Ross's POV, Akuze.
"Oh god damnit, why the hell do those goddamn thresher maw have smash their way through every single thing they see? This ship's a goddamn mess!" I cursed as I made my way through a maze of wires and electrical shocks. I've already been shocked twice now, and I have no idea if Shepard and her team are alright.
I'm not sure, maybe it's something inside of their brains. Well that is if they have a brain. And now on top of that, I've got this voice inside of my head that can take over my body at will. Question is, when the hell is it going to? There's a lot of shit that doesn't make sense right now. I followed the sound of gunfire out of the ship, and fell onto the planet's surface. Luckily, Shepard didn't take my helmet from me after she had captured(Embedded in the back of my suit. It's kinda works like Isaac Clarke's Helmet from Dead Space) so breathing wasn't a problem. Although i'm not sure, but I think I broke something. As I got up and dusted myself off, I heard a loud groaning. I looked up and saw that part of the ship was about to break off, and just as it fell, I ran from underneath the ship as fast as I could. Just as it fell to the ground, I jumped out of the way and found myself outside the colony, and apparently a I opened my eyes after diving to the ground, I saw a bloody corpse with half of it's face melted off and missing one of it's legs, and I freaked out. It's the first time I had seen a body in that state of …...well I don't have a word for it.
Hehehehehehehe, well look here. The big bad man with black and gold biotics getting a little freaked out by a dead body?
"Hey shut up you! I've never seen a body like this before, so how the hell am I supposed to react that shit?" I asked.
Ummm, suck it up and deal with it you little bitch! Life sucks, you should know that by now, especially what happened with that cop. Before I could say anything else and explosion went off not to far from where I was, and the sound of gunfire filled the air. I followed the sound of the gunfight, and found the mainly colony had turned into a battlefield. There were a few dead thresher maws lying all over the ground, but there were a hell of a lot more dead Alliance marines. Thresher maw were coming out of the ground all over, shooting their acid like venom towards the source of the gunfire, which was coming from some of the cabins on the other side of the colony.
"I'm not gonna get anywhere near that place without a gun. Maybe one of these guys one" I said to myself. I searched some of the nearby corpses, luckily one of them had N7 Crusader. I remember this gun, I just hope it works as well as it did in the game back home.
That, and let's just hope those girls don't tear you apart the second you get over there. Yeah let's hope. Any suggestions of getting across that gap. Yeah, run! Shepard has already been through one background story, which means at this point, it's possible that she could be killed. And the galaxy needs SHepard, no matter how aggressive she is, and that team of hers. So I charge into the field, hoping to god that something doesn't either shoot or eat me, and luckily nothing had happened….Wait, nothing HAD happened. In fact now that I realized it, the gunfire had stopped. Then suddenly, the ground erupted and a thresher maw popped out of the ground and dove towards me.I fired my shotgun into it's mouth, blowing part of it's face off, making it let out a horrible cry. i hit it with a shockwave and knocked it back into the ground and ran like hell. Although I knocked it down, that thresher maw recovered quickly and started charging towards me again. Just as reached the building, the sound of gunfire resumed and was concentrated towards the thresher maw chasing me.
"Kill the worm. KILL THAT FUCKING WORM DEAD!" And that must be Sally. I can tell, there's no one else who yells that loudly, or enthusiastically about killing someone. Well except maybe for Grunt, but that's in the next story. Anyway, as soon as I ran into the building, a few seconds later, not even able to catch my damn breath, someone held a gun to my head...again.
"Oh COME ON! REALLY!?" I yelled, with Alex holding a gun to my head. "You know what, fuck it!" I hit Alex with a Shockwave and sent her flying across the hall, alerting her sister Sally.
"OH look who the-" I'm really not in the mood to hear anything coming out of her mouth, so I put her in Stasis and laughed as she fell to the floor like a statue.
"No time for your shit Sally. Hey Shepard." Immediately after hearing my voice, Shepard appeared out of cover beneath the window overlooking the battlefield.
"How the hell did you get out of your cuffs?" Shepard asked.
"Hmmmm how did that happen? Ummmm oh right, a thresher maw ripped through the ship and tore it to pieces, and nearly me with it, because you and your friends here left me to die. So i overcharged my biotics to overload the shock cuffs you placed on me so I could escape." SHepard wasn't so much focused on how I got out as she was on the fact that her ship had been destroyed. She started yelling and thrashing all over the place like a maniac, cursing out at the thresher maw horde preying on us as we speak.
