"Jane-taichou, I don't want you to take this the wrong way..." Naruto was forced to pause his attempt at conversation, as the world hadn't quite stopped spinning enough for him to be comfortable talking, unless he wanted possible throwing up to go with it.
"What's the matter, your first vehicle combat mission too much for you?" Jane's grin as she exited the mako did nothing to improve Naruto's mood.
"No, the geth I could handle, even those big walker things of theirs. What came far closer to killing me was... Well I wouldn't call it driving, as I'm sure even I could do better than that, and I've never been behind the wheel before." That comment, which he had to admit was more cutting than usual even for him, merely caused Jane to chuckle before indicating around her.
"You are more than welcome to walk next time Naruto, and besides, you don't see Wrex or Tali complaining..." There was a disgruntled bark from the Krogan warlord even as he debunked from the mako and shook his head repeatedly.
"I wasn't complaining as I think near death situations are good for the soul, though I will admit that's the most roughed up I have been since that time on Omega, ahh good times. And the little one isn't complaining because she knows if she does open her mouth she will vomit. And trust me, cleaning vomit from the inside of your suit is not a 'fun' job." The fact that Wrex only tended to find fighting, training and well... fighting fun was usually meant his opinions on matters were usually defunct, but as Tali's upper body flopped out of the mako and she looked in their direction with a rather pitiful moan.
"Keelah, why are we still spinning?" After a few moments more she seemed to regain enough awareness to actually get fully out of the Mako, though her footing was still a little unsteady as she dropped down next to Naruto, who quickly grabbed her arm to help her stabilise.
"And Wrex, why am I the little one? Naruto is smaller than me!" Tali was obviously trying to distract herself from her queasiness, but Naruto still gave her a playful jab with his elbow as Wrex chuckled before pointing at Naruto.
"That's because he can take out three armed men with just his fists, that's the kind of person you don't want to call little... Not to his face anyways." The three of them chuckled before Jane coughed in warning.
"That will do, let's get up to the ruins as fast as we can, the Geth are here so we don't know what we are going to face. Naruto, I want you to scout ahead, do not engage unless you are sure you can handle it quietly." Naruto nodded, catching the instruction not to use clones unless he had to, Jane clenching her fists as she spoke to relay the message. Whilst there were a few people who knew the extent of his abilities, the less he showed them off the better.
"Hai Jane-taichou!" And with that he was off, moving lightly up the ravine path as the others carried on speaking, stopping when he was out of sight to activate the most useful jutsu Ero-sennin had taught him.
The transparency jutsu was technically only classed as a D-rank jutsu, but Ero-sennin had modified his version of it substantially to aid in his peeping, and it was the modifications that deadened sounds and cloaked the body's heat signature that made it so useful against the metal men. Naruto hadn't tested it on the Geth yet, but as he rounded the next turn and came almost face to face with a Geth trooper, positioned there as some kind of sentry no doubt.
Given the lack of reaction as Naruto stopped in his tracks and fell into a fighting stance, the trooper hadn't seen him, so Naruto crept round the back of the trooper before summoning his spear. Fast movements dispelled the technique, which was why Ero-sennin was usually caught after someone got suspicious, and summoning Kushina from his seals caused the jutsu to fail in a similar manner.
The trooper didn't notice though, allowing Naruto to prepare himself, before impaling the trooper through the back of the head with a single stroke. The Geth collapsed with a clunk, Naruto quickly resealing Kushina and reactivating the transparency jutsu, moving on quickly to check that there were no other Geth in the area that might come and investigate the sound. Luckily no one seemed to have noticed, So Naruto reached up to his ear to report in.
"Jane-taichou, they had a guard set just up the path, it's down but from the looks of things I doubt that is the last of them. Moving up to find the camp." Jane was smirking, he could tell that even when he wasn't able to see her face he could tell.
"It's almost like they knew we were coming... Good work Naruto, keep us informed." Resisting the urge to growl at his commander's tone, Naruto merely carried moving forwards up towards the plateau their intel highlighted as being the research camp they were hoping to find Benezia's daughter.
He dealt with two more Geth, who were waiting near the top of the ravine path in obvious position for an ambush, before reaching the top. The camp was slightly downhill from where he had emerged, amidst the two story ruins which had been the original find, allowing him to assess what was waiting for them before the others arrived. Creeping forwards, Naruto counted at least a dozen geth soldiers, stood around corpses of what must have been the research team.
"Shepard-taichou, I am at the camp..." Naruto paused as his sixth sense twinged a moment before his ears picked up a scrabbling sound.
It took a moment, far too long given his past, but Naruto realised a little too late that the sound was coming from above him. Throwing caution to the wind, Naruto leapt backwards despite the fact doing so would blow his cover, but was just a fraction of a second too slow. The bright red laser slammed into his armour, bypassing his shields like they weren't even there, his dodge meaning that he only caught half of the beam as the rest burnt a hole in the ground.
