Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect, Batman, or UFC.
A/N: Hai everybody, I still live, despite the best efforts. Let's continue, eh?
Normandy SR-1, en route to Feros.
February 18th, 2183. 5:30 P.M.
"You always say that silly." Comes the giggle of the only girl I have left in this world.
"And I mean it, Letti. You're my world, and I'll never let anything happen to you."
"Daddy, when are you coming home? Me and Mommy miss you." My face drops a bit at this, but I keep the smile up.
"I can't, not just yet. I'm doing something very important. As soon as it's done, I'll be walking through the door, I promise."
"Are you sure?" She asks, and the doubt in her voice hurts.
"Of course, sweetheart. I'm sure. Nothing is going to stop me. Put Mommy back on, ok?"
"Okay Daddy. I love you!"
"I love you too." There's a bit of jostling, and Lidria comes on.
"That girl worships you, you know. You shouldn't lie to her like that."
"Wasn't a lie." I reply. "I'm coming to see her for a while, once all of this is over."
"So you really are with the new Spectre?" She asks, and I turn the Omni-Tool towards Shepard's spot in the mess hall, who looks up from his noodles and gives a little wave. "Well, damn. I thought you were full of shit yet again. You come out of this then, Okay? Keep your promise."
"Don't worry, It's only chasing the most dangerous criminals in the Galaxy. What could possibly go wrong?" She shakes her head at me. "I'll be fine, don't worry. Say hi to your sister for me." As I end the call, Ashley rounds the corner.
"Did I hear right, Epsilon? You have a child?" Is the first thing she says to me all day.
"That I do, Williams. This bother you?" My reply is fairly sharp.
"Not particularly." She shrugs. "If I may ask, why are you out here if you care about her so much? I mean, if you want to be apart of her life, you need to be there." I start to speak, but she cuts me off. "You can't be the best parent for her out here." I want to snap off at her, but the words are true. I consider my words as she looks at me.
"More than a few times, I've been asked if I think I'm really the best thing for my daughter. This is something I've considered for a long time, and I came to a conclusion."
"Which is?"
"Nobody in this life is perfect. Lord knows I'm not. But I love her more than anyone else ever will. In the end, that's all that matters." The answer seems to stop her in her tracks, and she doesn't speak up as I head to the elevator.
(Present time, Shepard)
"Now!" I call, and Tali slams the button home, making the shutter slam down on the Geth ship with enough force to sever it's landing point, and the comms blackout it was causing. As the static lifts, Kaiden's voice comes in over the comms.
"...The Hell have you been, Commander!? We've tried to hail you guys for the past ten minutes!"
"Alenko, We've just knocked out the blackout on ExoGeni tower. What's going on over there?"
"We're under attack. Some sort of.. Creature. Not Geth, organic. Very hard to put down."
"Wrex, the shotgun. Shotgun! The rifle's not causing enough trauma." Comes across in the background.
"Was that Weston? What's wrong?" I ask.
"His helmet's electronics are shot. These things shoot acid from their mouths, on top of everything else. Requesting immediate assistance."
"We're done here, and on our way out." I say as we rush our way down and out of the building. "Be there soon."
"Hurrying would be good." He chimes in.
"Just hold on. Shepard out."
(Cory)
"Well?" I ask, loading a half-emptied magazine from earlier.
"He's on the way. Should be around ten minutes."
"If we can last that long." Wrex rumbles, splattering another creeper across the wall. They came like a wave, and their numbers won't thin. We backed ourselves into the Varren room, and now the doorway is the only thing keeping them choked up. Outside of it, They're pressed shoulder to shoulder, at least two hundred of them.
"There are a lot of them," I admit, the last of my rounds for the P90 smearing greenish.. Blood? Plant matter? Across the back wall. I slide it back onto my back, drawing my pistol. "But I'll be damned if I'm going to die here. You almost sound worried, Wrex." He doesn't even get upset over that.
"Creatures like this make me... Uncomfortable. Things that keep moving when they should be dead."
"They die just as everything else can." Kaiden says, catching me off-guard. "Besides Wrex, if you die, nobody will get anything done." He chuckles.
"You're right." Wrex smirks, looking a little more comfortable. "Somebody needs to watch out for this ragtag band of heroes."
