Tali's POV
Ancestors protect me! What have I gotten myself into? I stopped running and leaned against a wall to catch my breath. I had no idea where I was. After that thing grabbed Shepard, I just... Oh, Keelah. Shepard... He has to be ok. He has to!
I pushed myself away from the wall and began moving down the long hallway I'd found in this complex underneath the colony. I turned a corner and had to stifle a yell as I jumped back out of sight and grabbed my shotgun. I took a chance to peek around the corner. Three geth, just standing there. Ok Tali'Zorah, you know how to deal with this! I quickly readied my Omni-tool to send a charge into the geth. I adjusted the impact area to get all of them. It would shorten the stun time, but I only needed a moment...
I took one final breath before swiftly stepping out of cover and using the Overload on the trio, quickly followed up by a grenade that landed just in front of them. It exploded and took out the two closest to me, but the one behind them had only been knocked down. Before it could get back up I sprinted forward and once in range, fired a round at it, taking its head clean off. Ha! Take that you scrap heap bosh'tet!
I heard an eerie groan and spun around, bringing my shotgun up. That definitely hadn't been a geth. I heard the same noise again, only this time it was behind me. I spun again and saw nothing. I could hear my breathing and feel my heart thumping in my chest. I was really starting to hate this place. I had to try and find someone. Even a colonist who could lead me back to the colony would be nice. I'd even settle for some arrows on the walls.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
"So..." I said as we stood side by side staring at the transmitter. "Do you know how to disable it?"
"I was hoping you might," Liara said, "I'm not well versed in geth technology."
I sighed, "Well, I suppose we could just fall back on the old fix-all for these kinds of things..."
I saw Liara turn to look at me out of the corner of my eye and glanced at her to see a quizzical look in her eyes. I smiled slyly and turned my attention back to the transmitter, "We blow it up."
Liara sighed heavily and I turned to find her shaking her head as she held a hand to it, "Of course we do."
I fought back a laugh as I grabbed a few grenades and set them to remote detonate before sticking them on the transmitter. We made our way back down the hall and once we'd rounded the corner, I detonated the explosives. The explosion sent pieces of metal flying out of the hall and past us. I glanced around the corner to see what was left of the transmitter was nothing more than burnt scrap. I turned to Liara with a smile, quite pleased with myself. "It worked!"
I saw her try to fight back a smile as she started tapping on her Omni-tool. "Let's see if that did the trick, now," she said before speaking into her comm. "Shepard? It's Liara, are you there?"
The sudden replies that came on over the comm all blurred into one as everyone expressed their relief that the comms were working again, or how annoyed they were that it took so long.
"All of you calm down," Shepard's voice said over the comm.
Tali instantly replied, "Shepard! Thank the Ancestors you're alive! I thought-I thought that..."
"I'm fine Tali," Shepard assured her, "I'm just, eh... hanging out."
"Ha! I can picture it now!" Garrus said gleefully.
"Funny, Vakarian," Shepard said, "Funny. Listen, I think it's safe to assume we all know that things aren't going to be as clear cut as we thought."
"You can say that again," Wrex grumbled, "We went through all that planning and prep to save the colonists, but now they're all dead."
"What!" Shepard yelled, "What happened!"
"What happened," I said, "Is that apparently what I knew and what really was, weren't exactly the same."
"That's putting it mildly," Ashley commented, making me frown but otherwise not react.
Kaiden finally spoke and seemed to want to make sure everyone was on the same page, "The colony was a lot bigger than expected, Dazac. We were having a look around when all the colonists just seemed to disappear. When we saw them again... well, they looked a lot like how you described those Thorian creepers."
"I know," I replied, "That colonist we were with changed right in front of us. Of course, that was after getting us lost down here."
"Wonderful," Shepard said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Alright, where's everyone at?"
Ashley replied first, "Me and Garrus are at the crane in the center of the colony. There were some geth entering the colony from the East side, but they won't be a problem."
"Do I want to know?" Shepard asked.
"What was it you said, Ashley?" Garrus asked with amusement clear in his voice, "Like the opposite of a claw game?"
