I didn't get very far with that train of thought, because we were going. I had completely missed whatever it was Nihlus and Garrus had been discussing, and apparently Shepard too, because she had been talking with them. With that, she gestured for me to follow with her head, and we filed out of the room.
Once we were outside, and well out of earshot from everyone else. Nihlus turned to us.
"I'll follow this up with the Council, Shepard."
"You need me there?"
"No," he replied with a glance in my direction. "I'll meet you later with whatever they have."
"Right, good hunting big guy," Shepard replied with a smirk.
I felt a tingle up my spine as Nihlus took off, mostly because I had a feeling Shepard was waiting for me. I really had had enough, and the day had just started. As it turned out, I didn't even know the half of it.
"Right. Roy," she said, turning to fix me a stare. I had a vague sense of deja-vu, since she reminded me of Ash the day before, when my training started.
"Yes?" I replied, gulping.
"The chief's going to stay here for the day, keeping an eye on our quarian. So I figured I'd have to find you a new training partner." The way she smirked at me, the tingle up my spine intensified. "But then I thought, why let someone else have all the fun?"
I gulped again, because I found I couldn't say a single word.
"Go get your stuff. Your armor and weapons are aboard the Normandy. I want you suited up and ready at the range in an hour. And no using rapid transport shuttles."
"What? I... I don't even know where we are!"
"Ask Avina." She raised her omni-tool, and started the timer. "Get moving."
With such orders, it's not like I could have said no. I still had the memory of Ash making me do push-ups all day the day before, in between rounds of getting my ass kicked during training. So yeah, if Shepard decided to give me push-ups for every second I was late, I was going to be doing a lot of them.
I only stopped in my room to pick up the empty armor case and my toiletries, and took off as fast as I could. I got a few odd looks, and one smirking, knowing one from Ash, but no one tried to stop me. When I got out, I realized I didn't have a clue where I was.
And I couldn't see an Avina terminal anywhere.
"Going somewhere?"
I turned to the voice, and saw it was one of the Normandy marines. Whose name I couldn't remember. Blonde, blue eyes, square face... Definitely seen him before.
"Yeah, err..."
"Fredricks," he said, offering his hand.
"Roy," I replied, shaking it. "Though I bet you already knew that."
"Yep. Gotta say, your video's better than a night at Flux," he said, chuckling.
"I don't- Wait, video?"
"The chief and you!" he said, laughing. "Man, that brings back memories. She made my drill sergeant look like a teddy bear."
Great. So the whole ship's been watching. What else could happen? Wait, don't ask that!
"Got over a million hits on the extranet already," he added with another laugh.
I did have to ask, didn't I?
"Look, I'd love to stay and chat, but Shepard's given me a deadline, and-"
"Yeah, that's what I figured." He pointed at a small transport. "I was on the way out."
"Eh, I'm not supposed to- wait. That's not a rapid transit shuttle, is it?"
"Nope, standard alliance."
A smile spread over my face. "Great. I love technicalities. Let's go!"
We filed in and, after programming the destination, the small shuttle took off by itself, heading for the Citadel docks. Unlike the crazy contraptions of the rapid transit system, that shuttle wasn't piloted by an insane, possibly murderous VI. Among other reasons, because it shot into space outside the Citadel, instead of transitioning between buildings as I had expected.
"What the hell?" I said.
"Closed down location, can't get in or out with shuttles unless you leave the Citadel completely."
"Damn. And Shepard expected me to run to the docks?"
"Eh, you can run, you just have to pass a couple of checkpoints."
As he spoke, Fredricks kept fiddling with his omni-tool. With a final a-ha!, he made a swipe, and my own omni-tool chimed with an incoming message.
When I opened it, I saw it was an extranet link.
"Check it out," he said, smirking.
It wasn't without certain amount of trepidation that I hit the link. It was a montage of the training facility's cameras, showing the "highlights" of my first day of training. Which mostly included me getting shot, me screwing something up, Ash yelling at me, or Ash herself kicking ass.
