Author's Note: Not a heck of a lot to say today, other than after the Collectors Base is done we'll be slowly drifting into crack levels of absurdity. So Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!

Chapter 46: Collectors Base Part 3

The Collector general was scrambling, trying to get their forces dispatched faster then the Dragoons could tear them apart and by all accounts failing. After all these Millenia they finally managed to get their hands on the first piece, they weren't going to give it up any time soon.

"Come you Cloaca!"

The Dragoon's however were proving to be formidable. Formidable and insane. Whenever they were left alone they immediately turned to trying to tear the Colossus apart, be it via smashing, shooting or explosives. They had already damaged several key systems, which was rather unfortunate considering the fact that they were extremely close to completing the core and this would set them back months, that flatly ignored that they had yet to finish work on the second half of the equation as well, a goal that they've been working towards since day one. That part still had some work to do. For now so long as the Union didn't do anything to-oh no...!

The group sent after the core of the Colossus had to split up, Gryte was left behind to block a swarm of Collector insects with a biotic field while the rest of the group pushed forward, hopefully with a way to the core of this abomination. The SCAV made things both very convenient and very inconvenient to travel through the Reaper Colossus. On the one hand the two story tall back hoe didn't fit into most of the base with its narrow person sized hallways. On the other hand it was also well suited to correcting this gross design flaw with it's use of high frequency cutting tools and fabricators, leaving the combination of Garrus, Doctor-Doctor and Trome to follow in her wake. Tali's efforts to remake the insides of the Colossus though would soon meet some rather stiff resistance.

"Looks like trouble's in coming." Garrus stated as he got his rifle ready. The group was soon met by a Landslide, thousands of tiny pieces of what looked suspiciously like stone was flying at them, glittering like a sea of stars before they suddenly fired thousands of little laser beams at them. "Laser shooting mini-drones?" While EDI used Tali's suit to study little stone fragments Tali herself was already on the offensive using her built in welding torch as a flame thrower to torch the little balls of metal. Then the sea of stars was consumed in a sea of flame and plasma, as exotic plasma was set off and then psionically pushed forward. "And exotic gas?" Doctor-Doctor produced a force shield, no biotic barrier in sight, to block the wave of plasma.

"I've finished my analysis of the enemy forces." The group had a picture beamed directly into their helmets visors depicting a close up look of their enemies, bits of stone with reaper tech attached to the side of pebbles with small mechanical legs skipping them into the air. "The Stones demonstrates a notable, albeit weak, psi-connection sparking between each individual piece, a phenomena seen only in Lithoids." It took a moment for everyone to process the implications of what EDI had just said.

"Those rocks are Lithoids?" Tali was the first to speak.

"That would seem to be the case. If I had to guess after their bodies were forcibly imbued with nano-technology they were then smashed to pieces, said technology built psi-amplifiers, interlinked VI programs and small legs to push them forward in a variety of different directions, all while retaining the full ability to process materials into more of their own kind, as well into Rare Crystal, Exotic Gas-" the force field was breached as a explosive projectile was tossed through and blocked by Tali's SCAV taking surface damage in the process. "-And Volatile Mots." Well this is going pear-shaped.

"The union has any protocols in place for dealing with a mess like this?" Garrus asked as the force field quickly started to buckle.