"SO basically what you're saying is that we're trapped here?! Fuck!" she cursed.
"Well, not exactly SHepard. There is a chance we could escape, but it involves running across that field."
"Oh hell no" Oh great, my Stasis wore off, "There is no way in hell any of us are going anywhere with those things running around, and I sure as hell am not going anywhere with you!"
"Oh trust me honey, it's not exactly the most luxurious situation for me either, but quite frankly, I don't see any other way out of here besides following my lead."
"Actually, I already thought of an idea. We tie you to the building, use you as bait to attract the thresher maw so they won't notice us when evac comes for us."
"Sally stop it!" ordered Alex, "We're already in a bad enough situation as it is, and it certainly isn't getting any better with you threatening him! Oww my head." groaned Alex clutching her skull.
"You son of a bitch, you hurt my sister? AGAIN!" growled Sally. She grabbed me by the neck and tried to choke me out, but I pushed her away. That didn't stop her though as she quickly recovered and charged towards me, knocking us both out of the building. I grabbed on to the ledge of the window just as we fell out, with Sally hanging off of my left leg. "AhHHHH, i'm gonna rip your fucking head off when I get up there you son of a bitch, just you wait."
"Ugh, why do the cute ones always have to be so violent? It's such a shame." It is, although that might, considering that a giant fucking thresher maw just popped out of the ground and tried swallow Sally in one big gulp. Luckily I threw up my biotics so that wouldn't happen, although keeping it up was struggle, especially with Sally kicking and screaming as she held onto my leg.
"KYAAAAAA,someone pull us up! PULL UP!" she screamed as the Thresher Maw banged again again against my biotic barrier. Finally, Shepard grabbed my arm and pulled us back into the building. Once Sally was back on solid ground, she went back to her normal self, and started cursing out the thresher maw. "I'm gonna slap your shit you fucking sand diving mother fucker." Apparently controlling her emotions is not her strong suit.
"Oh my god Ross" said Alex.
"What is it?!" I asked aggressively.
"Your nose, it's bleeding." Oh shit, not again. She was right, my nose was bleeding, but luckily not that much.
"OH right" I said touching the blood dripping from my nose, "Yeah, that happens sometimes, mostly whenever I overuse my biotics, or when I have to keep it up for too long because SOMEBODY felt like taking their sweet time in helping me backup." Shepard knew that wa a shot towards her, but unfortunately, so did Sally, who apparently was still focused on me.
"You shut the fuck up you little shit! If I had asked, I would've told Shepard to drop both of us into that thing mouth just to get rid of you."
"Oh really, cause if I remember correctly, you were just screaming like a little bitch when that Thresher Maw was about to swallow you, begging for someone to help you." Sally then proceeded to throw her arms into my chest and slam me against the wall, growling like she was about to rip me to shreds.
"I dare you to say something else boy! Just try me!"
"Sally calm down and let him go. Remember we still need to bring him back to Earth." said Shepard.
"Oh come on Shepard, this guy isn't worth it! Just look at the shit we've been through because of him: You got your head smashed against the wall trying to keep him from escaping, me Alex and Monica got captured and nearly sold into slavery, and now-'"
"This." I interrupted, blasting Sally in the face with a biotic blast. Afterwards, I slumped to the floor as my head started to scream in pain, then I started to scream from the pain.
"Oh shit, now his eyes are bleeding. Ross hold still." Alex ordered examining my head. SHe activated her omnitool and used it to scan my head. After a minute or so, the thing turned red and started beeping. "What the hell?! This doesn't make any sense."
"What does it say Alex?" asked Shepard.
"Just like before, except on a much larger scale. My scan shows that his brain is suffering from extreme brain damage. Parts of his brain are even showing signs of tearing, but they're…...regenerating."
"Yeah like I said" I said pushing Alex away from me and getting up on my feet, "IT happens sometimes. I'd explain how it works, but I don't know how it works. Plus I get the feeling that you all don't like me."
"Go fuck yourself!" Guess who said that.
" Had someone did that, in more ways than one right now we need to get past all the tension going on between us in order to get to the shuttle so we can get out of here and not be left for food for the maws."