"Gee, thanks," I deadpanned.
Fredricks snorted at that. "Don't feel bad, it's a rite of passage. None of my unit's vids ever got that many views though. Then again, we didn't have the Chief." He looked at me, saw that I was looking at him, probably with a lost look on my face, and just shook his head. "Check the comments."
Huh.
So I did.
- ArmyDude2183214
She can give me a dressing down anytime she wants, if you know what I mean!
+25,442 likes.
That was the top comment; not creepy at all, no sir.
- BlueBeaverFromIllum323
OMG, 3:48. *Dies laughing*
+16,442 likes.
That was me coming out of cover while at a crouch, so fast that I failed to notice a beam protruding at my head level. My skull rattled inside my helmet so bad that Ash had to call the exercise off and give me a full minute to recover.
- Octopizza_Majoris
Hot, kicks ass, loves guns and long walks on the beach... I'm in love.
+8,772 likes.
Oh mate, you're so dead.
- LieutenantCorps4eva99999
Fake. All these shitty hologram training vids are fake as hell, they just put a hot chick in it and bait for views. You can tell at 4:18, I've made a full 3D reconstruction form the vid, and she wasn't even pointing at the mech she supposedly took down. At 5:49... [more]
+3,112 likes.
It only got worse from there. I looked at Fredricks, and I saw he was grinning from ear to ear.
"Fake?" I said, incredulously.
"Oh yeah, there's conspiracy nutters all over the training vids, saying it's all fake. It's an acquired taste, but they're hilarious. Some I really can't tell if they're trolling or not."
Two full centuries into the future, and apparently internet video comments haven't risen from the gutter yet. I closed the app, and realized I had forgotten to ask the most important question of them all.
"Does the chief know?" I said.
Fredricks didn't answer, but his wicked grin told me everything I needed to know. She didn't know... yet.
"She's gonna hunt these people down and murder them in their sleep," I said, and was only half-joking.
"Naaaah, she'll wake them up first."
"Aren't you worried?"
Again, that wide grin. "Hell no, it's our damn right as members of the same crew!" he added, laughing heartily.
It didn't take us long to reach the Normandy, twenty minutes or so. Fredricks spent the time telling me about his own misadventures at the training range, and sending me a few links of vids he thought were the must watch ones. I noticed the top one had over one trillion views.
Talk about breaking the extranet.
Once we landed, I said my goodbyes, and didn't waste time with any pleasantries. I still had to haul my ass to the range, and it wasn't particularly close. I made my way to the cargo hold of the Normandy as fast as I could – which, given that I had to take the lift, meant it wasn't very fast at all – and saw that Wrex had already made it there. He was at his usual spot by the crates next to the lockers, but unlike what he usually did in the games, which was to lean back and do nothing, he seemed quite busy. He had one of the crates open, and weapon parts strewn everywhere.
"Wrex, good to see you."
"Pyjak," he greeted me, not even gracing me with a look.
Totally unconcerned, I opened my locker, undressed down to my undies, and started putting the armor on – undermesh first and all.
"So Shepard convinced you to join us, or were you just spoiling for a rumble with Saren?"
"Yeah," he replied, and much to my displeasure, he didn't elaborate.
I stopped only to make sure all the chest fasteners were properly on, and started working on the legs armor. Which wasn't a very dignified affair, let me tell you. I hopped on my right leg as I fastened the left boot, tried to do the same on my left for the right, lost my balance, and nearly facepalmed the lockers, only managing to catch myself at the last second.
Also, I'm a slow learner. So I went at it again with Wrex.
"So what's your beef with Saren anyway? Does he owe you money?"
He made a low rumbling, grunting sound, which really should have been all the warning I needed. He probably decided I was a slow learner too, so he elaborated.
"Not everything is about money, pyjak," he said, and eyed me like he was deciding whether I'd make a good target for practice or not.
I stopped fastening the arm parts of my armor to look at him. Yup, he was definitely sizing me up, and failing to be impressed at all. Hardly surprising given my previous day's performance. Or the day before's. So, like, every performance really.