"If you want to be a hero, I guess." I shrug. "I'd rather not have the title. I kill bad guys, so decent guys don't have to. It's not heroic."
"No, we're not heroes, Weston." Wrex says. "But we're the ones doing the things that need done. I'm glad you recognize that."
I look up at him. "Then let's do our job."
"More coming!" Kaiden warns us.
"Lets do this."
(Ashley)
The ride back is more perilous than the first time thanks to Shepard's rush to get back. Our scrape with the Exo-Geni team only seemed to further rush him. It was a lot to be concerned about, to be fair. A sentient plant, seemingly possessed colonists, and.. Whatever the hell Alenko was talking about.
That said thing reared it's head as we approached the door back to the colony. As Shepard slows the Mako down, I wish he hadn't.
The first thing I notice is the face. Hollow eyes, stretched-looking gray skin, a cruel, soulless mockery of a Human. As it rises, it shows it's vicious claws, long enough to gore someone up close. A sickly, glistening slime covers it, running down it's body and from it's mouth. And as it stands up, it locks on the Mako, seemingly staring straight at me. And it screams.
It was disturbing, before. But now, as it emits a blood-curdling, glass-shattering wail, it moves up to terrifying.
"Ashley."
As it stops, the others rise, and begin to converge on us.
"Ashley!" The sound is weak on my ears. "Fire!" Pure training kicks in, swiveling the turret on the nearest creature and opening fire as my mind remains blank. "Alenko, status." Shepard orders on the comm.
"Holding, Commander." Kaiden reports. "Weapons are starting to lose effectiveness with the constant overheats. We're trying to slow down their use, but there are just so damn many. The sinks can't catch a break."
"We'll only be a moment, now. Everyone, out." He orders to us, and I look at him. "We need to move."
(Cory)
They come like a storm, never seeming to cease. in twos and threes, they push through the door into our fire. They struggle more now to get through the pile of bodies that have started to pile up. We start to catch our breath as the numbers trickle down. That is, until those numbers start to climb out of the pile we put down. Like a cheap horror movie they rise from the pile of corpses, body parts missing, but still hell-bent on ripping our throats open. "Oh, come on!"
"What in the hell are these things?" Wrex asks the room at large.
"Good question," I reply. "We can look into the matter later. For now..." I trail off, fiddling with my omni-tool.
"We don't have time for texting, Cory." Kaiden comments.
"Not texting." I murmur, linking my suit speakers to play. "Just getting to ready to get out of here." As the song starts to pick up, I do the only thing left to me: pull my blade out f it's shoulder sheath.
" 'Cause sometimes you feel tired, feel weak. And when you feel weak, you feel like you just wanna give up.
"But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength and just pull that shit out of you, and get that motivation to not give up, and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse."
"He's gone crazy." Kaiden comments idly as I drive the serrated blade through the head of the first creeper that comes in.
"Or Krogan." Wrex replies to him.
"There's a difference?" He asks, and Wrex chuckles at this.
"Yeah. Krogans can take the punishment. Still, let's make sure he survives the transformation." He says as he pops the floodlight we took down here out of place and starts to carry it like a flashlight.
"Then lets do this."
We move like a charging Rhino, forcing our way through the mass of bodies pressing against us from all sides. We fight our way up the stairs. The darkness, snarls and gunfire seem like something out of a nightmare. My plan isn't as stupid as it sounds thankfully, factoring in Wrex and Kaiden using their biotics to keep the claws of the creepers away from our skin. With enough room, we make our way up and out, just in time to be shot at.
It's fast; a strangled "Fuck!", followed by the sounds of more gunfire, and I'm dragging a bleeding Kaiden behind a crate. "Shit." He curses again, holding his shoulder.
"You good?" I ask, looking over the rest of him.
"Yeah, it just hurts like a motherfucker." He replies.
"Didn't take you for a pottymouth, Lieutenant."
"You get shot, see what you say." He grumbles.
"I have been shot. More than once."
"You're weird though."
Yup. "Shepard, come in." I call into Kaiden's radio piece. Static. "Shepard. Anybody there?" Shit.
"Thought you talked to him earlier." Wrex grunts, seemingly happy to shoot at people again.