"They've spotted me, don't know how but I am pulling back, keep an eye up high people!" Naruto didn't turn back to try and spot his attacker, too busy dodging and ducking around the fire that quickly began to strafe him from the other geth in the area, the Geth dropship that had been plaguing them since their arrival on Therum appearing on the horizon several moments later.
"Naruto, status report, given the drop ship and the weapons fire we can hear, you've kicked the hornet's nest this time. Are you safe?" The concern in Jane's voice was touching given her general blasé attitude, but Naruto had bigger things to think about at that moment, making it into cover by the ravine entrance just in time, left arm in agony from where the laser had hit him.
"Just fucking peachy, I always enjoy getting shot and then having a tank get dropped in on my position, so the sooner you guys get here the sooner we can start the party!" He knew he would probably regret the sarcasm and potty mouth later, but when living with a bunch of seasoned ninja, swearing was the best possible vice he could have picked up.
The tank he was referring to was another one of those geth walkers, the massive contraption rearing up in it's now familiar manner to rain plasma upon what little cover he had. Leaping up, Naruto shifted away from the area the others would be arriving from into some of the ruins, hopefully this would prevent them from being pinned down.
"2 minutes out Naruto, just keep yourself alive understand? We can talk about embarrassing Tali with your language, and how you are going to make it up to her later..." There was a muffled exclamation, probably from Tali about Shepard's comment, which actually distracted Naruto from the pain slightly as he ducked under the ball of plasma that had just erupted from the walker in front of him.
Drawing one of his pistols as he heard the light skittering noise above him again, Naruto's paranoia proved spot on as he saw a grey skinned Geth clamber round the corner on the ceiling, eye stalk glowing in the same shade of red as the laser that had injured him earlier. With Naruto knowing it was coming now, the shot was relatively easy to dodge, leaving the thing attempting to backpedal rapidly away from him.
Raising the pistol with a smirk on his face, naruto couldn't help but feel a little vengeful, but that was alright in his book. People who were vengeful usually had the best arcs in the anime that he had read as a child, so that meant he was just becoming that little bit more awesome right?
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"Damn Naruto, you really were not happy with these guys were you?" By the time she and the others had made it to the top of the canyon the fighting had been pretty much over, only the Geth walker still standing as Naruto flitted from cover to cover firing potshots at it with his pistols.
"You have one of them sneak up on you and shoot you in the back Jane-taichou, I assure you it will do wonders for your outlook on the situation." Jane couldn't help but smile at her subordinate's acerbic reply, stress really did bring out a different person from underneath that charismatic and friendly front that he put up to everyone, she found she rather enjoyed the difference.
"You did this whilst injured? You keep impressing me human, though I suppose your regeneration and back up organs helped..." Wrex's comment would have gotten some odd looks from the other three if they hadn't been advancing forwards whilst firing on the walker, so instead there was just an awkward silence for a few moments before Jane decided she should clear up the confusion.
"Wrex, human's don't have defunct organs or fast regeneration..." The Krogan warlord paused behind a rock and looked around at the half a dozen Geth corpses, confusion shifting to delight a moment later, raising himself over the top of the rock to utilise his shotguns 'carnage' ability at the walker.
"Oh, that just makes things even better. No more 'scouting' brat, you and I are going to have a proper contest..." As Wrex vaulted the cover and charged towards the now beleaguered walker, Jane realised that this contest was probably linked to levels of devastation and kill-counts, meaning that these ruins would probably not survive the coming onslaught.
Then she thought about it for a moment and grinned to herself, looking round the camp at all the leftover supplies and geth parts even as the Walker keeled over from Wrex body slamming into one of it's legs. Let the boys have their fun for now, there were other things she could focus on instead.
"Shepard to the Normandy. I want you to come into atmosphere and provide cover whilst the Ontario collects the Geth salvage we have built up, along with any other useful items they find along the way. You will need to send Beta team to collect the Mako, as we've left it at the bottom of the hill the camp is on, we will proceed inside to grab the target, assuming that Naruto and Wrex didn't end up trying to off her to finish their competition."
"Competition Commander?" Jane looked over to where Wrex had just blasted the walker repeatedly in the eye, even as it tried to stand before falling limply to the ground, Naruto having moved on towards the entrance to the ruins with Tali following somewhat confusedly behind.
"Probably better if you don't ask Joker..." Naruto gunned down the first Geth who tried to exit the ruins, shouting something to Wrex that she didn't quite hear, but the Warlords roared reply was almost terrifying.
"What do you mean it only counts as one?!"
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"Hello, can you hear me out there? I am trapped and need help." Naruto had seen her long before he had gotten close enough for her to call out to him, half a dozen of his clones hidden along the walls of the large cavern they had descended into just in case of a trap, his gaze settling on her and confirming that this was indeed their target.