"I'll bring it up in the report." Doctor-Doctor snapped with sarcasm. Then the shield finally buckled. With few options on what to do Garrus made the most of the situation, his particle rifle unleashing a massive stream of cold directly into the fiery Landslide as he attempted to extinguish the plasma, and currently failing. "Try and stone me to death will you!?" Doctor-Doctor had already hacked into the nearby systems, and was now in the midst of seeing what kind of havoc that he can unleash. As it turns out: a fair bit. The Colossus was using Mass Effect based anti-gravity generators, just reverse the current for the hallway a little bit, increase the energy flow... The Landslide suddenly started to drift into the air without the influence of a mass effect field. Cables emerged from everyone's hardsuits and secured them to Tali's SCAV, then the SCAV stabbed it's claws into the floor, entirely unprompted by Tali herself it must be noted. "And for my next trick." The orientation of the hallway's gravity suddenly changed, the landslide was slammed into the far end of the hallway, the group would have joined them if not for the cables keeping them secure. Instead the pulling effect continued to strengthen even as the red hot plasma grew in intensity. A loud explosion sounded out as the section of the hallway was destroyed under the dual influence of the reprogrammed generator and the Landslide's supply of exotic gas. Doctor-Doctor looked rather smug with himself, right up until his hover platform was abruptly disabled and he fell down and landed on his face, the rest of his electronics shorting out.

"It would appear that you've come into contact with Reaper Coding." EDI dryly noted as the Tebrid's electronics were disabled, which included his translator reducing him to communicating in chirps. "Luckily I was able to detect and disable it in time." Doctor-Doctor said several things that probably wouldn't have been able to be translated by his translater if it was working before he pulled open his disabled hover craft and pulled out what Garrus was now realising was a omni-tool, several in fact which he was now attaching to each of his tentacles.

"Move Quickly. Rapidly approaching event horizon." A crude synthesized voice echoed out from one of the tools in question.

"Should we wait for Gryll to come back then?" Garrus asked looking at the Tebrid suspiciously. A loud explosion echoed out, the Vorcha came back in a few moments later having apparently finished with the Seeker swarm.

"So what I miss?" Gryll asked looking at the haggard group, still smoking plasma caster resting on his shoulder. Doctor-Doctor didn't get the chance to change the gravity back to normal before EDI fried his equipment, and seeing as he was in no mood to have the same fate befall his replacements that meant everyone was now resorting to plan B. Cables attached to the outside of the hallway were slowly lowering the group down the passage way, Trome slapping explosives as he went down.

"Psi-detectors are going crazy." Doctor-Doctor stated while he was looking closely at the consoles that were floating around at the tips of his claws. "Whatever is down here is absurdly powerful." The group arrived through the hole that Doctor-Doctor had made, reorienting themselves as they went and seeing the monster that was the centre of the anomaly preventing them from communicating with the outside world. Trome looked down at the Exotic particle war head that he had been lugging along all this time before shaking his head. "This is not a big enough explosive."

The Union has an understanding of the process behind a Reaper's birth. Take several million people, imbue their bodies with reaper nanite technology, break them down into goo, feed that into a giant artificial womb and tada! A newborn Reaper. It was hard to say exactly how they treated larger specimens during this process, the Prethoryn are already the size of most reapers if they treat Sovereign as the standard, a few million of them would be bigger than most planets, and that excludes the reaper's cybernetic shell. It was hard to say what a finished core would look like, but if the answer was 'a Dreadnaught sized Prethoryn with lots and lots of cybernetics sticking out of it' then they should probably assume that this one was done cooking.

"Ssshhh!" A quiet mocking hush echoed out in the chamber, a familiar looking monster walked out as everyone prepared their weapons to go on the offensive. "He's sleeping! Do you all want to wake him up!?" A Flerkin, or at least what used to be one. All of her body hair had already fallen out replaced by bright orange fire of possession skin and reaper cybernetics, the only part that let them figure out that she was a Flerkin at all was the tail. Aside from the hair loss there were no overt cybernetics included on the body, no rocket launchers, Mass Effect generators or lasers replacing limbs whole sale, which only amplified their bad feeling.

"We didn't come here to talk anyway." Garrus stated getting his weapon lined up to shoot. Tali got into fighting position. Gryll got ready with biotics enhanced fists and Trome was already setting up the warhead to be launched into the heart of the monster.

"None of that now." The Flerkin monster waved his hand and an Adjutant pounced on Trome's pet project and made off with it. "A worthy attempt. I would expect nothing less from the union at this point. But futile."

