The Normandy was kicking and shaking in a way Crow had never known her to, and trying to make his way to the helm was difficult at best. Warning lights flared yellow throughout the ship, and most of the crew had strapped in to the nearest seats. Shepard and the rest of the team were just trying to get to the airlock.
"What's with the chop, Joker?" Shepard demanded as they all staggered up the bridge. Crow ducked into a chair the moment he got the chance.
"Doing, my best; we got winds gusting at five hundred kph." Their pilot reported.
"Really regreting that bean taco right now!" Crow commented, wishing he had a stronger stomach.
"You puke on that console, I swear- shit, Commander, there's a second ship parked alongside the Reaper, ladar paints it's signature as geth." Joker's hands were a blur as he tried to stabilize the ship and confirm the readings at the same time.
"Geth?" Garrus crashed into the back of Crow's chair as he made his way up front. "What are geth doing here?"
"I reckon we're about to find out." Shepard declared. "Change of plans, Grunt's joining my team, call Tali up to replace him on yours."
"On it!" The turian confirmed as Grunt did that unsettling laugh of his.
The ship gave a sudden lurch, and alarms blared briefly before Joker managed to get it under control, and the Normandy started flying as smoothly as ever.
"What just happened?" Shepard asked as Crow let out a sigh of relief.
"The Reaper's mass effect field is still active, we just passed inside it's envelope." Their pilot said. "Eye of the hurricane, eh?"
"Alright, everybody, I don't think I need to tell you to keep your eyes sharp on this one. Just because this thing is dead doesn't mean it can't do harm. We know it can indoctrinate, and with geth and a missing crew, we should expect husks. There were at least a hundred men on this station, mostly for construction and security, so if we find anyone alive, assume they're armed, dangerous, and turned."
"At least we know how many husks to expect if the crew is dead." Garrus said as the ship docked with a slight lurch.
"Welcome to Cerberus!" Joker spun around in his chair as soon as the sequence was completed. "We have fine dining, spectacular pay, and send you to only the loveliest locales in the galaxy!"
"I've called Hive tunnels a lot of things, but lovely isn't one of them." Crow smirked.
"Agreed." Thane said, making a slight face. He felt a little sorry for the drell; he had to remember the smell of Hive growths with literal perfect recall.
"Form up, you three." The Commander ordered. Crow stood, and let Glint phase his armor into existence.
"Man, we have got to get you some new armor." Joker commented as he walked past.
"The materials used in Hunter fieldweave don't exist here, and I can't imagine being able to maneuver in what your standards seem to be. No offense, Commander." He supposes that if he had Glint break down Uldren's armor to it's most basic components, they could have enough undamaged material to work with. Maybe make up what was missing with whatever this reality's closest equivalent was.
"None taken, but he does have a point." She looked him up and down. "You look like..."
"Like I got dragged backwards through a portal into an alternate reality?" He offered.
"That's a nicer way of putting it." She said wryly. "You'd look better without the cloak at least."
"A Hunter always wears a cloak." He told her. "It defines us. A Hunter's cloak is supposed to speak to his personality, a symbol of who he is."
"So you're ragamuffin who likes spiders?" Joker asked.
"I hate spiders." The beep of the pressurization chamber beckoning them saves him from elaborating.
"Good luck!" Joker calls after them. They spend a few minutes sitting in the joint airlock, and when it opens...
"Blood. Never a good sign first thing through the door." Crow observed. There was a large, ominous smear on the wall to greet them as they came in. "Looks a few days old."
"Crow, Grunt, on me. Thane, watch our six." Shepard ordered. They moved forwards, locating several research logs and... 'liberating enemy funding'. At least, that was what Shepard called it. He found the logs concerning.
"Reminds me of stories Glint used to tell me about the Ahamkara." He said, suppressing a shudder, after one log where the researcher said the head scientist was trying to 'listen' to Reaper artifacts.
"Ahamkara?" Grunt inquired. Glint phased in over Crow's shoulder as they made their way forward.
"Wish-dragons, some people call them." His Ghost declared ominously. "Paracausal beings that took the form of whatever they were expected to be by the ones who encountered them."
"They feed on the space between desire and reality. The Anthem Anathema. " Crow smirked, side-eyeing the teenage krogan as they strode after Shepard. "Even after death. Their bones whisper to those around them, promising wishes granted."
"But they never whisper... of the curses that come with them!" Glint continued dramatically. The Reaper chose that moment to give a heavy lurch. Grunt jumped, looking around wildly.
"Crow, stop messing with him." Shepard scolded. "Shepard to Normandy, what's happening out there?"
"The Reaper put up it's kinetic barrier." Joker reported via comms. "No signs of movement, weapons are still offline, but it sheared the joint airlock in half, we're not getting through from this side again."
"How... unfavorable." Thane understated.
"We'll have to take them down from in here. Any leads on how?" The Commander asked.
"At the moment of activation, I detected a heat spike in what is likely the wrecks's mass effect core." EDI informed. "Sending the coordinates now. Be advised: the core is also maintaining the Reaper's altitude."
"So when we take it out to neutralize the barriers, this hunk of slag falls into the planet's core." The Commander looks disappointed instead of surprised, truly speaking to how missions like this usually went.
"And everyone dies, yeah, I know." Joker huffed. Crow could picture him already making the adjustments and calculations necessary to keep that from happening.
"If any helmsman can get us off this thing before it reaches crush depth, it's you." Shepard encouraged. "We'll make a sweep for data and the IFF. Stand by."
"Aye, aye, ma'am. Good hunting." Shepard signals them into formation, and hits the button on the door. It opens to reveal more carnage smeared across the floor, and the unnatural interior of the Reaper. The others flick the lights on their weapons on, and Glint hovers at his shoulder illuminating the area ahead in similar fashion.