"Wait what the hell do you mean? All the shuttles were destroyed."
"Apparently none of you were paying attention, because while I was running for my life across that den of lions...or worms in this case… I happen upon 3 remaining shuttles that weren't destroyed by the maws. How we get to them, however, is the issue."
"Let me guess: We're the issue?" asked Sally.
"Precisely. Right now, I hate you three just as much as you hate me, but if we want to get out of here with our skins still attached to our bodies, we'll have to work together." There was a brief pause, then the three women began discussing the situation with each other.
"YOu do realize they're gonna take you back to Earth and throw you to the wolves right?" That seems likely, yes, but I think it is a much better situation than being devoured by a thresher maw like the poor saps who were stupid enough to colonize this planet. "Ross you've seen how violent Sally is, and how determined Shepard is, and then there's Alex." Fair assessment. Don't worry, i'll find out all the details later.
"Alright we've come to a decision" said Shepard, "We'll work with you to get to the shuttles, but once we're there, we're taking you back to Earth. We're not letting that go."
"Told you." Shut up.
"Fine, I'll agree to that. You just better hope the people I work for don't interfere, otherwise you're going to be in a world of hurt." I replied. See, I didn't mean it like a death threat, but based on the way I said it, I could see how It could be interpreted, and it could be why Alex and Shepard had to restrain Sally so that she didn't kill me.
"Alright, alright, I'm calm, you don't to hold me back anymore. Just let me go." she requested, and Alex and Shepard complied. "Thank you. So what's the plan freak?"
"Ok, so obviously we can't get across that field without the risk of grasping the attention of at least one thresher maw, so we need to create a distraction."
"How are we going to do that. We'd use a grenade, but we're just about out of those, and we're low on bullets as it is, so shooting at them isn't the answer."
"Glad you raised that point, because I just so happened to have a large amount of flashbang grenades right here" I said opening my coat. The inside of my coat was filled to the brim with as many flashbangs I could fit in it, surprising three ladies in front of me. "Don't look so surprise, i'm an infiltrator, how do you think I make my getaways/"
"Ok, so you have a bunch of flashbangs. How the hell do those help us against the worms? They don't have eyes!" yelled Sally, prompting Alex to calming her down.
"They can here though, and with enough of these creating a loud enough bang to draw the maws away from us, we can safely make our way over to the shuttles and make our way off of the planet."
"It could work Shepard." said Alex
"It could, but we wouldn't be able to move fast enough to lure those things away without getting eaten."
"Well that depends."
"Depends on what?"
"You guys have a Mako we could use?"
10 Minutes Later
"Why didn't we use this before?" asked Sally as we rode in the Mako.
"Well there's 2 reasons. One, the colony had already tried using it against the maws when they first got attacked, and look how well that turned out." Shepard answered.
"What's the second reason?"
"... I literally have no idea how to drive this thing."
"Well learn fast SHepard, because you're making me drop my grenades!" I yelled as I threw as flashbang after flashbang at the ground, which managed to attract the thresher maws towards us and away from the site. "It's working, they're heading towards us."
"Yeah that's great dumbass, but how the hell are we supposed to get these things off our backs so we can get to the shuttles?" asked Sally, who was helping out by firing the machine at the thresher maw. (Before anyone asks, these guns were designed before the discovery of Thresher Maws. Check it for yourself, the Alliance didn't discover these creatures until the Akuze incident.) "Goddamnit why won't you fucking die!?"
"Ugh why the hell does she have to be so violent?" Asked Alex.
"You tell me Alex. I mean she is your sister after all. I mean if you can't get her to not want to kill every last time she see, who can?" Now I see why the Asari want to set an example for the rest of humanity by using me. Anyway, now that we made sure that the thresher maw were following us, I ordered to drive as far away from the encampment as she could, with Sally firing off the main gun occasionally to make sure we still had their attention.
"Ok Ross, we got them away from the camp, now how the hell are we supposed to lose them? This place isn't exactly full of places to hide!"
"Getting to that Shepard." I said activating my omnitool, "Everyone, activate your omnitools, now!" I ordered. They did as I asked and activated their omnitools, "Ok, I'm gonna connect my omni tool to all three of yours. If this works, you should all be able to use my stealth drive to cloak yourself so that the thresher maws won't see us jumping out of Mako."