"Take it easy Wrex, these people aren't acting right." I warn him.
"They aren't. They're shooting us."
"It doesn't mean they want to." I insist.
"Fine, you let them kill you then." He turns to kill another puppet of the Thorian, only for them to collapse in a cloud of gas. I look behind us, and the returning heroes are there. Shepard instantly takes control of the situation, checking Kaiden's shoulder, distributing the modified grenades, and explaining the situation to the uninformed members.
"ExoGeni dropped the ball on this one," Shepard finishes. "Big time. But at least the people here won't have to worry now."
"What happened?" I ask.
"Their representative is dead." He replies bluntly. "And once the Thorian is too, I imagine their interest in this place will drop." Not the best thing to happen, but...
We press on, and with the grenades it's a simpler task of securing the topside and closing off the stairway until we can deal with the root of the crap. "Kaiden.." Shepard starts.
"I'm good commander." He repeats, irritated with the idea of not coming with.
"Somebody should stay behind, watch over the colonists," Shepard says, standing firm. "And with you wounded, you're not gonna be 100%. We don't know what to expect down there." As he's speaking, Tali's manipulating the crane controls, and the opening is revealed as he finishes.
"Fine, but don't expect me to.." Kaiden trails off as a man approaches us. "Fai Dan."
The man in question looks pained, brow creased and his hands shaking. "Shepard," He wheezes. "Everyone is being affected by that... Thing down there. I'm trying to resist, but it... Hurts, so bad." My hand drifts to my pistol as he continues. "It wants me to stop you. But I won't." Everyone else seems locked in place, and my gun goes up the same time his own does, and I don't hesitate.
The slide locks back as my final round cuts through the air faster than he can pull the trigger, the shot cutting through his wrist and sending him tumbling to the ground in agony, alive.
"Shit, you nearly blew his hand off!" Ashley barks at me, and I largely ignore her, racking the slide back into place and holstering my pistol.
"Better than his head," Shepard says, putting the groaning man out. "Kaiden, get him cleaned up inside the prefab."
"What's wrong with the Normandy?" He asks.
"Joker said earlier that those things are pounding on the won't do any damage, but we don't want them over here. Everyone else, with me. Williams, take point."
"Kaiden." I call to the sulking man. "I'm gonna need your rifle man." He hands it to me.
"Take my teeth while you're at it," He half-jokes. "Shoot my puppy too."
The team is silent as we descend, weapons drawn. The silence is eerie, made more so considering the horde we had to go through to get this far. The air is damp, reeking of.. Rot, decay. The temperature continues to drop as we hit even ground, and as we step out into the open, words become useless.
The Thorian. Disgusting on screen. Here? A plant made of flesh, pulsing, gleaming in the dark. The more our flashlights reveal, the less I want to see. Ashley is the first to voice all of our thoughts.
"THAT thing, is not a plant." at her words, it shifts, moving it's tube-thing forward and... well, an Asari comes out. But where most are blue or purple, She's the same shade of green as the creeper's drool.
"Leave, now." The clone utters, her voice grating and not her own. "I will not extend this mercy again." Shepard steps forward, speaking directly to the puppet master.
"I need to know what Saren came here for." He says evenly, no trace of fear evident. "Tell me that and I'll go."
"Saren.. He wanted my knowledge of the Protheans." The clone says, expression darkening to match the Thorian's emotions. "It was agreed I would be left alone in exchange for it. Immediately afterwards, he attempted to silence me."
"Please, I want to bring Saren down." Shepard pleads. "I need to know what you told him."
"Enough! I will not listen to the words of meat bags again. You will all die in this place."
"Meat bags? Kinda rude." I comment idly. The Asari charging up an attack seems to turn it's attention to me at my words, but Shepard has the sense to boot her off the ledge as unearthly screams start from all around us. "Why is it never easy?" I mutter as the first creeper comes running at us from behind.
"Open fire!"
It seems like a scene from a child's nightmare. Growling, gunfire, gasps of pain, and the fear that the monsters are coming.
"Keep focusing fire on those," Shepard advises, popening up on yet another node attached to the wall.