"Is this the part where you talk about how our resistance is meaningless and our attempts to beat you are futile?" Tali asked sounding like she had watched one too many children's holo programs.

"Meaningless?" The possessed monster gave Tali and incredulous look. "Everything that you are doing carries meaning beyond your comprehension. I even suspect that given time the Union will even succeed in killing if not us then this Colossus!" There were anger in those words, like a parent discussing assault on their child. "And while this child's death would be infuriating, it would do little to impact our long term goals. Our Harbinger is already being equipped with the salvation of this galaxy, a weapon that your Liches built and designed for us. Ironic no?"

"The Crucible right?" Garrus asked as his eyes darted around looking for the Adjutant. Everything that he's heard about them tells him that they don't do long range very well.

"We would be content to wait another cycle for the other half of the salvation to be completed. We've already waited since the dawn of the first civilisation in this galaxy. We should be able to wait for a few more, but you're Union is very adept at killing us, and if we do not rebuild the infrastructure they destroyed then Salvation will always be out of reach."

The other half? Infrastructure?

"EDI this entire base that we've been tearing apart, its one big crucible right?" Garrus asked as a bad feeling crawled up his spine. "It is." The familiar Monotone sounded out.

"Can you figure out if anything is different about it compared to the Lich's?" Garrus asked bluntly.

"It lacks a transmitter. But there is a connecting port of considerable size so it might be meant to dock with one." EDI replied bluntly.

"Like say the Citadel?" Like the entirety of the Mass Relay network!? "Correct." EDI stated bluntly. These psychos wanted to use that thing on the entire Galaxy!

That would be the text book definition of a worst case scenario! They'd have to fix the Mass Relay network first, or find another way of transmitting the signal across the galaxy. Which probably meant that this entire cycle for them was a write off as they try and figure that out.

"Why didn't you rebuild already?" Garrus asked legitimately confused. "You must've had millions of years. The Union can make a megastructure in a few decades surely it can't take that long can it?" Then a thought clicked into place for Garrus. "You're scared." Oh now that was rich. "They broke your relays, wiggled free of your trap, and sent you running scared back into the void!"

The Possessed husk's eyes glowed, a burning intelligence that carried the weight of centuries, now angered. The Lich's forced the Reapers back, inflicted such severe casualties that they were forced to plumb the depths of their archived knowledge in search of strategies and tactics to use to make up for their reduced forces. This however has consequences, Strategist as he's started to call himself has even started to show signs of a split personality disorder as the individual thoughts within his fracturing hive mind started to take form into different forms. A petulant child, a limitless supply of fresh ideas and concepts, a snarking teenager craving violence, a veteran spy and negotiator attempting to prod for information and supplement indoctrination with propaganda. Most important of all, veteran warrior who witnessed thousands of his own be slaughtered when the Mass Relay network was set on fire and now sought vengeance, he was rapidly growing tired of this conversation. Was he immature for being provoked so easily? Well he'll let this serve as a learning moment anyway.

"I suppose it's more efficient to simply rip the secrets out of your minds from now on. So many of the Flerkin people are proficient with the techniques after all it won't be very hard to put it into practice."

Another Adjutant swooped in and took the Flerkin Husk away, Adjutants started appearing all around them, disappearing afterwards after they delivered their cargo of husks into the battlefield. Everyone got ready for the anticipated fight while the possessed Flerkin reappeared on a higher platform. Gryll immediately erected a biotic field around the group as various husks started to open fire, the projectiles getting caught up in the biotic field in the process, trapped in a field of anti-gravity. Tali deployed her rare crystal drones and followed up with poring beams of light into the field turning the entire thing bright hot, and Garrus finished the combination off with a exotic plasma shot. The Biotic barrier shattered, its fragmented field spread shrapnel and laser beams in dozens of different directions cutting down all without adequate protection.

