Aaron…"
"Done talking about it Gat" Aaron snapped as he finished the conversation by walking away, Gat just hitting a button to go down.
When Aaron reached the cockpit containing Joker and EDI he tapped on the pilot's shoulder, briefly startling him.
"Jeez, hey Aaron. If your looking for Shepard he's busy filing out reports, we're going to the planet Tali's at now"
"Alright, any time estimate?"
"Couple of hours"
"-Sigh-… wanna tell jokes to pass the time?"
Aaron's room
"So why are we here?" Gat asked Boss as they watched Kinzie hack into Aaron's terminal.
"'Cause in movies how long does it take for a starship to go somewhere?"
"How am I suppose to know?" Gat asked.
"Couple of hours. I hacked into the mainframe awhile ago" Kinzie said.
"Don't these people have an AI to protect against that?" Boss asked.
"Yeah, they do. Wasn't enough" Kinzie smirked as she continued hacking.
"So anyway, since we ain't got nothing to do, and now I can't stop thinking about what Aaron told you about Thessia, I wanna see if what he did is on the extranet"
"Oh come on, I doubt that-"
"Got it. Wow, you should see this" Kinzie said as she slid over so the two could see, the extranet page shocking the Saints. It showed one of the cities on Thessia utterly destroyed, bodies littering the street everywhere, a giant Saints fleur burned into the middle of the city.
"What the hell…" Boss muttered.
"Apparently some guy came in and started killing everyone in sight by absorbing eezo from everyone, something that no-one understood, and destroying everything in sight, then burned a fleur into the middle of the city"
"What the hell, Aaron wouldn't do something like this, he must have had a good reason…" Boss muttered.
"How could there be a good reason for this?" Gat asked.
"If he went on a killing spree on cops, that I can understand, but bystanders, two or three I get, but a city full…" Boss continued murmuring.
"Huh?" Kinzie questioned.
"I'm talking to Aaron, Gat where is he?"
" Cockpit" Boss nodded and ran out.
Cockpit
"Okay… okay I am officially out of jokes. I give up…" Aaron panted as he held on to Joker's seat for support.
"You told like three jokes!" Joker laughed.
"I'm not a joke person, Joker" before the pilot could respond Boss walked in, going over to Aaron.
"Boss, what's up?" the virtual being asked.
"You got a lot of explaining to do"
"What?"
"I saw what happened on Thessia, on your terminal"
"How did you- you know what, nevermind, damnit Kinzie- look, I know it was pretty horrific but I can explain"
"Explain how?"
"Look, I was going there for work, and the city I went into was a slum city, where everyone was a criminal. And I mean everyone, but they only did what they did to feed their kids, it was pretty bad. But in the eyes of Justicar's a murder or in general a criminal, so when I got to the city there were three justicar's cleaning house, so I decided to help out the people and get a little power boost while I'm at it. You know how the people thanked me for saving their lives? Pointed guns at me, even the kids. So yeah, in a moment of blind rage I went on a spree, but it's not like I even touched a kid, that's not cool"
"You did orphan them…" Boss said.
"Most were already orphans, if anything I did them a favor by saving them from abusive parents"
"Well now they get to live in an orphanage"
"Boss I don't care if what you think I did was right or wrong, I really just want to put it behind me"
"so what happened after that?"
"I tracked down a few more justicar's and absorbed them to death, and that kind of warranted me being a new sutra in the code, with the shortened version being, "Kill me on sight, no matter what". I think it actually made it so the other sutra's didn't matter if they saw me, they really wanted to kill me for what I did. Anyway I found out about the code and that they thought what they did was 'just' and after that I left Thessia with two promises. One, never going back to Thessia. Two, murder every justicar I see unless we need her"
"Your gonna kill Samara when this is over aren't you?"
"She'd kill her own daughter in a heartbeat"
"She's just following a code, I don't see why your so caught up in this"
"To be honest, I don't either. Maybe it's just so I can get power, maybe it's because of what happened to my parents, I just know justicar's piss me off. Well Boss, this philosophical talk with you has been enlightening but I'm gonna go wait for the ship to get to where we need to go, remember, your going with me" Boss nodded and Aaron walked away and towards the elevator, but before he reached it, he was stopped by Miranda.
"Oh. Uh, hey Miranda. What ya want?" Aaron asked, clearly wanting to get away.
"Aaron, I've been looking for you, I've been meaning to talk to you about your supposed 'friends' that have been brought aboard" Miranda explained.