"Dr T'soni-san I presume? A good idea with the shield, these Geth haven't been much fun to deal with..." Having cleared the Geth in the camp with a rather hurried and judicious use of clones, Naruto had not expected or enjoyed the following contest with Wrex, the Krogan quickly catching up to his 'score' in the dark tunnels.
The Krogan seemed to enjoy the contest even if Naruto was severely restricted in what he could do, and the Geth had been much less of a problem once the Krogan had waded into them. Satisfied that the team would distract the remaining Geth, Naruto had slipped off despite Wrex's protests, though the Krogan was placated by the opportunity to kill most of the remaining Geth himself. Judging by the large piece of equipment the Geth had been moving into position, Naruto had been right to move ahead, dealing with them had been easy even when concealing his chakra powers.
"This" Dr T'soni made a slight indication to the way her body seemed to be fixed in place in the air. "This wasn't actually the idea, it seems to be some kind of Prothean security device, must have activated when I activated the barrier to protect myself..." To Naruto's slight surprise Dr T'soni seemed more curious about her situation than concerned or worried, her face similar to when Naruto had asked Sakura or one of the others a question they had to think about before answering.
"Well Dr T'soni, I think we can have a look at how it works later, let me just let the rest of my team know I have found you..." The Asari didn't even react, obviously still mulling over her thoughts on the security system, so Naruto activated his comms unit.
"Jane-taichou I have found T'soni-san, if you can stop Wrex from just trying to kill everything that moves and head back to the fork where I left you, I have marked the path and made sure there are no active Geth..." Using clones to map out the ruins had been far quicker than trying to do it by himself, it was just common sense.
"Very good Naruto, Wrex just found a larger red one to play with but I am sure he will be finished with it soon. Is Dr T'soni unharmed?" The unspoken question of whether she had been working with or hiding from the Geth went unsaid.
"She is currently stuck in some kind of stasis... thing behind an energy barrier taichou, the Geth were trying to break into where she currently is but hadn't succeeded from what I could tell..." The lack of descriptive words Naruto had for what he was seeing was really starting to annoy him, and he resolved to find a dictionary and see if it could help improve his word range.
"Okay Naruto, we are on our way, keep an eye out for any stragglers." Naruto chuckled as he heard Wrex shout something in the background of Shepard's line, but the Krogan didn't come on to tell Naruto what he had said.
"Oh, I am sorry, I got a little distracted... The Geth! You must be careful out there, I was just doing some investigation when the warning of a Geth attack came from the camp. I hid in here and activated the barriers before they got down here, I knew the barriers would keep them out. But the Geth! Beyond the veil? Can you believe it?" Naruto nodded to himself even as he considered his reply, her excitement was too genuine and too out of the blue for her to know what the Geth had done on Eden Prime, meaning that it was becoming beyond unlikely that she was linked with her mother and Saren.
"I can believe it T'soni-san, I have killed 37 of them to reach you. I would also advise you do not show such excitement when Jane-taichou gets here, the Geth attacked a planet called Eden Prime which we helped clear before coming here, a lot of humans died in the attack..." The look of anguish that entered Liara's face was so genuine that Naruto actually felt bad for his blunt warning.
"I-I apologise, I did not mean to be excited at the Geth's actions, it is just a wonderful scientific opportunity to learn about a race that haven't left the Perseus Veil in over 300 years. And may I ask, what is your name human? And please call me Liara, nobody has referred to me by my surname in several decades..." Naruto was still getting used to the idea that some of the races in the galaxy considered a period equal to a human's life expectancy to the equivalent of a short period of time, managing to focus on her question instead.
"The name is Uzumaki Naruto Liara-san, and I am sure that given the number we have taken down so far you can join Tali-chan in investigating the remains. But first I think Jane-taichou will have some questions for you when she gets here, so how do I turn this barrier off so I can come give you a hand?" Liara looked at him in confusion for a moment before tilting her head to indicate an interface on the inside of the barrier.
Ah, that could be slightly more problematic than Naruto had anticipated... No matter, just because the Geth hadn't been able to work out a way in didn't mean he couldn't!
His optimism lasted until Jane and the others arrived, the only progress he had made was working out that he really didn't want to try and force his way through the barrier physically. He could have probably used the body replacement jutsu with a clone, but he didn't want to reveal his abilities, especially given Liara's fascination with new technology/races she didn't yet understand.
"No luck Naruto?" Jane's question prompted a subconscious growl of frustration from him, he would have had a much easier time if he could just use some jutsu.
"No Jane-taichou, though Liara-san does tell me that the thing a couple of floors down that the Geth were trying to set up is a 'mining laser'? Not quite sure what that is exactly, but she seems pretty sure that it should work." Jane looked at him for a moment before gesturing to Wrex and Tali.
