~ I don't own mass effect, bioware and EA does ~
Time - Unknown
Zaire's mental plane
Zaire yelped and leaned backwards in surprise, she attempts to correct herself far too late, loseing her balance as her fingers struggle to gain any grip on the too smooth surface. But before she completely and utterly fails and ends up falling to her death, a blue hand rushes out and grabs hers, hauling her back towards the cliff face.
"Liara?" Zaire asks as she rolls further away from the cliff edge, her entire body feeling boneless from the sudden subsidence of adrenalin.
"Zaire?" Liara looked far more annoyed than alarmed at how close to death Zaire had been, though, considering her previous occupation's lack of health and/or life insurance, perhaps Liara was far more used to saving her bondmate from stupid deaths than Zaire originally thought.
"What in Goddesses name are you climbing up that cliff for, you nearly gave me a heart attack!?"
Or not.
Zaire took a moment to compose herself, before she shifted her head to stare up at her beautiful, intelligent and extremely annoyed girlfriend.
"Trying to escape capture while searching for you and figuring out how to get out of here?"
Though originally going for a statement, it came out of her mouth as a question, as though Zaire was asking if that satiafied Liara's question.
"And you thought that climbing up a cliff was a good way to find me?"
In response Zaire snorted, "higher ground, love, and I was hoping to get away from those bloody Crystals" as if for effect, she waved her hand at one of said crystals in annoyance.
Confused, Liara turned and looked at the Crystal that Zaire had pointed towards.
"What's wrong with them?"
"They clone me, that's what's wrong with them."
"Clone you!?"
Zaire nodded her head tiredly, "every time I touch them a clone comes out of them and attacks me, I've been fighting, evading and running for hours."
Liara paused, thinking back to where she had been standing an hour ago, "how many clones are out there?"
Zaire hauled herself to her feet, but replied as casually as she could, "oh, about a thousand or two, I lost count really early on."
Liara thought back and remembered the large group of people searching the crystal field next to the cliff they were standing on.
"Can't you just remove them yourself?" She questioned, now keeping a closer eye on the closest crystals around them.
Zaire barked out a laugh, "remove them how? It's not like I can just wish them away!"
Liara turned sharply to look at her bondmate, confusion on her face.
"You can't?"
"No, should I be able to?" Zaire was getting more confused by the second.
The Asari nodded her head, as if it was the most normal request in the Galaxy.
"It is your mind we are in, yes?"
"And how am I meant to know that?"
Liara pointed at their surroundings, "you were the one to change the landscape, were you not?"
Zaire was slowly realising just where they were, and what that meant.
"Yeah, though that would also explain how I gained my armour. And now that I think about it, this place reminds me of the Geth Consensus."
As if to test that theory, Zaire lifted her hand and aimed it at the crystal she had pointed at earlier, and with a wave it crumbled into dust with nothing more than a hard thought.
Zaire couldn't help but grin, suddenly realising just how much power she had at her fingertips, and with another strong thought, her duel katana grew out of the floor, their blades concealed in their leather sheath and attached to a magnetic clamp, ready to be fitted to her armoured back.
"Anything you want love, armour, guns or something?"
Her lover nodded, "my armour and submachine guns would be useful."
And with a wave and a thought, Liara was ready for combat, decked out in the armour that she had acquired on The Stop.
"Right, I guess I should also get rid of those crystals, don't want anymore clones to fight than necessary."
And as the crystals surrounding them shattered and crumbled around them Liara thought back to her original question, before they got distracted but armour and guns.
"Zaire? Couldn't you just remove the clones like you just did with the crystals?"
Zaire grinned, "I should be able to, give me a second and I'll try it."
Zaire closed her eyes and concentrated, and her mind slowly drifted from her body as she searches for a presence similar to her own, attempting to seek out and remove the clones from her consciousness, however, after a few moments she finds something else, another presence that felt off, mechanical, and when she tried to get a closer look she saw the clones, all of them.
From what she could see, they were less individuals and more like the fingers of a hand, or a arm of a body, and then she made a mistake, she pushed too far and the other presence noticed, reacting in a mechanical way that remained Zaire of the Geth. It resisted, put up walls, and Zaire struggled to keep up the pressure and knock them down. Eventually she was pushed away completely, losing her foothold and she was forced to put up her own walls in order to keep it out of her own head, she opened her eyes, suddenly feeling extremely tired.
"The Hell? It resisted, and pushed me out!"
Liara was extremely worried, any creation of Zaire's subconscious should naturally yeald you the conscious mind, the fact that it resisted, and managed a stalemate should be impossible.
"It?"
Zaire nodded her head vigorously, and with a thought the ground beneath her rose up to create a seat for her to take her weight.