"This place smells wrong." Grunt growled, mouth hanging open slightly to taste the air. "Like a bad wound... anybody else-"
"Grunt, if you finish that sentence, I swear I'll have you take over Gardner's duties." Shepard scolded. The krogan grumbled slightly, but kept quiet as they listened to another disturbing research log.
"Ever meet one of those dragons of yours?" Shepard asks once it's played it's course. "Could they make people share memories?"
"They could do whatever the wisher wanted." Crow shrugged. "But it alway came with a price, like if you wished someone back from the dead, they would come back wrong, or if you asked for q weapon, it would drive you madder the more you weilded it. I'm glad I've never met one... saw an intact brain in a tank once, that was scary enough."
"Brain in a tank, Young Frankenstein style?" The blond shook her head and led them onwards. "Your world just gets weirder."
"I could say the same for yours." He replied, casting his gaze about the place. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to leave, telling him there was danger everywhere, but he couldn't see it. Ahamkara levels of spooky, indeed. "My senses tell me I'm surrounded, but I see nothing."
"Try that truesight of yours. If there's geth in play, they could have cloaked units." The Commander motioned for them to take cover, and Crow focused on the void. After a few moments, he was able to call on it to reveal the unseen. He looked around, strained his eyes trying to see as far as he could beyond the walls and crates for movement, and saw nothing.
Until, by chance, he glanced down.
"Under the walkway!" He gasped, tracking one of the unknowns as it clawed itself up onto the floor. It looked... human. Husks! The footage and pictures he'd seen didn't do them justice; a moving amalgamation of rotten flesh and cybernetics, looking and smelling as bad as one might expect from such a thing. Hawkmoon punched a hole clean through it, and he was surprised to discover it wasn't as difficult to do as it had been with the cryptolith thralls.
Because they look less human. He shook that thought away.
"Husks underneath, get away from the edges and don't let them get close!" Shepard ordered. They got in close formation as more husks started crawling over the edges, guns bright and loud as the four of them mowed the enemy down like a line of Thralls. Thane and Shepard's biotics flared as the two of them pushed back anything that got close, Grunt's shotgun boomed over the sound of husks moaning and screaming(along with the krogan's elated battle cries). Crow had never used truesight in combat before, and he certainly couldn't maintain it for long periods of time; it wasn't meant to be.
But he couldn't fight and refocus his Light to solar at the same time, so he made it work. Every other blink, he would use the void to sight a target before it rose onto the walkway, shooting it in the head before it would even pull it's shoulders up. He didn't know how many husks there were, but he could feel his confidence rising.
Until Grunt lost control of the urge to charge.
"Abomination!" Shepard called out as the krogan rushed into a stream oh husks, plowing through them with a glowing red one trailing behind him. Crow didn't really think- he rushed forwards with a Hunter's speed and grabbed the thing before it could get in blast radius of the blood-raging teenager, and flung himself to the side for good measure, taking it with him. The death was hot and fast.
A rush of warmth, and he sits bolt upright, nearly cracking heads with Shepard when he does so.
"Shit!" She swears, leaning back quickly. There's a smear of his blood on her left glove.
"Language." Glint mutters, before phasing. The husks are gone, and the rest of the team is standing around him, minus Shepard who'd been crouching. Grunt is shuffling in place awkwardly, Thane looks concerned, and Shepard seems disturbed.
"Hi?" He says, unsure of what else to say. This was the first time anyone on the ground unit besides Thane or Tali had seen him rez.
"You good?" Shepard asked uncertainly.
"Yeah." He tells her, looking around. "We going?
"Yeah." She stand up. "Grunt, we're having another talk about self control later."
The krogan's response was a groan, quickly cut off when she shot him a glare. Crow got to his feet, checked Hawkmoon, and left the pool of his own blood behind.
A short one, but this felt like a good place to leave it, it felt like a stoping point, but I wasn't getting the 'linebreak appropriate' vibe from it.
GrandAssasin95: Thank you so much, I hope you continue to enjoy it.
Jebest4781: Yeah, the geth have no idea the level of weird they're about to get from Legion. I need to figure out the geth equivalent of 'dude, what are you high on?' Because that would definitely be their reaction to a report involving paracausal entities.
ThePilotArchangel: Glad to hear you still enjoy. I just stick with the canon quarian appearance, honestly.
JGThorncross: More like encounter the closest thing to Ahamkara bones this side of Eden Prime. I literally look up the premire dates for certain story missions just so I get Crow's progression into a socially adapted person right, lol.
Brother Bov: Glade you liked it! I was trying a new style, there were a dozen little moments I wanted to write, it was so hard to choose.
Ebuc: Idk why but that review reminded me of Hydra's mind control in season 2 of Agents of Shield...
LukaTheLost: Glad you found it, and glad you're enjoying it so far! Glint would totally be this way in this situation, there's no denying it.
Edboy4926: Happy you liked it! Haunted Crow, in this situation? Well, he'd be a lot more upset about being stuck in another universe, right after deciding what his purpose in life is and having been free from Spider for over a year. Then you'd have people on the D2 side of thing who are actually actively looking for him, imagine Saladin tearing up the Ascendant realm looking for that portal? Given his stubbornness, sooner or later, some Hive gate would airdrop an Iron Lord on someone, then the whole Reaper fleet would be in trouble.
The gang just saw Crow get blown up for the first time, so that's going to have some psychological consequences, seeing as they aren't used to seeing the exploded corpse of a friend reanimate. What ya gonna do? In other news:
Chapter. Friking. Twenty.
Boom.
Fare Thee Well!