"Right, yeah, they're just my friends, was in a gang with them, look why is this important? And also Shepard allowed it, so don't say it's beyond regulations."
"It's important because they have technology that I've never seen before, specifically them having laser-based weapons and the fact the supposed leader has power armor which allows him to wield the same powers as you"
"And let me guess, you would like me to hand Cerberus over the armor so the techies over there can reverse-engineer it and then mass-produce it so every soldier has super powers"
"The benefits that armor could hold for humanity-"
"Okay screw the entire 'benefit for humanity' thing, I got enough of it when you people first came to my apartment and held me at gunpoint telling me to accompany them to a research facility"
"We didn't do anything as prudent as that!"
"I bet that's what the Illusive Man told you, but let me tell you this, exactly how much do you know about me?"
"The only thing I know is that you caused problems for the Citadel, revealed your powers, Cerberus attempted to contact you, then you made our lives a bloody hell, until we reach the point where Shepard says you used to be in his crew and the Illusive Man gave him a dossier containing your current whereabouts on Omega"
"And Shepard didn't say anything other than that?"
"No, why?"
"No reason, I'm gonna just go wait in my room for the mission, oh and don't talk to any of the Saints or try to take their stuff, 'cause if you do just know one of us can survive in space. And one can't. The one that can't being you" Aaron finished as he walked into the elevator and hitting the button to go down, leaving a disgruntled Miranda behind.
Haestrom
Once their feet touched the ground, Samara walked up to armored Aaron, saying, "EDI has informed me that the sun here is emitting unusual amounts of solar radiation, that if exposed to-"
"Sammy, I'm pretty sure the sun ain't gonna to jack diddly to m- oh damn that burns!" Aaron yelled upon sticking his hand into the sun, immediately seeing it slightly smoke due to the sun.
"Okay, we stick to the shadows, shouldn't be that hard" Boss said.
"Oh sure it won't, not yet at least" Aaron muttered as they walked down the ramp, Boss asking Aaron, "So what is this place anyway?"
"Apparently it's an ancient quarian city, why Tali is here I have no idea"
"And what's Tali like?"
"Ah she's a nice girl who I helped a bit back when one of the quarian's ships came under attack by pirates while gathering data on some planet. I helped them out and Tali wanted to repay me, and I said it was okay but she kept insisting, so I asked her if she could whip me up some VI's that could be installed into ships"
"Why'd you need that?"
"I'll tell you later, it looks like we've hit a snag" Aaron pointed out, gesturing to the red locked door in their way.
"There's a button in there" Boss said, walking through the door to a small room that contained a button to the door, a dead geth, and a dead quarian with a message playing next to him.
"Aaron, what is this thing?" Boss asked.
"That my friend is a geth, and where there's one there's more. Now press that button so we can go already!" Boss nodded and hit the button, the door unlocking the door as it opened, revealing a geth dropship swooping in and dropping a squad of geth troopers.
"Well that's not good" Aaron muttered.
"I suggest we take cover" Samara advised as she ducked behind a downed column on rock, lifting a geth into the air with biotics.
Aaron ducked behind a mining vehicle with Boss saying, "Usually this is where I just jump in the air and kill these things with my sword, but with the entire sun thing, we're gonna have to do this the old fashioned way"
"The old fashioned way being…?" Boss asked as he picked some geth troopers off with his rifle.
"You know, go out there, shoot anything we see, the usual, the only difference being you can't touch the sun"
"Well that makes sense, you can't touch the sun without being vaporized"
"No I mean- bitch you know what I meant!" Aaron yelled, causing both Saints to bark out a laugh before Aaron formed his rifle and they both began killing the geth with Samara.
After five minutes of geth killing all of the squad holstered their guns as they ran up a ramp to a narrow hallway that lead to a overlook looking over a courtyard that currently had a squad of quarians ducked in cover by the entrance of a building, the quarians fighting geth. Aaron walked forwards but accidentally stepped on a radio next to a dead quarian, destroying it.
"Whoops. Probably someone important going to say something on the other end" Aaron shrugged as the geth dropship came back in, firing at a stone pillar above the quarian squad and causing it to fall on them, killing them. Aaron sighed and channeled dark eezo into his arms, sending it up into the air and bringing it down as lightning and killing the geth.
"Whoa, how the hell'd you do that?" Boss asked.
"I can absorb element zero from any source and use it to boost my powers and get new ones. I wouldn't try it, since your power's just come from a suit and would probably be overloaded"
"Damn" Boss muttered as the group walked over to the fallen pillar.