"Kinda hard to!" Wrex replies, blasting away at the monsters pouring in from both sides. Where I expected dozens, there are hundreds of creepers, with no end in sight. So much for the script. The six of us are struggling for the first time in our crusade, and something important sets in for the millionth time: It's not a game. It's my reality. It's so easy to give it my all when none of it seems like I'm actually doing it. Like I'm in no danger. The sudden impact at my waist attests to it. The gunfire is drowned out by the sounds of growling as the creature atop of me slashes at my torso. Not finding purchase, it stares straight through my visor a moment, before starting to smash it's skull against my helmet. Over and over again, until it shatters, and the creature stares right into my eyes.
'I'm dead. This is how it ends, staring into the hollow sockets of a plant monster.' I'm unable to move, waiting for a death that never comes. Salvation comes in the form of an armored foot, caving in the creeper's skull and sending it flying it off of me. I look up, expecting to see Wrex and only finding a slimmer figure in pink and white armor.
"You okay?" She asks, looking away to continue fire, only to witness them start to slow down, and then collapse as Shepard finishes destroying the Thorian's final connection to the wall, sending it screeching downward into the darkness.
"... That's one I owe you," I mutter, sitting up and removing what's left of my helmet. "Is it dead?"
"It's dead." Wrex affirms, peering over the edge.
"Then let's get the hell out of here." I mutter.
"Not just yet." Shepard warns, motioning towards the pulsing growth on the wall. It splits open, and another Asari comes out. But this one is violet-skinned, and unconscious.
"She's alive." Shepard checks, before standing back up. " We should get her out of here."
"Are you crazy, Shepard?" Tali says, catching the assembled group off-guard. "She'll try to kill us!"
"Tali, She's not like the other ones." Liara replies. "She could be able to tell us what Saren was looking for."
"And if she does end up being dangerous, we'll put her down,"Shepard states in a tone that leaves no room for argument. "So lets get out of here. This place reeks." He meets no resistance at this order, hoisting the unconscious woman over his shoulder as everyone files out.
"Ow, dammit." I groan again as Kaiden disinfects the cuts on my face from the shattered visor.
"Be quiet, I'm not the one who looks like they stuck their face in Wrex's mouth."
"That bad?" I ask. "My face is my only meal ticket."
"You'll go back to being a model in no time." He jests, wiping away at one last cut before setting the bottle of disinfectant down." Okay, you're good. Everybody else good now?" He calls around the small clinic of Zhu's Hope, receiving affirmative noises in reply. As Kaiden gets up, he's replaced by another visitor. I groan again as Ashley smirks at my face.
"You look like shit, Weston."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. Doubly so for me saving your ass."
"If I knew it would be such a big deal for you, I would've asked you to let the thing gut me." I mutter. She laughs a little at this, and lays my shotgun on my lap.
"I believe this belongs to you." I nod my appreciation, and look over to the previous user, curled up on one of the cots. "Is she alright?" I ask.
"She isn't injured, but I think the whole thing rattled her." Ashley says.
"..Thanks, Ashley."
"Couldn't let that little girl become an orphan." She says, betraying a small glimmer of concern. But it's gone as soon as it comes, and is replaced by a far more sinister expression."Why are you so concerned about Tali?"
"Worried about my teammates, is all."
"You didn't ask about anybody else."
"No, I didn't." I lean back against the wall, groaning again. "What time is it?"
"Time to get back to the Normandy." Shepard replies, walking back from his chat. "Shiala gave me some sort of Cypher, but it isn't clearing anything up as of yet."
"You need help making sense of it?" Liara asks.
"What I need is some sleep," Shepard mutters. "We all do. Let's go." Everyone gets up to walk out, save one diminuative engineer. I walk over to her, gently shaking her shoulder. "Tali."
"Mmmph... The X-3's would improve fuel regulation, Shepard..." She mumbles. I have the strange desire to tip the cot over, but having my own shotgun shoved up my ass isn't high on my list of priorities.
"Come on, you goof." I mutter, picking up the worn-out girl. "Bedtime."
A/N: Don't kill me :I . I'd deserve it, but still. As always, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. Don't be too mean, okay? I know it's crap, but I'm not dead yet. Let me know if I misspelled anything/screwed up any names/events.