Author's Note: Again. I'm really not feeling this story any more. My current Priority honestly boils down to, 'finish as quickly as possible' and then move on with my life. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!

Chapter 93: Rift Eta Part 1

?M ?D ?H Until the Colossus Fires

The enemy was soon at the gate, the various Dragoon forces that had been slayed in the initial battle had been resurrected, turned into undead or worse. Even more concerning was that they were starting to encounter more enemies than what they had started with. Guesses naturally abounded, the most sound conclusion being that after having been given the blue prints to the Union's ultimate super soldiers the Four Gods of the Shroud started to mass produce their own. Even in spite of that it was easy to tell in what directions and from what each of the four drew their inspiration from.

The World Eater's followers were Giants, muscle inflated to insane degrees and height increased to compensate, probably extra organs to compensate, speaking of extra they each had plus sized claws sticking out through their knuckles and metal dragon skin.

The Whisper's followers were a sight to Behold, inflated heads into which their organs and limbs had receded into, in compensation they were striking with Telekinetics and mass effect fields, for the finishing eyes decorated the body, but they weren't for seeing. Some kind of high energy glowing goo filled up the Eye's scelera and a convex lens of Rare Crystal concentrated that light and focused it into a powerful laser beam.

The Composer's forces were easy to spot too, partly because there were so many of them, rail thin like a Skeleton with their bodies covered in a layer of glowing moss just for extra creepiness, it could be the light touch of exotic flames that were coming off of their bodies, it was hard to tell.

The Instrument's forces also made themselves rather obvious to see, fast, agile and built like a Centaur, what might be loud speakers strapped to either shoulder and throughout the abdomen while various patterns glowed across their bodies, blasting the front lines with sonic attacks and hypnotic messages, more than once they've lost their posts from the people there simply throwing down their weapons and walking away.

For the time being the Juggernauts and the Dreadnoughts were proving instrumental, not only in keeping their people alive as the giant walking life support units that they were but also for the raw offensive power that they bring to the table, clearing away enemy forces and covering the retreat. Still it wasn't hard to notice a pattern after seemingly days of battle, the enemy pushing hard enough to break through their first few lines of defences only to seemingly break off their attack when they're on the verge snapping them like a twig before they suddenly retreat. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why even if it did take them a while.

"They're training!" Saren slammed his fist down on top of the desk where he ran the numbers.

By virtue of their own people being turned against them the enemy forces had some idea of their tactics and military capabilities, so it wasn't about learning their tactics it was about learning how to counter them, and to Saren's growing annoyance they were succeeding too, each day it feels like more and more of the lines are being broken up faster and faster, part of that was having more people injured than Nauts that they can shove them into, most of it comes down to the enemy getting better with their attacks.

The Giants and the Centaurs did most of the damage, it was subtle but they copied their formula with the Nauts, the Giants functioned in the same vein as the Dreadnaughts, a big slow moving target that could still hit hard enough to draw the enemies fire and take the heat off of the weaker allies. The Centaurs played the same role as the Juggernauts, namely that they were fast and could break the usual defensive lines over their knees.

Then there were the Beholders, seemingly little more than flying targets they make effective artillery pieces with their eye beams and more important than that could effectively support it's allies with Pyro, Electro, Cryo kinetics and Warp ammo or simply dumping the full blown version of those abilities on their heads.

Speaking of support that comes down to the Skeletons, they didn't have a lot of unique abilities but there were a few traits that made them stand out from the rest, the first was that they can use weapons, more Specifically Collector looking weapons that seemed to operate on Mass Effect Fields and some kind of psionics, the second was that there were lots and lots of them, easily making up the bulk of the foot soldiers of the enemy, which led to the final point, anything short of complete destruction and they refuse to stay down, they even keep putting themselves back together again after getting blown apart, or using each other for spare parts, that's when they don't blow themselves up just to break the defensive line at key moments, not only did they look like skeletons but they were also some kind of mass produced undead too.

"They're learning from us." Shepard stated as she looked down at the video feeds of the dissection rooms, where they tore apart Giants, Centaurs and Beholders for information about the new enemies that they were up against. "The Tumours suddenly decided to build up their forces from scratch, sure the cults and the pickled races are there but this is still a mountain of work to do. And if I'm reading these reports right then it's pretty half baked."

"Half baked?" Saren asked not believing what he was hearing. "We're getting hammered and you say their forces are half baked!?"

"The Skeletons are bones and fungus. Even the Liches like having something more than this to work with." Shepard explained as she indicated the creatures that as the name implied were missing most of their internal organs. "The Giants have pretty tiny brains for their size, if my Xenobiology lessons were right beyond merely being stupid they might even be too small to control their muscle mass, if I had to guess they're receiving help from the Eater." Saren was taken aback by the implications. "In the mean time we have the opposite problem with the Beholders. Their organs are too small to do anything for those big brains of theirs, even if we take into account what kind of effect Mass Effect Fields and Brain Fruit are having on them." Especially those two, Saren knows for a fact as a biotic himself how much of a high protein diet it takes to be able to keep up with the energy output of those Beholders, and yet their organs are the thing that have suffered the most that it seems. "Then we have the Centaurs, their bodies look balanced at first but the insides are a mess from those speaker things they have inside of them." Organic speakers made out of thin sheets of bone and operated by vibrating muscles, difficult to set up and probably bad for their long term health.