"Remember kid, you're still coming back to Earth with us, so don't try any funny shit," threatened Sally.
"Figure out how you're gonna get away from them, or are you still thinking about it." Mmmmmm, "I didn't think so. Better hurry up and think of something Ross, otherwise, you're gonna be locked up for the rest of your life." Don't worry, i'll think of something, I still got time.
"Alright it's connected. Shepard, set that thing to keep going and when I give the signal, we all jump out of the Mako." I ordered. Alex pulled Sally down from the gun while Shepard set the Mako up for a makeshift auto pilot. "Alright everyone, on the count of three, we jump out of the Mako, and make sure that we don't hit any of those things, otherwise the second they notice we're not in the ship, we're dead. Everyone ready."
"Ready" said Shepard.
"I'm ready as i'll ever be." said Alex
"I am so fucking ready!" said an excited Sally.
"*sigh* I know you are. Alright everyone, on three. 1…...2….3!" Once I said three, I activated my stealth drive and cloaked all four of us and jumped ship. I wish that I had timed our jump a little better, cause when we did, 10 feet after we had jumped, we found ourselves face first into a small mountain. On the bright side, that kept us from falling to the ground and alerting the thresher maw horde. On the dark side, I think I just pissed Sally off even more. We were stuck to the mountain for a good 5 minutes before we fell back to the ground, with everyone groaning and complaining about the pain.
"...well…...let's look on the bright side. At least we got away from the Thresher maws" I said, trying to make them...less pissed, especially Sally because at this point I think they're ready to turn her on me like a wolf.
"He's right, looks like that got rid of the creatures. And there doesn't seem to be any more of them coming from the camp." said Alex.
"First bit of good news that i've actually heard from any of you in the last two years."
"Yeah and it's going to be the last of it." said Sally, "As of now, you're back in our custody and we're taking you back to Earth. You're not getting away from us."
"Sally, calm down. Right now none of that matters unless we can get to the shuttles. I don't know how long it'll be until those things know we're not in the Mako, but i'd rather not wait until that happens, so let's get moving before that happens." urged Shepard.
"Thank god someone's thinking straight" I whispered to myself, "Right, we gotta go now." We all nodded in agreement, except for Sally, and we all ran like hell back to the campsite. It took us nearly an hour, but managed to make our way back, and luckily we didn't encounter another thresher maw. When we got back, I led us to the three shuttles docked and in perfect working condition.
"Oh ho ho ho, thank you god!" exclaimed Alex, running to one of the shuttles with sighing with relief and dropping to the ground.
"Holy shit, he wasn't lying." said a shocked Sally. "How the hell did we miss this Shepard?"
"We were running for our lives against a giant worm creature, it's kinda hard to focus on anything other than that. But hey, at least they're still here right?"
"Oh who cares, I just want to get off this damn rock before anything else goes wrong. I want to see Monica by the end of this solar day."
"Alex, please keep that to yourself. Once you start talking about her, you go off the deep end."
"That girl that was with you guys when you captured me? She wasn't with you when you got here?" I asked, only because in the Sole Survivor background, all but Shepard were killed during the Akuze incident.
"No, she went back to Earth, wanted to give the big guys back home the notice that you had been captured." Sally said, "Speaking of which, you're missing a pair of cuffs so-" Ok, her hating on me is getting really hard to deal with, so I hit her with a stasis, and she fell hard onto the floor of the shuttle.
"Well look at that, my anxiety is gone. I can finally relax." That makes way too much sense.
"So I wasn't the only one thinking that?" I asked.
"Oh honey, no, and you're not going to be the last one." said Shepard.
"Oh the hell those people are walking into. Well, a deal's a deal, so let's just get this over-" I stopped midway into my sentence when I heard the sound of rumbling. Shepard and Alex felt it to and immediately got up and looked out the entrance to the the camp, but none of the thresher maws were coming back. "Ok, they're not coming from out there, so where the hell are they coming from?!" I begged, and that's when everything went downhill from there. Suddenly a thresher maw came shooting out of the ground, smashing one of the shutt-uh oh. Was that the one Sally was in? Please tell me that wasn't the one Sally was in!
