Failing for The Empire
Jason was in a ruined city. Everything was covered in ash, and even more of it was slowly raining down. The sky was almost completely blanketed by pitch-black clouds, and the only way he could see at all was the sun shining at the edge of the horizon. The city itself was rubble, with nothing but a few skyscrapers still standing upright in the distance.
He was staring warily at a four-eyed alien, who resembled an insect. It was yelling and waving it's arms in frustration.
The alien had given him a weapon. A weapon he thought he had seen somewhere before, but couldn't quite put his finger on it. The weapon was grey in appearance, and most of it looked like a bunch of flat panels attached together on each others sides. It also had a dim green glow emanating from inside.
Jason decided to convey his problem through body language, and started waving his own arms. Unfortunately, the weapon was still in his hands, and the alien suddenly ran towards him.
Before Jason could react, it had tackled him to the ground. Then it stood up, ripped the weapon out of his hands, and started showing certain things on the weapon with its fingers. Then it aimed at one of the distant skyscrapers and pressed what Jason assumed was the trigger. A bright green beam shot out.
Jason only got to yell „Holy shit!" before the alien shoved the gun back into his hands.
Now he put the pieces together. These aliens were Protheans, and this was one of their cities.
They were trying to fight the Reapers.
He was 50 000 years in the past.
Jason realised how screwed they all are, and started laughing maniacally.
All the protheans turned to look at him with strange expressions. He immediately remembered about indoctrination, and in hopes of avoiding vaporisation, stopped laughing instantly, and stood up.
Who he assumed to be the leader of these protheans, simply shrugged after a while and motioned him to get behind a wall, that had somehow survived the destruction of whatever building used to stand there.
He sat down behind the wall, and looked off into the distance.
A few minutes later he saw a Reaper land in the middle of the city, destroying a skyscraper in the process.
Luckily, it was slowly lumbering away from them, probably seeing something more important than a small group of survivors.
After a couple of hours of sleeping, a Prothean shook Jason awake. He groggily opened his eyes, and saw the alien pointing towards the city.
Jason widened his eyes when he saw what was coming towards them.
It was an entire swarm of creatures coming their way.
They looked like Protheans, but had much larger heads than protheans, and they also had wings.
Jason realised that the Collectors had been created by the Reapers during the fall of the Prothean empire, not after.
He was about to raise his weapon, when he heard the Reaper signature voice right above him.
He didn't even get to look up when suddenly a Destroyer slammed down on them.
Credits: Chaszcz for the idea.
Damn, this one took long.
Well, not the writing itself, but getting the willpower to write it. I did some thinking on it, and realised that the reason updates got so slow, was because I was intentionally making the chapters longer. I struggled with it. Now I'm trying a different approach. I'm going to write what I feel like is important to make the chapters amusing and entertaining for you guys to read, not forcing myself to make them longer.
Tell me if you don't like short chapters like this, and I'll see what I can do about it!
But in the meantime, I will see you in the next chapter!
BTW, new one coming up very soon. Got an awesome idea, and my fingers are itching to write it.