Anyway.
"Yup," I said. "Sometimes it's about love. Didn't have you pegged as a romantic, Wrex."
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING YOU SUICIDAL MORON?!
Yeah, my subconscious was screaming at me as I spoke, but the words were out of my mouth and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Wrex's eyes narrowed as he fixed me a stare, so I put the helmet on – which greeted me with an all green marker, score! – and took off.
"Gotta go, Shepard's waiting!" I said, and legged it to the lift.
In my mind it played out like this: Shots fired, microphone dropped, daring escape as the audience cheered. In reality it was more like legs tremble, near wardrobe malfunction, then retreat to the lift and wait like an idiot for half a minute until the door closed and it started moving very slowly, all while Wrex was keeping his eyes on me.
Luckily, I was more worried about Shepard than Wrex (apparently the rock was worse than the hard place, but hey, there's tastes for everything!). I made it out alive, rushed out to the airlock, and after an interminable decon cycle, I ran towards the training grounds.
After C-sec had a word with me about brandishing weapons and going around in full armor inside the Citadel. Nihlus' clearance held, though, so that was that.
As before, despite the various niggling pains from the previous day's exercises (which had receded a lot faster than I had expected, something to do with 22nd medical advances), as soon as I was warmed up, they mostly went away. I kept a good pace, always checking the watch, and realizing that, despite the shuttle ride, I was going to cut it close. The last ten minutes were quite a solid run, and I managed to arrive with only seconds to spare.
The lobby was slightly more packed that day, and I found out why without much effort.
Shepard.
"Well, that's unexpected," Shepard said, as soon as she got to me. Like Ash had the day before, she was in a plain uniform – only with the N7 displayed prominently – and had a harness and a pistol. "Did you cheat?"
"No," I replied, breathing hard. "Technicality."
"Hm?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Used an Alliance shuttle," I finally answered, when my breathing started to get under control. "No rapid transport shuttle."
"Smartass," she replied, smirking. So I got away with it, woot! "All right then, follow me."
A lot of eyes followed us, but most of the attention was on Shepard. I had no idea what she had in mind, but it couldn't possibly be worse than what Ash put me through...
You had to tempt fate, didn't you? Now she's going to take you through a course with live ammo, exploding grenades, and possibly giant mech.
"I'm not sure what the chief put you through yesterday..."
Here it comes.
"But I expect she worked you hard enough for this," she finished, and pointed at the screen above the door where we had stopped. It only read "N Training Course".
Told ya.
"N Training?" I said. Are you trying to get me killed you crazy woman? Do I even look like I can be a janitor for the N-crazies?
Yeah, I didn't say any of that. I was thinking it, though, which I really, really hoped would show on my face.
"Yeah," Shepard replied, a wistful sigh escaping her. "It brings back memories. Good times."
I tried to put my best are you crazy? Face on, but she didn't seem to care for it.
"It's not like I'm sending you by yourself. Not yet at least," she added with another grin. She then pulled her own pistol out. "Pistol only."
I used my amazing signature response to that. "Huh?"
"You've been doing a lot of shooting with that shotgun of yours. I want you to learn something a little more accurate. Just in case any of us ever steps ahead of you."
"Geez, I'm that bad?" I said.
"Worse. Come on."
I pulled the pistol out and got it in a basic two-hand grip, pointed down and obviously away from Shepard.
"Get ready. Don't hesitate, get your targets quickly, and be aware of your surroundings."
"Got it."
She nodded and turned to the door. She raised one hand with a fist, then pointed to the right with a finger. After that, the countdown. Three, two, one.
We were off.
I followed her in and took straight to the right. Just as Ash had taught me, get into cover as soon as you jump into the fight, and don't waste time ogling at everything.
That didn't mean not to look around. The course was a straight shot, a long room with silver metallic walls, with metallic barriers dotted along the way. There were holographic mech targets all along the course, some just standing, others "firing" from cover. I dove behind a barrier, and heard Shepard already shooting.
