Chapter 6: The Thorian and creepers
As they reached Zhu's Hope, they found the garage door locked. A strange thing laid still next to the emergency open switch. As Shepard went to press the switch, the thing suddenly got up. It was straight from a horror film, with its skeletal and twisted look. It ran up to Shepard and tried to puke some green viscous liquid at her, acid most likely. She managed to dodge the liquid and a single red crystal from Jaden's Detonator caused it to splatter all over the place.
"What the hell was that", Shepard asked, sounding disgusted. "If that was a human..."
"Wait.", Jaden said calmly and scanned the residue with his Omni-tool.
"It is organic, but it's not human, or any other species. It is, in fact, a strange form of plant material. It would appear that these 'creepers' are the Thorian's attempt to mimic humanoid shape. The Thorian must be using these as its soldiers. In addition to the colonists, most likely."
At this point Jaden removed the red crystal magazine from his Detonator and replaced it with another filled with dark blue crystals and continued:
"If you have cryogenic ammunition, use them. You probably wouldn't want to splash acid all over the place."
When they opened the garage door, they immediately saw a dozen more creepers charging at them, in addition to couple of the colonists firing at them.
Jaden's blue crystals were no less effective than his red ones, a single direct hit would almost instantly freeze any creeper he fired at, after which it would topple over and shatter. He, Ashley and Wrex cleared out the creepers, while Shepard lobbed one of her modified grenades at the colonists, the gas knocked them out. They got to the elevator.
After they exited the elevator, they heard footsteps on their right. They prepared to fire, but soon lowered their weapons. It was Kaidan and his group.
"Jesus, Shepard", Kaidan said, panting "When you said you reached the garage, we tried to meet up with you but we got attacked by these monstrous... things."
"There were more up there", Shepard replied. "Anybody hurt?"
"No. Liara got some acid on her armor, but we were able to remove it before it did any damage."
Shepard twitched very slightly. She didn't like anyone in her team getting hurt.
"Good.", She then started, "We're back together now, let return to the colony and deal with the Thorian."
"Switch to cryogenic ammunition, if you have them", Jaden told Kaidan and the others.
With her grenades, Shepard took out a pair of colonists that were hiding behind a slab of stone.
They took the stairs down and arrived at Zhu's Hope.
More creepers charged at them and possessed colonists fired at them. After waves of creepers, they finally managed to knock out the remaining colonists. Shepard moved over to the crane controls that would allow them to access the Thorian's lair. Before they did enter, one more colonist appeared. Fai Dan. His movements were jerky and he was constantly shaking. He was clearly fighting over the control of his body.
"It gets in your head", he started, saying each word with tremendous effort.
"It.. wants.. m-me.. to.. s-stop you." he twitched with every word and pulled out a pistol.
"But.. I.. won't...", he pointed the pistol at his head. "I won't!" and in a last act of defiance, he shot himself.
They took the stairs down into the lair.
As they entered a large area, Shepard was in the middle of a sentence: ".. we need to find this plant and see what we can..."
A huge thing laid in front of them. The thing was hovering above a deep abyss, having attached itself with multiple tentacles.
"That... is disturbing", Liara said.
"If that's a plant...", Jaden added.
The Thorian huffed and from its 'mouth' a green Asari appeared.
The Asari began to explain about the Thorian, how it absorbed the 'essence' of the Protheans that lived there 50000 years before. Saren needed the 'Cipher', a way to understand Prothean language, to find the Conduit. Saren also knows Shepard is after him, so after receiving the Cipher, he ordered his Geth to destroy the Thorian in order to prevent Shepard from receiving it.
When Shepard asked for the Cipher, the Asari responded by saying that the Thorian would no longer going to 'listen to the flesh' and informed that they would all be consumed. The Asari then drew her assault rifle and a swarm of creepers were charging at Shepard and her team.
Everyone drew their weapons and got to work. Jaden fired yellow crystals at the creepers that were in between him and the Thorian. The Asari tried to warp him with her biotics, but Jaden deflected the attack and activated the crystals. The resulting concussive force sent the creepers and the Asari tumbling into the abyss. After clearing them they moved on. Every time they entered a new room, the green Asari appeared again along with another horde of creepers. They also severed any Thorian's tentacles they found, weakening it.
Eventually they reached the final room, where they saw a strange organic pod. They cut the final tentacle, which sent the Thorian into the abyss. They never heard it hit the bottom. The pod opened, revealing the same Asari, but this time in the more normal blue coloration.
They raised their weapons but Jaden raised his hand and said: "Wait."
"I'm.. I'm free!", the Asari exclaimed. "I- I suppose I should thank you for rescuing me."
The Asari then introduced herself as Shiala and proceeded to explain who she was and how she got there. She serves... served matriarch Benezia. She was brought here to create a link between Saren and the Thorian, afterwards she was simply left there to rot.
She also told them about Sovereign, Saren's ship, what little she knew.
Shepard asked for the Cipher. Shiala melded with Shepard and transferred the Cipher into her mind. Afterwards Liara suggested they return to the Normandy, where Shepard could be monitored. Shiala offered to stay with the colonists, as she felt like she was at least partially responsible for their state.
This time Shepard sent the Feros report to the Council before having a meeting with the team. But their attitude towards her still wasn't preferable so she cut them off. Again.
Before the meeting, Shepard was privately contacted by the Salarian councillor. The councillor explained that one of their many spy teams hasn't reported back. This particular group was investigating the planet Virmire, where Saren supposedly had a secret base.
In the meeting, Liara expressed her concern towards Shepard, as to her, Shepard seemed pale.
After Shepard reassured Liara she was fine and they began to talk about their next plan.
In the end, Liara offered to meld with Shepard, to see if the visions would make any sense. Still no success, maybe Shepard needed more time with the Cipher.
They were almost done, when Joker called: "Sorry to interrupt, Commander. But I received message from Admiral Hackett, he wants to speak to you, specifically to you."
"All right, dismissed, all of you."
They all left and Shepard stayed to hear what Hackett had to say.
Notes
So, Virmire has been mentioned. And why did Admiral Hackett want to speak to Shepard privately.
The next chapter should be have a slightly darker tone. Well, atleast in my opinion.
Eavise: This probably counts as a minor spoilers, but the intended pairings would be Shepard x Liara and Garrus x Tali (in future somewhere).
One, who Jaden might get very close to, would be Samara (when the time comes).
Most of the Shepard x Liara part happens outside (i'm not very good at that very softy fluffy stuff. Its a more lazy approach, but either way)
Though seeing how important Liara becomes in the future, she and Jaden will be spending more time together (non romantically of course)
The conversation Liara had with Jaden after coming onboard, was simply because Liara felt like no one would trust her. Jaden proved her wrong.
And as for teaching Liara to shoot, it is simply because he is really experienced with weaponry.
Shepard herself may not have the time to teach Liara. Wrex would say shotguns are the best and ignore the rest. Garrus would be the same but with snipers.
And Ashley has all that 'not trusting aliens' issue.
I'd try to stay in the T area, without going into too graphic or explicit stuff, but one can never know.