I own nothing but original content.
Gonna skip most of the introductions and get straight to the action.
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I dashed across the open fields toward the sound of gunfire and screams, moving faster than the eye could see, my heavy footfalls leaving dents in the dense earth. I felt more alive than I had in decades. It had been a long time since I had the opportunity to open up, to just run. My bloodthirst was quickly tempered by the joy I felt. I smiled a joyous grin as I ran, the wind whipping by feeling like an old friend. But even my joyful smile was quickly replaced by a resigned frown as I topped a hill and saw hundreds of geth, marching towards the next town on their war path to the excavation site. I sighed. More innocent beings I had to kill. More enemies arrayed against me through no fault of their own. More blood I had to spill. Well, them being geth, the blood was metaphorical, but still, I would be ending the lives of dozens today. Dozens of brainwashed innocents. But it still had to be done. After all, I've never been one to shy away from the necessary.
I slid to a halt, my feet digging long furrows in the ground, and I crouched low, legs coiled for a powerful jump.
"Flashstep, level 2."
Thick arcs of carmine lightning danced around my body, and then I vanished with a pop of displaced air and the sound of shattering earth, then reappeared in the center of the ranks of marching geth, and loosed all 24 shots my pistols could fire before over heating, each bullet piercing the headlamp of one of the foot soldier variants, and then I vanished again, this time appearing in the air above a colossus. I came down on its skull with a falling axe kick, cratering it, and ending its life. I holstered my pistols, and grabbed the carcass, the flung it at a nearby armature, causing both to explode violently, and taking out a surrounding group. Finally, the geth were able to get a bead on me and began to fire, accelerator rounds, plasma bolts and rockets rushing past, as I rushed a rocket trooper and slammed a vicious elbow strike into its head, separating it from the body, and sending it into the distance, and following up with a spin kick, launching the now headless trooper into a second, destroying both. A few rounds pinged off of my kinetic barrier, so I spun, and inhaled deeply, preparing to launch a wave of dragon fire, but thought better of it, wanting to scavenge as many of the geth as possible, and that wave of fire would utterly obliterate far to many for my tastes. I let the mana dissipate, then settled for an Emit Force that knocked back a group and destroyed them. Suddenly I felt my danger senses go haywire, so I Immediately dropped into a crouch, and let a dozen rockets whiz by my head. From my crouch, I launched into the air, and pulled my mattock from its holster, and began to rain down high caliber rounds on the rocket troopers. The large rounds virtually shredded the geth, and the ensuing explosion wiped out a good chunk of the remaining geth. Just as the last trooper erupted, my rifle hissed a warning that it was about to over heat, so I hung it back on pack, and drew my Claymore shotgun, and let gravity bring me down on the headpiece of another colossus, where I immediately let off a shot.
Boooom!
The mighty sound of the krogan made shotgun was only matched by the amount of damage it dealt. There was a hole in the geth's chassis I could easily fit through. I let the immense recoil send me back into the air, where I hung the gun back up under my pack, and drew my newly made katanas. They would be blooded, and earn their names today. I landed on the ground with a heavy thud, the solid earth splintering. Then I let the lightning of my level 2 Flashstep dissipate, and concentrated on the lightning always present in my body and in my blades. And called it forth.
The smell of ozone became overwhelming.
The sound of electricity scorching the earth became thunderous.
I was now a force of nature made manifest.
"True Flashstep."
Arcs of electricity as thick as my forearm and as red as congealed blood sparked across my body, my swords, and the area around me. The outside world almost drowned out by the sound of a thunderstorm raging in my ears. I began to take a step forward.
"Godspeed."
My foot made contact with the ground, and then suddenly I stood behind the remaining columns of marching geth, arms relaxed, blades retuned to their place on my back, lightning dissipating into a cloud of red static. And as one, each and every one of the remaining geth collapsed, like puppets with cut strings, their heads rolling away from the bodies. Then I hit my knees as a wave of pain rushed over me, the recoil from the technique hitting me like a speeding dreadnought. I hazarded a look at my bars.
"Geez, three-quarters of my HP, and all of my mana and stamina? Pretty sure if I was anything other than exactly what I am, that technique would have killed me. As it is, I'm pretty sure that fried all of my nerves, and probably nearly atomized muscles. Really need to level this up before I go killing anymore armies with it." I pulled my Estus flasks out and took a swig of each, and then let my natural regeneration fix the rest. After waiting a few minutes to be healed up to full, I used my telekinesis that I'd gained from killing Kalameet to pull the remains of the small army of geth I'd destroyed into my inventory. Waste not want not and all. After clearing the battlefield of useful parts, I set off at a more sedate run towards the site of the beacon. I had no need to rush, as I was going to wait till Shepard reached the dig site to make contact. Need the timeline to stay mostly intact, at least until the rachni queen is under my protection, and we free the heretic geth from the indoctrination. I slid to a halt just before I broke through the wood line near the dig site, and layered myself with all the stealth and hiding skills I possessed. Not even a god could find me as hidden as I now was. Then I sent one of my stealthed camera drones to wait at the spaceport to catch video of Saren killing Nihlus, because I knew Tali wasn't going to be able to obtain the voice recording like she did in cannon, since the Quarians no longer practiced the Pilgrimage, and instead joined my military as a coming of age ritual. She was currently stationed on the Citadel, acting as an informant, and an assistant to Barla Von now that he was working fulltime for me. That would make it easier to pick her up and assign her to Shepard once we secured his/her Spectre status.
As I settled in to wait, unsure how long I'd be here, I spotted the Normandy fly overhead, and a figure drop out. Must be Nihlus. Good. Not long now. Poor sod. I had worked with him a few times once I finally got the turians to take me off the noncombatant list. A good guy, and a damn fine solider. But he literally had to die at Saren's… hands? Claws? Talons? Huh, never bothered to ask. Anyway, it was the only way to get the Council off their collective asses and do something about Saren, or rather, have Shepard do something about it. And if I played my cards right, maybe I could squeeze Spectre status out of them as well. Getting easy access to Spectre class gear would be a huge boon for my plans. Buy one or two of the top class pieces of gear in each category to use as prototypes, and mass produce the hell out of em, then put em in warehouses all over the galaxy to be distributed during the Reaper War. But that for another time. I can hear footsteps, and gunfire approaching. Then I heard a female voice speak up.
"I can't believe Shepard is dead. That damn geth sniper tore right through her shields. That is some serious fire power."
I felt my mind grind to a screeching halt.
'What the fuck?!
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Bet you didn't see that coming. What is our hero going to do now? Will he take Shepard's place as the savior of the galaxy and the bane of the Reapers, or will he continue to work from the shadows to thwart the machines' plans and allow another to take Shepard's place? Find out on the next chapter of Effect of a Gamer's Soul.