Damn, she doesn't waste- WHAT THE FUCK!
My shields flashed a moment later, and a quick look showed that my cover was disappearing very quickly. I couldn't quite tell what the hell was going on, only understood later what the system was doing. The metallic barriers were basically narrow flat rods of metal, and every time a "shot" hit one of them, it sank a little bit into the floor.
Which gave a perfect line of sight to the others.
It was like being in the firefight with Saren's mercs all over again. Which wasn't encouraging, given how it went for me.
I resisted the temptation of just digging in deeper into cover, because that didn't work so well for me. So, out and start shooting, and move as quick as possible into the next bit of cover. I managed ten shots while moving, didn't even check how much I hit, and got deep into cover on the next barrier. It didn't last enough for my severely depleted shields to fully recharge, so I was out and shooting again, looking for the next one. Which, unfortunately, was smack in the middle of the enemy holograms.
Yeah. It was a massacre.
It was probably a bad thing that I was already getting used to the electric shocks, because this time I didn't babble incoherently or shook like I was having a seizure, I just curled up in a fetal position and grit my teeth.
Not very dignified. Which I was used to.
"Really?" Shepard said once the shocks stopped. "After everything the chief did yesterday, this is all you give me?"
"Goddammit commander..." I muttered, grunting as I stood up. "I can't even get into cover?"
"I thought you'd appreciate the detail. After yesterday," she said, still smiling. "Didn't you learn anything?"
"Yeah. Look for sturdy cover."
"Now you're thinking," Shepard said, getting my attention. "Keep exercising those neurons."
What?
She grinned and beckoned to me with her finger, and I followed her out once more. The audience was still there, and I got a few amused looks, but it wasn't too bad. I think I was pretty much meeting expectations, so it was more about the audience seeing how amusing it was for any non-N7, regardless of who, to try that course.
So, three, two, one, and we were off again.
I shot my pistol as I ran for cover, not really paying attention to whether I was hitting or not. I was aiming, but hey, lots of targets and no feedback. I slid into cover, deep, counting until the shield started charging, and bolted out of cover again as soon as the shield started to charge, hoping the holographic targets wouldn't find me so quick that it'd interrupt the capacitor charge.
Shoot, keep shooting, look for the next target, and look for the next bit of cover. All while keeping an eye on the shields, because I couldn't tell when I was shot – I later learned this was by design, teach soldiers to keep an eye on the shields at all times, so they're not caught by surprise when they lose them to energy weapons, overloads, or plain old hacking. It was too much. I made three covers before I was, once again, painfully taken down.
Not much better than before, but at least it wasn't as spectacularly bad as that one. Shots got through very quickly on my third cover, and didn't have enough shields to get myself to safety.
Bummer.
*Insert gargling noises*
"Well..." Shepard started, apparently struggling to find something positive to say. "At least you kept your head."
I'll be honest here. I was starting to think that I'd rather have Ash alternatively kicking and riding my ass than Shepard's brand of dry and very dismissive humor. She was constantly smiling, but I could tell she was still pissed at me.
Killing them with a smile.
Yeah, I could see her doing just that.
"Again?" I said, standing up.
"Again!" she replied gleefully, her smirk widening into a big smile.
And again we went.
By the fifth time I was taken down, Shepard wasn't saying anything. She just looked at me while I was laying down on the ground, shaking her head.
"Commander?" I said, still laying down. She glared at me now, but I didn't backpedal this time. "Oh come on, if there was ever a time to call you commander, it's now."
Yep, that made her chuckle. "Okay, okay. What."
"Can I please get a clue or something? What am I doing wrong? And please don't say everything."
"Spoilers already? Tsk, tsk, tsk."
"What can I say, I don't know how many more volts I can take."
"It's non-lethal, you'll be fine."
"So you say."
She looked at me for a few seconds, but I could almost see the gears moving inside her head. Weighting her options. Give me a clue, or torture me a bit longer. Decisions, decisions.