"Scatter!" A Brute came charging in through the chaos, Tali stepped up in front of the monster in question high frequency claws locking grasp with massive meaty fists as the two forces attempted to tear the other limb from limb, leaving Tali wide open for the charging Banshee coming up the side.

"Eat it!" Trome interrupted the charging attack with a shot from his plasma gun blowing her away in the process. "And like it you bi-!"

Twin jets of Exotic plasma were shot out of the fists of Tali's SCAV and proceeded to melt away the flesh of the Brute's arms who only roared as the blood rage intensified. Tali tore her claws out of the monster's arms leaving behind a shreaded mess in its wake, and followed up by Trome firing a grenade into the creature's mouth which then blew its head off. Perhaps if the Possessed monster was aiming for drama he would reveal the new ability of the latest of the Reaper's monsters only when the group felt to be on the cusp of victory, a final push to break their moral, but Strategist was not a glory hound, and he was on a time table. The Possessed Flerkin raised up his hands, the fog of the Shroud seeped into the chamber, lightning flew from his finger tips and struck the corpses on the ground. As one, the broken bodies of lesser husks that were left on the ground to rot or become food for the Cannibals, the two elite monsters that had already been torn through, rose as one an all too familiar sight.

"Mot! It's Adek all over again!" Trome cursed as he started to pepper the twice over undead with shots from his particle rifle, futility it should be noted.

"If we wanna stop the orchestra, then we need to kill the Conductor!" Tali shouted indicating the Husk up high, laughing maliciously at them as they advanced with the hoard of the undead. Several suicide drones flew out of Tali's fabricator and shot towards the Head of this crude circus, only for a tyrant to jumped up and body the attacks with his shield before slamming back down again. "Well that's a fail!"

"This way isn't much better!" Several Marauders had already circled around to the other side, something invisible walked through a puddle of synthorganic blood as it approached the group from behind. "If any of you have ideas I'm open to hearing them!" Gryll shouted as he threw up another dome of biotics around the group.

Someone else had a similar idea, on one side a Carcass had slowly started to advance after throwing up an Omni-wall, another was already crawling underneath the platform bridge to the other side to do the same. In the air a Harvester was carrying a deadly payload, Abominations loaded with exotic gas and waiting to detonate. So if they drop the field they get torn apart by exploding barriers, and if they don't they get hit with Meter wide grenades. Garrus would not go quietly, he was already taking aim at the Harvester concluding that if victory was impossible he'd go with spite instead. The creature in question was suddenly slammed into the depths below, and not by any of the group's attacks. Damaged sections of panelling soon followed the falling bundle of corpses before familiar figures dropped out of the hole that had been created and slammed into a platform. One of them a Demon, breathing fire and stomping embers, the other, reaching through the flames with armour able to resist even the other wordly flames of exotic plasma as they reached through the fire and gripped the Demon by it's throat, squeezing down hard enough to cork the flames in the process as a Dragon scale clad Shepard revealed herself from the flames. The Demon was suddenly slammed into the platform by Shepard, followed up by getting kicked off directly into the platform bridge full of husks.

"Light em up Smok!" The Draconic Dragoon came in flying on wings of steel as he released a telekinetic spark into the platform and lighting up the entire area.

"Time to do our part!" Gryll released a singularity to the other group of enemies, Garrus followed that up with a rare crystal laser into the middle of the singularity. Already a couple of rushing hunters were caught up in the combination and were getting incinerated by the building energy beam.

"Shepard there's a Lich among them!" Garrus pointed into the air at the Flerkin on the upper platform. "These things won't stop getting back up until it's dead!" As Garrus was saying that the headless flaming corpse of the Brute came charging through the flames. "Oh no!" Still wreathed in exotic plasma the monster slammed into the back of the Omni-barrier triggering another explosion. Tali's SCAV moved to block the blast while Shepard went on the offensive.