"You two go and secure the mining laser whilst I have a chat with Dr T'soni, Naruto can make sure there are no stragglers following us up." Wrex grouched about interrupting his contest again, but moved off a moment later with Tali in his wake.
"I don't know what Naruto has told you yet, but I am Commander Jane Shepard of the Council Spectres, in pursuit of a rogue Spectre by the name of Saren who has allied with the Geth to bring about the return of a race called the Reapers. Your mother is known to be working with him, and given the Geth attack on your dig site and their efforts to get through to you, you are obviously involved in all this somehow. The only question is, which side?" Naruto was always slightly surprised when Jane put her 'work face' on, but Liara seemed more confused than anything else, which made sense with what he had gleaned from their interactions thus far.
"I am not on anybody's side, I have no idea what you are talking about. I haven't spoken to Benezia in years, decades in fact. We are nothing alike! I promise I know nothing of what she is up to, please just get me out of here." Nothing deceitful in her tone of voice, though body language was hard to discern when she could only move her head, Naruto giving a small nod when Jane glanced at him to give his taciturn support.
It's not as if he wouldn't be keeping an eye on her all the time anyway, and given his particular set of skills, Naruto was sure if she did turn out to be a plant then he would catch misdeeds quickly enough.
"Very well, since Naruto believes you I will do so as well. Naruto, would you be able to get inside without us needing the mining laser?" That sort of question meant that Jane was giving him permission to use his abilities if he needed to, though Naruto was still wary of showing off too many skills.
"Hai, I think I do..." Disappearing from Liara's sight by taking a few quick steps to the left, Naruto motioned for one of his hidden clones to try and Kawarimi into the room. The clone performed the seal, and then there was a small thud as the loose debris he had seen inside the room landed where the clone had been hidden.
Jumping up to where the clone had been, so as to avoid the eventual questions of how there were two of him hanging around, Naruto activated his comm so that he could speak just to Shepard.
"Jane-taichou, my clone is inside the tower and I will switch with him if the opportunity arises, hopefully Liara-san can walk him through deactivating that shield. Otherwise, we might need that mining laser after all..."
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"Surrender, or don't. That would be more fun." Jane shook her head, the day had been long enough as it was without the bloodthirsty Krogan and his Geth sidekicks trying to spoil the end of it.
"I don't think so, you see, the good doctor doesn't seem happy to see you and I really do not have time for this." In fact, Jane was surprised to see the previously passive and polite Asari look positively murderous at the sight of the Krogan, bionics flaring slightly as she spat out a reply of her own.
"You killed Sierra and Falx in front of me monster!" The Krogan just shrugged at the aggression as several more Geth flitted into the room.
"You wouldn't come out, I tried to persuade you, not my problem. Saren wants you though, and what Saren wants, he gets." Obviously that line was meant to be witty/intimidating, but the attempted effect was lessened by an argument Jane could hear getting louder from behind her.
"He should be worth at least 5, he is the obvious leader of this entire group..." Naruto's rather loud comment drew everyone's attention even as Wrex snorted and shook his head.
"If the walker only counts as one, he only counts as one, you can't have it both ways brat. Besides, he looks rather wimpy for Krogan in all honesty." That caused the other Krogan to growl at the insult, gesturing to the surrounding Geth.
"Kill them all, spare the..." The Krogan didn't get any further as he was hit by twin carnage rounds from Wrex and Shepard, staggering back just in time to catch Naruto barrelling into him with full force. The Geth raised their weapons but Wrex was already amongst them, Krogan strength and body weight sending one group to the ground whilst the other was being pelted by Tali and Liara.
Discharging her shotgun into a Geth trooper who hadn't made it into cover yet, blowing the thing backwards off the edge of the damaged platform, Shepard saw Naruto fire three more rounds from his shotgun into the prone Krogan before moving off to flank the remaining Geth. Even without his abilities, the young man was doing remarkably well considering the technological disadvantages he had, though his reflexes definitely helped.
"47 Wrex! And there are only four left so you can't catch up!" Jane's admiration of the ninja's maturity dropped slightly at the obvious provocation, shouldering her weapon as an enraged Wrex barreled into two of the remaining enemies, she really didn't want to end up catching the fallout from Wrex having lost the contest he had devised...
A/N: Therum's done, with a few minor tweaks here and there before the obviously quite different ending. What Therum's Prothean ruins contain could be quite an interesting side plot to pursue at some later stage, but I won't give it too much of a highlight for now.
Liara is quite the polarising figure for me, I really liked her in ME 1, and at parts during ME 3. But in ME 2 she was a little too different for my liking, maybe it is just me. But in this, the whole experience of the attack has been a bit darker, I wouldn't put it past the Krogan thinking that Liara needed 'motivation' to come out.
Let me know what you think guys! Reviews are greatly appreciated and let me know that my reader care... :P