"The clones aren't sapiant, they're more tools than anything else, like the Geth and their mobile platforms, easily replaceable. The thing controlling them, I have no idea what it is, but when I got too close it attacked, it was almost mechanical, but different, adaptable, flowing."
Now Liara was seriously concerned, "Zaire, was it intelligent, or a kind of program, because this thing is probably a part of your Cybernetics. Perhaps some sort of intelligence that is designed to coordinate your implants to work effectively."
Zaire blew out a breath, looking far more stressed than she was 10 minutes ago when she was on the cliff face, though she still had that spark in her eyes, the one that said she had hope.
"If it's an AI, then it's powerful, though it doesn't appear to be able to break down my own defences, I can't break its either."
She pitched her nose, "it's a stalemate, I can't attack or my defences weaken, it can't defend and attack at the same time either."
"So what can we do?"
Liara was getting agitated, feeling that she was just standing around and watching the person she loved fight an impossible battle against an impossible enemy. A lot like the Reapers, when she thought about it.
Before Zaire could answer Liara's question, she felt the same presence of before behind her, and she rolled herself forward, off her seat. A crunch behind her told her that something heavy had hit the seat she had previously sitting on.
Coming up onto her feet next to Liara, Zaire spun on the balls of her feet and turned to face her failed attacker, and came face to face with herself, another one of her clones, which had its fist buried into her seat up to its elbow.
Liara reacted first, and as Zaire had completed her roll, she had flared her biotics and created a powerful Push field, which hit the Clone dead center and sent it flying backwards, taking half the seat with it.
Zaire made a gesture and a wall pulled itself out of the ground behind the flying Clone, and it hit the wall at several kilometers per hour. The wall was made of the same substance as the floor, and reacted like rock, crunching and fracturing under the force, and the Clone ended up stuck in a hole of its own making.
Zaire watched as the seat that was sent flying plugged the hole neatly, and their attacker was encased in stone, however, more flashes of light erupted around them and more clones appeared, though these weren't armoured or armed with anything, the shear amount of them was a weapon on its own.
Liara instantly had her submachine guns out and was spraying as many rounds as possible towards the mass of Clones beginning to charge towards them, backing up to give as much distance as possible.
Lacking any mid or long rang weaponry, Zaire clamped her swords to her back and drew one of them, holding the katana in a reverse defensive grip, and when the clones hit close combat range, she surged forward and neatly bisected the nearest clone, spinning on her heel and slashing downward, killing another.
Zaire was slicing through multiple clones, ducking and waving fluidly as she avoided their punches and kicks, and managing to keep enough space around her to use her katana.
Once again, Liara flared her biotics and created a Singularity, and sent it into the backs of one corner of the Clones blocking Zaire's attempts to retreat. The singularity pulled ten clones up and into the air, giving Zaire the time to skim the edge of the artificial black hole and pull back, killing any clones that got too close.
The dead clones that Liara and Zaire hit reacted like glass, shattering if a grievous injury is inflicted. A clone got to close, and lost an arm to a blind swing from Zaire. The arm was cut clean in half, and where there would normally be blood, opaque glass cubes disintegrated and shattered.
And although Liara kept her finger on the trigger and another hand constantly manipulating mass effect fields, the clones were slowly closing in, and Zaire was clearly dealing with double the number of enemies she was.
There was another small cluster of bright flashes from behind Liara and the Asari turned, expecting to see more clones, but instead saw a wall of Rampart and YMIR mechs, and they immediately opened fire, spraying mass accelerator rounds and micro missiles at the mass of approaching clones. The mechs slowly moved forward, forming a perimeter around the Asari. Confused, Liara turned and saw Shepard, flanked by two Rampart mechs and was making a beeline for her position.
"Your doing I take it?" Liara asked, turning to watch as a never ending pile of mechs fought a never ending wave of clones.
Zaire nodded, "they're easy to create and come armed and lightly armoured, a hell of a lot better than the clones odds."
Liara nodded absent mindedly wondered if this was an example of the human phrase 'when a immovable object met an unstoppable force'.
"What now?"
"Now?" Something in her lovers voice made her look back at Zaire's face, and she caught a look of anger and determination on her face. "Now we go after the thing that's pulling the strings."
And before Liara could ask how, both her and her lover disappeared in a flash of light.
10.03.0005
The Normandy
Captain's Cabin
Spectre Ashely Williams was having a bad day, her biggest op. as a Spectre was scrapped, she was being recalled to guard the Council, which was the Spectre equivalent to a desk job, and to top it all off, a new terrorist organization was trying to replace Cerberus and the Alliance was doing Jack shit about it.