"How will we be surpassing this?" Samara asked.
"Uh, lazor razor? Sword that can cut through a reaper?" Aaron asked, holding up the blade as he cut the pillar apart, allowing the squad access to the building as they stepped over the bodies of the quarian marines. They walked down a hallway and into another room containing numerous dead geth and quarians, with a damaged geth attempting to crawl towards the trio.
"Aw, it's kind of cute when you look at it like that… and now it's dead" Aaron commented as said geth died.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" the squad looked over to where the voice was coming from to see a terminals with a holographic projection of Tali coming through. Aaron walked over to it and said, "Yo! Tali"
"Who's there?" the quarian hacker asked.
"Who else says 'yo'?"
"-Gasp- Aaron! What are you doing here!?"
"Ah, you know, Shepard has this suicide mission, and we sure do need the best hacker in the quarian fleet!"
"I already turned Shepard down on Freedom's Progress, but with how this mission is going and considering the data I have, I guess I could join you"
"Alright! So, are you in the next room, or…"
"Unfortunately the geth forced me to lock myself in the observatory at the far end of the colony, and I hear fighting going on outside. I need to go right now, I'm unlocking the doors, but please, if you can save any of the marines you can!"
"Sure thing, Tali" Aaron nodded as the holographic projection cut off and the door next to the terminal unlocked. The trio walked out of the building And into a area with many pillars, along with a couple of small geth recon drones flying away as they cloaked.
"Well great. Perfect. Invisible robots. What's next I wonder, a colossus?" Aaron groaned as the squad readied their weapons, shooting more and more drones as they decloaked, Aaron seeing a geth prime slowly walking towards them. Aaron was about to charge the prime, but then saw that there was no shade between them. Sighing in frustration Aaron formed the sniper rifle and started firing at the head of the prime, then picking off the small squad of troopers behind it while his squadmates finished off the last of the drones.
"Okay, I think that's the last of them, let's go get Tali" running through another door the group encountered some shutters. Samara hit a button, causing the shutters to open as the squad saw yet another courtyard filled with geth… complete with a colossus at the far end.
"Oh, I call bullshit on that one…" Aaron said, face-palming.
"Get down!" Boss shouted as the colossus fired a ball of plasma at the trio, forcing them to take cover as it hit the side of the building.
"Alright, I'm not going up against that thing, not with the sun frying us when we touch it" Aaron declared.
"Then what do you suggest we do?" Samara asked.
"Well, there's always this" Aaron explained, forming the Saints CAIN.
"Whoa, the hell is that?" Boss asked, awestruck.
"This right here is the solution to everything" Aaron smirked behind his helmet as he used his sword to cut the shutters apart and aimed his CAIN out the open window.
"Won't that destroy the building Tali is in?" Samara questioned.
"Relax, I'll only charge it up enough to fire one ball, should be good after that. Oh man, I hope there's a marine alive watching this!" Aaron laughed as he charged the CAIN up a third of the way, firing one purple ball of energy at the colossus. Once the CAIN slug hit it, the explosion resulted, causing the colossus to blow up along with the CAIN slug, the geth troopers next to it being destroyed as well. After than Aaron jumped out of the window, forming the missile launcher and using it to pick off any and all remaining geth, Boss jumping out the window and doing the same while Samara bioticly glided down the window and helped out with her biotics. After the last of the geth were taken care of Aaron sheathed his weapons and looked to his left to see a quarian marine in a red biosuit crouched in cover with a rocket launcher, which he promptly dropped.
"Um… hello" the quarian managed to say with a male voice.
"Hey there. You need any help?" Aaron asked.
"Well I was a minute ago knee-deep in geth, but then you just jumped in and killed them all, so… I think I'm good. Probably gonna need to get medical attention soon considering I have a suit puncture"
"Riiiight, that's probably be a smart idea. Hey, you know where Tali is?"
"She's in the observatory over there, behind the trashed colossus, why?"
"We need her for a mission"
"Wait, who exactly are you?"
"Aaron"
"Wait, you mean the Aaron that saved Flez crew from those bandits?"
"Yep, that's me!"
"Damn, I thought when they said a guy with super powers was out there, they were high on red sand or something like that. I guess I was wrong, but one of my friends was on that ship that you saved, so I trust you"
"Alright, be safe" Aaron finished as the squad ran to the observatory. when they entered they saw Tali working on a terminal and Aaron deactivated his armor and called a "Yo!" over to Tali.