"SALLY, NOOOOOOOO" cried Alex as she saw the shuttle was mashed to bits. She fell to the floor crying her eyes out, then suddenly, she stopped crying and got angry. Really angry. Russian Angry. She rose up from the ground, and activated not just one, but TWO Omni tools, which formed two Omni Blades coated in electricity.
"I'm going to gut worm like fish, and devour it like a bear." she said in a russian accent, charging in full of zeal.
"Alex no!" Protested Shepard, but she wouldn't listen and attacked the Thresher Maw by jabbing her blades into it's chest, and started climbing up it's chest.
"Damn it Ross, don't be the hero. Don't be the hero. Don't be the fucking hero!"...Ok so I became the hero, flared up my biotics and charged in after Alex. I hit the giant worm with a biotic charge, which nearly knocked Alex off balance.
"Hey watch it" she continued in that weird Russian accent, "I"M not leaving without worm's head, and you not stop me from doing so." Ok she was speaking in a Russian accent, but the dialogue was something else. Also, when I looked up at her, I could've sworn that her eyes had changed to blood red.
"Alex what the hell has gotten into you? You're acting like….your sister! Why the hell are you acting like your sister."
"No, I much worse than her. She only acting like that because she not go through Rite! I much stronger than her, and now i'll kill this thing for taking her from me." As she said that, she reached the Thresher maw's mouth and started prying open it's mouth. "NOW YOU DIE!" However before she could go to town on it, the thresher maw retaliated and shot venom into Alex's face, causing her to scream out in pain, thrashing all over the place, until she stopped moving entirely. The acid ate through her face in less than 3 seconds, and she was dead. I called out to Shepard to get Alex's body, but then I heard the hum of a ship, and I saw one of the remaining shuttles take off into the sky. She just left, she didn't even bother to see if Alex was still alive. She..she just_-
"Oh here we go, he he he he he he he he he he he." My eyesight changed, I felt my biotics grow stronger, although my body began to scream in pain again, and I just lost it. This time when I rammed into the thresher maw, not only knocked it on it's ass, but I picked it up and started pulling it out of the ground. I don't know how I was doing it, but i'm doing it. Once it was fully out of the ground, it tried to shoot me in the face with more venom, but I blocked it with a barrier.
"Nice try, but i'm not stupid." With it's mouth still open, I charged into it's mouth using a BIotic Charged, and ran straight into its tract. Once inside, I placed my hands on the lining of it's intestines and started Reaving the hell out of it. " I want you to feel their pain, and mine! THey may have been trying to capture me, but they were just following orders. YOu didn't have to kill them, and I know that you can't understand me, but I just want to see you dead!"
"It feels good doesn't it Ross, to let your darkest emotions out, to let those who harm you know what it's like to feel fear? Let it consume you, give in to it, and let it out." Yes, I will. I charged up as much biotic energy as I could, building it, letting it fill me with power, and when I couldn't hold it in anymore, it blew in every direction possible, and I blew the fucker's body in half. It's bloody body exploded into millions of pieces, scattering all over the place, and I let out a large howl. Suddenly the ground started to rumble, and I knew more were coming, and I was ready. "No, you need to go. If you try to fight off this many thresher maws, you're going to die." But what about what you said? The power? The ability to make people fear? "You need to pick your battles boy, and this isn't one of them. Besides, you gotta save your strength for the the Reapers." The Reapers. *laughs* Alright, i'll wait. "Good. Now get to the shuttle before they come. You must live for them to die." Right. I ran as fast I could to the shuttle, started it up and 'attempted' to fly it off the planet, seeing as though i've never flown a ship before, so i was a little difficult.
"So where to now?" I asked the voice in my head.
"You tell me, The Asari Government thinks you've been captured by the Alliance, and the Alliance is about to find out that you "died" along with her team. They won't be looking for you."
"No, I'm going to the Citadel. I still have an obligation to the Asari, they saved my life. However, I think I can be of more help if I worked for the Asari councilor. Besides, we gotta plan for the Reapers."
"Hmm, I don't exactly agree with that, but you control the body so I can't argue with you. But if I may ask, why the Citadel?"
"That's where we'll meet Shepard again. …...and that's where i'll meet Her."
"Wow, you get over people really fast. Well, lead the way Ross. The Omniversers will be pleased to learn that you didn't die." Wait….what?