"What was one of the first things I told you?" she finally said.
"Uh..." I muttered, thinking. "After you introduced yourself, the chief, and Alenko, you asked for my name, and told me not to call you commander?"
Given the way she was looking at me, I guessed that wasn't it. It took a couple of seconds for her to realize what I was talking about, which seemed not to be what she was thinking about.
"No, Roy. Not the first time I met you. The first thing I told you before we started this exercise," she replied dryly.
"Oh. Right. Let's see... Brings back memories... Really? Did you get shot like this?"
"More than I'd care to admit, yes," she replied. "What else?"
"Pistol only? That and... Oh."
"Yeah. I wasn't even subtle about it."
It's not like she's sending me in alone, I remembered.
"Despite what you may think, I am not completely insane." She sat on her haunches, right above my head, and as usual, the switch back to completely deadface serious was uncanny. "I expect this is what we'll be dealing with. Or worse."
You have no idea, I thought. Feros and the acid plant zombies. Noveria and the freaking rachni. Nevermind all the geth. Yeah, it was going to be really freaking rough.
"We're going after a rogue Spectre, Roy. They're more dangerous than a nest of vipers in the toilet. When we get into s'kak like this, I won't be expecting you to pull us out of it. That's my job. Nihlus'. I want you to help, and stay alive. Got it?"
"Yes ma'am."
She shook her head as she stood up. I followed suit, getting my ass off the ground. Time to try again.
Three, two, one...
Like before, Shepard had gestured for me to go right, so go right I did. Only this time I didn't just hunker down and try to do everything. I shot some ordinance, and out of the corner of my eye, I kept watch on Shepard. She had gone into cover, but popped out very quickly. And while the first barrage had pummelled my shields, with fire divided between me and Shepard I had more chances to shoot.
I had to move fast, though, because the bullets were still biting through my cover, and dove in to wait for the recharge to kick in. Shepard, too, was moving, though she seemed to be a lot more efficient in choosing where to hide.
When I got up, I got a whole lot of damn shoots coming my way, and my shields really took a beating. It wasn't long before I was down for the count.
And so, we continued.
For three damn long hours.
I never made it past the middle of the course, my breakfast never made it past my throat, it was failures all around. I did make some progress coordinating with Shepard. For one thing, three hours just shooting shit without really talking would have been plain weird, even for her, so I ended up getting more pointers. For another, I think she considered my punishment done, so she did start to give me pointers. She wanted me to shoot at the right times, and know how to split the targets' attention. Coming out of cover when the enemy already thinks they have one target can be used to one's advantage, and that was part of the simulation. She was also shooting the targets that were shooting at me more often than she had been in the beginning.
But I never made it past the middle of the court.
Because the goddamn N-training program Shepard had us running was designed with dynamic difficulty. It was designed for the recruits to fail. Well, until they were good enough for at least N5 designation. But it started easy enough, relatively, to lure the recruits into a false sense of security.
"Are you freaking kidding me?" I said, looking up at Shepard from the point on the ground where I was sitting. Since She couldn't jolt me up with stims until the forty-eight hour medical moratorium, she had no choice but to let me rest.
"Nope. It took me a week to figure it out," Shepard said, sighing.
Hearing that, all the complaints that I had been accumulating in my head seemed to diminish in size, and increase in pettiness. She went through all that for a whole week just to figure out what was happening?
Damn.
"But enough of that. You've had enough rest." She offered me her hand, and pulled me up to my feet without much of an effort. And then had to hold me when I nearly fell on my face. "What's wrong?"
"Dammit," I muttered, leaning away from my left leg.
"Don't be a wuss, pain is weakness leaving the body."
"Yeah, or something's broken," I replied, trying my left leg again. There was a sharp pain coming from the hamstring, and it wasn't going away.
"Ya big baby," Shepard said, but there was no sting behind her words. She stepped behind me, and started scanning with her omni-tool. And humming. After a couple of seconds she started fiddling with my leg armor.
"What are you doing?" I said.