Still, she felt sorry for Vega, as she had come to see the same potential in him that Shepard obviously had, and there was nothing she could do to help. Apparently he was being recalled to the Sol System for some sort of inside job with the Alliance Internal Affairs, though she wasn't privy to the details.
The Normandy shuddered slightly as it slid into a private docking station reserved for Spectre vessels, and Ashely heared EDI announce one week shore leave, and the happy replies of the crew reverberate the halls, bringing a smile to her face.
Say what you wanted about her career, those under her command rarely had any complaints on her leadership or work ethic, and being in charge of the Normandy always led to high profile and low profile events in equal number.
She sighed, and pulled herself up from her bed, walking past her work bench and the aquarium that for some reason was still fixed to the wall. Ashley was thinking of ripping it out and using the space as a gun rack, after all the missions that she had partaken in over the last decade she had collected a considerable amount of fire power, it would be nice to have some of the older and more explosive ones on display.
Exiting her room and entering the elevator, she hit the holographic button for the CIC, and leaned into the nearest corner, the elevator was still slower than a Volus going down stairs, despite numerous complaints from the entire crew, her included.
The doors slid open and Ashely stepped out and into the CIC, where people were finishing their jobs and shutting down the ship's primary systems, the Citadel providing the gravity and the ship was being provided life support via docking ports.
The crew on deck immediately noticed their superior was on deck and everyone stiffened slightly, moving more professionally than a second ago. A consequence of different commanding styles between her and Shepard, as Ashely preferred military organization over Zaire's more unconventional approach.
Williams walked past the Galaxy map, heading towards the cockpit. She had a appointment with the board of directors in 2 hours and she wanted to be there early, because no matter how shitty the posting, a Williams always did their best.
Reaching the airlock, Williams passed EDI's mobile platform and Joker as they powered down the Normandy's engines, communicating with docking control.
Hitting the command console the airlock opened and the Spectre headed for the private aircars that would take her to the presidium.
30 Minutes later
The aircar landed swiftly and silently, and two Citadel Guards approached as Williams got out, activating her Omni-Tool and sending her details for them to check.
One of the guards, a Turian, spoke as his Asari partner checked her details.
"Spectre Williams, reason for visit?"
Ashley sighed, but nodded, "I'm here to speak to the board of directors in about an hour, I'm early."
The Asari cleared her throught, "she clear."
And with that done Ashley move forward, and the two guards moved back to their original places.
The presidium was full of white steel and clean glass as before the War, the only difference was the lack of C-sec, as the New Citadel Guard now held that honor, coincidently freeing up man power for the Citadel Executors to use elsewhere. Unlike C-sec armour, the Citadel Guard had more advanced looking armour and weapons, and had everything is painted black with silver highlights, wearing helmets that concealed faces and with no identifying markings on them except for their race.
Passing by the water features and hurrying politicians who were coming in and out of the political center of the Galaxy, Ashely entered the main reception area, where she moved off to one side and stepped into an elevator specifically placed for Spectre use, and hit the button for the Directors Classified meeting rooms.
Thankfully, the elevator was a hell of a lot faster than the Normandy's and it only takes a few seconds to go down several hundred floors.
Where the Citadel Council was positioned at the top of the Presidium Tower for all to see, the Board of Directors were generally positioned in the Citadel Fleets or under the Tower itself, far from prying eyes as possible while still being accessible.
And so, Ashley exited the elevator and walked past two more guards, the paranoia of both Cerberus and Reaper attacks on the Citadel still fresh in everyone's minds. Williams walked through a set of doors and took her seat, still an hour early, and brought up what little details she was given on her next assignment up on her data slate, a piece of flexible black plastic that she could view data on.
Unexpectedly, the door slid open and Councillor Irissa walked in, looking rather agitated, if the clenching of her jaw and flexing of her hands were any indication.
Standing, Ashley gave a Human salute, "ma'am? What are you doing here? I'm meeting with the Directors in an hour."
The Asari Councillor nodded, "I am aware, but I wished to speak with you privately, and this is the best I'm going to get."
The Councillor checked the door was shut over her shoulder before speaking.
"Republic Intelligence has informed me that during the War, Councillor Tevos revealed some serious secrets about the Republic to Commander Shepard, and that was one of the reasons she was replaced by me."
"We now believe that Shepard has sold those secrets to the Shadow Broker, and a team has been sent to track down and arrest Shepard, I thought that you would like a heads up, as your next assignment will put you close to her."
"Please keep out of their way if you come into contact with them, as they have been authorized to use any means necessary."
Before Ashely could ask anything else, the Councillor turned and left through the same door that she had come though, leaving Ashely wondering how much Zaire had decided to work for the demons of the Galaxy, and what had happened to the awe inspiring Alliance Officer who had saved her on Eden Prime.
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