I heard Shepard chuckle over the comm before continuing, "Alright. Kaiden?"
"Me and Wrex are on the South side of the colony still, but we can see the crane from where we are," Kaiden explained.
"Alright," Shepard said, "You two go meet up with Ashley and Garrus. Tali, where are you at?"
"Um... I'm not really sure," Tali replied hesitantly, sounding embarrassed. "I'm somewhere below the colony, but that slime all over is starting to seem less... slimy."
"A yellow brown slime?" Liara asked. I turned to see her looking down the hall we'd been moving down before spotting the transmitter. I could see a slimy substance further down on the walls, with small vines interspersed throughout it.
"Yes!" Tali replied instantly.
"Dazac and I may be close to you then," Liara said.
"Perfect," Shepard said quickly, "You three see if you can't meet up and make your way up to the colony."
"What about you?" I asked.
"Once you're altogether, you come and find me," Shepard explained with defeat, "I'm not going anywhere. And hurry it up, would you? I don't want to end up like the other people down here."
"Right," I said, "We're on the move now, stay in contact."
I heard Shepard mutter, "Not much else to do."
I looked at Liara and nodded to her and the two of us started swiftly making our way down the hall.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Shepard's POV
Well... I've had better days. I tried readjusting myself, but it didn't work like I'd hoped. Instead of feeling any looser, it just made a large glop of slime hit my neck and start creeping down between my armor and me. Yuck.
I took a look at my surroundings once more. I was stuck to a wall by a tangle of vines and very sticky sap-like substance. I wasn't the only one here either. I could see at least two more people who were in the same predicament, only their heads we covered as well. Hopefully the others would get me out of here before then.
I continued to look around. I was near the edge of a large pit that seemed to have once been part of some sort of large, circling stairway or ramp. I couldn't see anything from where I was, but I could definitely hear something. It sounded as disgusting as the slime felt. Loud burping noises, accompanied by the wet slap of something hitting the ground. Whether it was just large globs of slime or something solid, coated in slime, I didn't know. I hoped it was the former.
The light is what baffled me. This place was underground, and I was quite certain the top wasn't open to the air. Something was giving off light though. A lot of it. But there didn't seem to be any kind of source that I could see, so unless the slime itself was... wait. That had to be it! The slime was emitting a dull light! There was just so much of it that it appeared bright! And since everything seems to be covered with it, there weren't any visible shadows.
I frowned. Glowing slime... yet another thing that didn't add up. It seemed everything that Dazac knew about Feros was useless here. Things were so different from what he described. I had to wonder how he was taking all this. He had been prepared for what he thought would be here. I didn't know if he would be able to cope with what actually was here. And then there were the others. I hoped they'd think it through well enough to realize this wasn't his fault. He gave us what he knew, it just didn't turn out to be as accurate as we'd hoped.
The sound of squelching drew my attention to my left where I could make out the edges of a doorway. There was something coming this way, and it was way too soon for the others to have met back up already. I had to fight to keep myself composed when the stench hit me. It was utterly rotten, and I could feel bile rise in my throat at its presence. The thing that stepped through the door was hard to identify at first. It was a yellowish-brown color and appeared to be wrapped in some kind of plant or vine. At least, it did at first. When it turned toward me though I got a look at its face. It looked humanoid at least, but it appeared to have no eyes or nose that I could see, and if it had ears they were hidden under the decaying leaves. It did have a mouth though, a crooked sneer on its face. There were all kinds of vines coming out of its mouth to spread out across its neck and down beneath the slimy foliage it was covered in.
It opened its mouth as if to speak and a glob of slime squeezed out, oozing down the creatures neck as it faced me.
"YOU ARE F~L~E~S~H. YOU ARE F~O~O~D."
A/N: For anyone unsure of how to picture the transformed colonists and thing that has approached Shepard, I based it a bit on those statues on Ilos, if that helps give a better picture. Please let me know what you think of Feros so far. Love it? Hate it? Getting reviews is great for motivating me to continue and make this story something memorable. If there's anything you're wonder, or would like to see, let me know and I'll answer and incorporate what I can without spoiling things.
Thanks for reading!