"Just this," she replied, showing me one of the plates from the back of my leg. "Now, turn away and count to three."
"I..." I did as she said, but before I got to two, there was a shot of pain going through my leg like I had been fucking stabbed. "SONOFABITCH!" I shouted.
"There we go, a little medi-gel to make the boo-boo go away," she said, slapping the plate back in place. "Now sit down and let it do its work."
"I really hate my life right now," I muttered to myself, easing myself down against the wall. "That how you fix things?" I asked more loudly.
"For now. That's how we do it on the field, Roy. You don't have time for Chakwas to give you a once-over while we're in a firefight."
"I know, I know. Still..."
After I sat down, the door to the course opened, and in comes Nihlus. He closed the door behind him, took a quick look around, and fixed the beams on us. Mostly on me.
"He looks serious," Shepard muttered.
"If you say so."
"Hey big guy!" Shepard called, waving in a really exaggerated way. "So good of you to join us!"
One would think that after all this time, he'd be more used to Shepard's strange sense of humor, but no, he actually stopped walking towards us to do a double take on her. Yeah, she was still waving.
"Shepard. I need to talk with you," he said once he reached us. Not even a hello. He was still glancing at me, which made stir uncomfortably.
Meanwhile, Shepard had raised her omni-tool, and after a bit of fiddling, I heard a chorus of whirring sounds as the internal cameras deactivated. It was followed by a second chorus, one of disappointed howls coming from outside the training course.
"Sorry guys, Spectre business," Shepard said, although obviously not loud enough to be heard from the outside.
The two of them walked off away from me, speaking in a low voice, until it was too far for me to pick up what they were saying. Nihlus was all business, which, come to think of it, I wasn't sure whether it was normal or not. I really hadn't spent much time with the Turian, but every time I saw him he seemed to be wound up really freaking tight. And I suspected he was still wondering whether I knew anything about Saren he could use or not.
"I wonder if a certain AI would let me tell Nihlus everything he needs to know, it's not like I would be telling Shepard," I said, low enough that I was pretty sure no one could hear me.
My vision went all wavy, and with a very loud and very final "NO!", I got a small glimpse of the AI before being thrown back again. Must have taken just a few seconds. Either I was getting used to the little mental trips, or this one had been fast enough that I wasn't really feeling sick this time. Bit unsteady though.
"Well fuck you too," I said, closing my eyes to steady myself again.
"Why thank you Roy, that's very kind of you," I heard Shepard said. She was walking towards me, and so was Nihlus.
"Great," I muttered, and struggled up to my feet. My left leg didn't hurt, but it had gone kind of numb.
"I take it you're feeling much better," she continued, looking me up and down.
"Oh yeah, like a million bucks," I deadpanned.
"Anything you want to share with the class?"
"Not really, no."
"Yeah, that's what I figured," Shepard said, getting my attention in an instant. Oh yeah, there was something else behind that statement.
"Are we continuing or what?"
For an answer, she gave me a shove to my left, and my numb and apparently all but useless leg failed to keep me upright. I stumbled, flailed with my arms, and failed to find any way to stop me from hitting the ground.
Not quite faceplanting, but you could tell I hit the floor hard. Mostly because of the muted oof! I let out.
"Or what it is," Shepard said. "Stay down there," she added, and turned to Nihlus. "Come on big guy."
"What are you thinking, Shepard?" he said, eyeing her with suspicion.
She pointed at the door with her thumb. "The boys out there. It'd be cruel to let them down without putting a decent show. So why don't you show them what Spectres are made of?"
Nihlus let out a rumble, one which I couldn't identify as to what it meant. Was he pissed, amused, or what? And it's not like I could look at Shepard to figure out what it was. She had her mischievous smirk on, and I very much doubted even Sovereign would be able to wipe it.
"I'm not a villii to be put for show," he rumbled. Make it pissed, then, although not completely. Shepard's mood could be contagious like that.
"Tell you what, I'll race you to the finish. First one gets the prize."