She lost her mace getting there, still had a sword though, and was more than willing to use it. Shepard almost landed a decapitating blow on the undead monster raising other undead monsters, before yet another monster came to the rescue, an Adjutant grabbing the Conductor and whisking her away to safety. Shepard looked up unamused at having her prey stolen, before looking at the mountain sized behemoth made from smelting several Prethoryn together, a predatory smirk underneath her helmet. Even a mosquito can kill a man depending on what it's packing, so now the Dragoon was wondering what ways she could make the monster scream.

Thus, faced with a target that she literally couldn't miss, Shepard opened fire, and as what one might expect from shooting a literal dread-naught with hand held weapons did absolute bupkis.

"Right well that's a failure." Shepard stated letting out a sigh, even as her arm snapped and grabbed a flailing Adjutant as it finished it's teleport. Smok figured it out while he was babysitting for Thuban, apparently these things teleports and Thuban's instant worm holes operate on the same wavelength, spend enough time around them and you get a feel for where they're about to appear, a feel that Smok was able to share through the Grey box's information sharing system.

"Hey EDI, the thing that we're suppose to destroy is somewhere inside of that thing right?" Shepard asked even as the squid faced monster in her grasp kept flailing it's arms.

"Correct." EDI stated as she proceeded to continue. "I advise caution though, there's an extremely high concentration of Reaper Nanotechnology across this creature's body as well as nigh impossibly high concentrations of Eezo located throughout this creature's body." So in other words it's a toxic death trap, or worse, all the more reason why they should try and get through this as fast as possible.

"Garrus, you guys still have the bomb?" Holding the Adjutant and shooting at the same time was pretty awkward, instead Shepard tore into what was left of the creature's mind, which ultimately amounted to very little. So much for being able hijack this bastard's teleport ability. Shepard looked down at the fight, most of the husks had already been incinerated by the plasma on one side, but there was still a big burning abyss down there and a advancing Carcass that meant to push Garrus's group into the fire. "Right. Rescue first destroy later." Shepard snapped the Adjutant's neck and took a running dive leap off of the side of the platform. Normally Shepard weighs almost 200 pounds, with the armour on that get pushed up to 300, right now she was falling fast enough to rapidly reach terminal velocity, so needless to say when she crashed into the group of enemy husks they didn't survive, in the mean time Shepard hard her suit to protect and hold her together plus the Thorian and a in built medical suite to put her back together again. Thus the Dragoon rapidly approached the Carcass, and promptly sliced it in half before kicking the remains over the ledge into the depths below before the apparent lich on the loose seized it. "Everyone alive?" Shepard asked bluntly as the Omni Barrier collapsed, Okay might not be the correct adjective considering the burned state of the SCAV and the rock and a hot place that Shepard just pulled them out of.

"We're okay." Tali stated though there was a sound of frustration in her voice. "A Adjutant stole our bomb though." That was problematic. Shepard looked up at the giant ass monster that they needed to put down and had no reality unravelling nuke to do it with. Even if they could use a method like that to blow it up, they would in all likelihood be caught up in the explosion along with it, not unless they can escape back through the mass relay in time.

"Shepard I believe I know of another source of exotic molecules that we might be able to detonate." EDI explained while she beamed the images of her proposed Plan B directly into Shepard's helmet, who in turn let out a loud whistle at the new developement.

"Yep. That would do it. But can we get there in time to get out alive?" Well one way to find out as they say.

Author's Note:

RonaldM40196867: The shield is a pivotal tool in military operations, starting with the roman army, into modern swat tactics, having a wall with you that can block projectiles and which you can move around is vital, the Omni-shield can do that but better, instant repairs coupled with ultra light weight.

Guest: Indeed learning anatomy is pivotal, especially since Grunt has basically skipped that age and is now without proper reference points. But there is a difference between learning about sex and watching blatantly sexist poorly done sex video's depicting women of another culture plowing animals and mistaking them as fact.