"Ah! Keelah, Aaron, I didn't know you were there" Tali sighed as Boss gasped upon seeing her purple suit and visor.
"Yep, just killed a battalion of geth, no biggie, so-" Aaron was interrupted as Boss ripped the helmet off of his power armor and ran up to Tali, pushing Aaron away.
"Hey, uh, you needed rescuing, right?" he asked.
Tali for her part just eyed him and his afro and asked, "How is it you fit that hair into the helmet?"
Boss looked at the afro and said, "Ah you know, I just kinda squeeze it in there- hey!" Boss shouted as Aaron pushed him away.
"Sorry for my friend, he uh… gets ecstatic sometimes when he sees people wearing purple"
"Who is he anyways?"
"I'll tell you later, but the more important question is, are you going to be able to join the crew?"
"I should be able to, I have the data the admiralty board needed"
"The data being…?"
"The sun on the planet is dying prematurely, and this data can shed light on what is happening to it. I'll go with you, Aaron, and if the admiralty board has a problem with it, they can go to hell. I just lost my entire team for this data"
"Maybe not Everyone, Ma'am" a voice said from behind the group. Everyone turned their heads to see the quarian marine from before stumble in.
"Reegar! You made it!" Tali happily yelled as she ran up to the marine.
"Yep, I figured I was done for, then this Aaron guy just flew in and obliterated all the geth"
Before anyone could say anything else Boss donned his helmet and ran up to the two quarians, saying, "Well we should leave. Like right now"
"Boss, what is with you, you've been acting weird ever since you've come in here" Aaron noted.
"I'm not acting weird, actually I think your acting weird, Aaron"
"What!?"
"Yep, that right there is acting weird" while Boss and Aaron were arguing Tali handed Reegar the data, who agreed to pass it along to the admiralty board.
"Aaron, you take care of her" Reegar commanded.
"Sure thing, Reegs. You might want to get that suit puncture fixed" Aaron smirked.
"Yeah, probably should"
"Hey hey hey, hold up, how come Aaron gets to take care of Tali?" Boss snapped.
"Boss, why are you so worked up about this?"
"I'm not worked up about this!"
"Then why are you yelling!?"
"I'm not yelling, bitch!"
"Oh, I'm a bitch!? Who's the guy that, after being captured by the zin escaped a bad parody of 'leave it to the beavers' and helped Pierce kill a giant fifty-foot soda monster!? Without powers or help from Kinzie's hacking magic!?"
"Who's the guy who became president of the United fucking States!?"
"Oh, you become the president and then suddenly you're a bigshot!? Well being the president sure came in handy when America, along with the rest of the world, got blown up by zin!"
"Yeah and who's the guy that ripped Zinyak's head off for doing that!?"
"Who's the guy that sucked into another dimension!? And you probably only were able to do that with power armor!"
"And you having super powers makes that valid!?"
"Yeah, it does!"
"Than tell me how you are so awesome when you spent twelve years in a coma!"
"It was two separate comas!"
"Enough!" Tali yelled, startling both Saints.
"Now" she continued, "I don't know what this is between you two, but it need to end! You can talk about it when we're not standing in a building surrounded by solar radiation!"
The two Saints looked at each other than sighed, patting each other on the backs, saying 'sorry'.
"Keelah, that was probably the fastest apology I've ever seen…" Tali sighed, holding a hand to her visor.
"I wish my men made up like that…" Reegar sighed as well.
"Well, I guess we should leave. C'mon guys" Aaron said. The squad nodded as he, Boss, Tali, and Samara left and walked towards the dropship, and all was fine until Samara asked, "What were you saying about being from another dimension?"
"Uh…" Aaron and Boss said.
"-Sigh- I guess I better explain" Tali said.
A/N- Sorry this one came a little later than usual, but I got caught up with stuff. Anyway, some things.
1, I have officially made my quota of length of chapters 8,000-10,000 words.
2, poll stands at Jack 2, Liara 3, and Tali 3
3, I've been writing this story for so long that I want you guy's opinion on this: and by opinion I mean another poll you'll see in a few minutes. Basically, I was thinking on starting up the next story, write a chapter there, then write a chapter here, then switch back and forth between chapters, so I wanted to know if you guys wanted me to either do that, or just finish this one and then write the other one.
Well I gotta go, so remember to review and suggest how to improve my writing if you want, and enjoy! Cya!