Nihlus' mandibles clicked a couple of times. And then he looked at me.
"Wait a second," I said, only to be ignored.
"You're on, Shepard," he said, pulling his shotgun out.
Without missing a beat, Shepard raised her omni-tool, and with a few gestures, she brought the cameras online. "All right boys and girls, watch closely and pay attention!" she shouted, looking at the nearest camera.
She still only had a pistol with her, but she didn't seem to mind too much. She gripped it firmly with both hands, she walked to one side of the course, Nihlus walked to the other, and Shepard gave me a quick glance.
"Give us a signal, Roy!"
"Um, 'kay." I stood up again – yeah, the floor is really comfy, so sue me – and I started a countdown. "Five! Four! Go!"
Yeah, I thought I was being real smart. They didn't even blink. As soon as I shouted go the two of them went straight for the cover as holographic targets started popping up. It was a good thing I was wearing my helmet, because without the chin strap I'd have had to pick my jaw from the ground. Friggin' hell the two of them were like machines. I watched in awe as they moved from cover to cover, picking targets like they were candy, bolting out of cover when it proved to be too flimsy, it was amazing.
Outside, I could hear the marines cheering. Most were cheering for Shepard, but I could hear shouts of respect when Nihlus pulled a good move.
Unnnnnn... fortunately, Shepard had "forgotten" to give me a heads-up on a little detail about the training course. When inside the N-training course, any organic present was a fair target. And at that point, the VI had already computed it had to dial up the difficulty to the max if it wanted a prayer of a chance to stop the two crazy organics coming towards the final flag. Which meant the amount of holographic enemies was insane, and they were very well armed. Including sniper rifles.
And I was standing at the back like an idiot. Or a perfect target, which is pretty much the same. Three shots in the blink of an eye, and I was down with an electric round to the chest.
"AR... Son of... SHEPARD!" I shouted, and yes, she started laughing. Goddammit.
Not that laughing slowed her down one bit. They were almost neck and neck, but when the difficulty was dialled to the max, Shepard started to slowly edge ahead of Nihlus. It came to head with the last group guarding the flag, which was the best armed one. Nihlus tried to get ahead, but chose some bad cover, and had to waste precious seconds getting into a better position or risk a bullet to the back (which, even if non-lethal, would have done tremendous amount of damage... to his reputation, not to mention his ego). That gave Shepard the edge she needed to punch a hole through the defense, and charge ahead to the flag, taking a hologram down with an elbow swipe as she passed.
I didn't even think they would be programmed to react to physical attacks. Damn.
"And that's my flag!" Shepard shouted, to the cheers and howls of the audience outside. The remaining holograms vanished, and the covers retracted into the ground, leaving an empty course once more.
Nihlus growled something, too faint for my implant to pick up and translate, but not for Shepard to do so.
"That's okay big guy." She looked at me, then back at Nihlus. "You can still have him."
…
Wait, WHAT?
Author's notes: Dammit Shepard! What are you going to do to me noooooow? *tears hair out* So, now you know what the preliminary training course for the N-class operatives looks like. And that Nihlus is good enough to make mincemeat out of it, with only a split decision and luck away from Shepard.
Can't wait for that video to make its wait to the extranet. Not that I'll ever be able to find it that is.
Reviews time! Thanks everyone so much for all the support =)
Tactus501st, thanks! Hope I keep entertaining.
Vixeona, Mizuki00, it's so funny that you both picked up on the "what would happen if Roy loses it". Hehehe-heheHAHAHAHAH! *Cough* That's all I'll say for now :D
Archer83, I'm actually having a bit too much fun with Shepard in this fic. Things will eventually have to get more serious (for... reasons), but she can come across as such an unhinged lunatic that it just cracks me up writing her. And as far as Roy goes, its all about finding that chance, isn't it?
Unnamed Wanderer, thanks, too!
Something wicked this way comes. Is Shepard going to throw Roy to the wolves? To the Turians? Will Wrex run out of patience with our dimension-hopping self-insert? Stay tuned to find out!