"The Four Tumours don't care about their long term health or survival outside of their control." Saren concluded from all the evidence fed to him.

"Or these are their first prototypes." Shepard countered as she paced around the room. "Now that they've given them all kinds of cool powers they might start focusing on how to make them work in the long term." Lovely thought that.

"But why go through the trouble of making them in the first place?" Saren found himself doubting the situation rather severely. "Wouldn't it be easier to Grant these powers to their followers than scratch building them?"

"Unless there's something wrong with their followers so that they're not under their control anymore." Shepard stated bluntly as she looked on at the cameras.

"You've seen those aliens history, is that a good thing?" Saren suspected he wouldn't like Shepard's answer. "It was their actions that gave birth to those parasitic losers in the first place." Shepard replied with a snort. "Now the chaos that they're capable of unleashing isn't being directed anywhere." Saren narrowed a glare at that, he knew well enough from years of dealing with Batarian raiders how much damage a disorganised disunited enemy forces could do to a well oiled machine.

08M 19D 13H Until the Colossus Fires

There were a variety of different forces that had been dispatched to counter the four Shroud entities armies, and Wrex was leading the Krogan strike force against the Tzynn.

"This environment is surprisingly good for us."

Wrex didn't think of the Chozo as being especially big with Sam as the outlier, but he didn't take into consideration the wings. Of course a race of air born aliens wouldn't like cramped spaces, it suits Wrex and his team just fine though. Once more Wrex checked his weapons. The Union didn't make their stations as durable on the inside as they do on the outside, makes sense, people don't wear armour to protect against attacks on the inside though. Suited Wrex just fine, his men have been getting too fond of their union issued boom sticks lately, a good old fashion hammer in their hands will remind them of the joys of getting up close and personal when it comes to smashing.

"These bastards are crafty and they like to hide." Wrex informed bluntly. "As long as we're on it we need the station, no indiscriminant swinging and blasting. Your helmets have thermals for seeing in heat and sonar for picking up sound, use em!" As Wrex was thinking about that Bakara stopped him with a arm. "What is it you see something?"

"It's what I don't see that concerns me." Bakara explained in simple terms. Suddenly the Krogan matriarch pulled out Wrex's Claymore and fired it. Metallic powder propelled by Mass Effect Fields sprayed down the hallway, some of it hitting the distant back wall, but most of it falling on the floor as if it had hit an invisible target. "When I look down the hallway I find that seeing the left and right walls isn't a problem, but when I try to look at the wall at the back I over shoot my vision, it's almost like someone is trying to make us ignore what's in front of our eyes." The annoyed figure of a Tzynn brushing the metal dust off of himself soon appeared in the hallway, immediately all the Krogan put their weapons forward.

"Are you bastard's trying to shoot us in the back!?" The other Krogan lowered their boom sticks. "I told you idiots already we're fighting in Melee only!"

"That might not be possible Wrex." The Tzynn seemed to like the idea in spite of Bakara's concerns, already popping both arm blades. "If it can mess with our vision then we should assume that the trajectories of the swings will be thrown off, most likely into each other given how cramped this space is." And then the Tzynn sprung forward, arm blades ready to slash.

"In that case!" Wrex Charged forward, his body spread out as he occupied as much of the tunnel as he possibly could and gave the Tzynn a choice, move or be moved. As Wrex felt an attempt to cut through his arm he pin pointed the monster's location. "Left!" The dust flew through the air and slammed into the Tzynn, carrying with it a payload of electro ammo, going straight through metal scales and making the creature shake with pain. Wrex didn't given him the chance to recover, with a full powered swing he slams the back of his hammer into the creature's head hard enough to send it flying through the air, sans the rest of it's corpse.

"Spread out, teams of two." Wrex made his instructions clear. "Don't give them the chance to escape or slip past you." Already Liara's jammers were going to work around the station, Wrex could feel the faint wrongness of psychic waves being sent out, he doesn't like the way it's crawling up his spine but if it can put a end to those misdirection attacks he'll take what he can get. "Union wants them alive, I would like them wiped out, use your judgement and find the birds."

With that the Krogan advanced down the halls, in the corner of the Krogan's vision they could see a map of the complex and little dots tracking their position of their allies. As Wrex had ordered at every split in the hallway they would split into smaller groups, marking which paths they had taken to hopefully make navigating the station much easier as they attempted to locate the actual crew, also making it easier to fight in the cramped close quarters of the station. Then the fighting started. It wasn't enough that the bastards could turn invisible, make you ignore their presence and were now durable as hell thanks to their new dragon scale skin, no they were flexible too, fitting into the tightest corners, ducts and crawl spaces of the station. A few Krogan suddenly had their legs taken out from underneath them, their armour's leg joints cut into by the high frequency blade, others had the Tzynn drop down on them from above before the creatures retreated dealing more damage to their armour. Other times the Tzynn didn't attack them directly no: they got into the arsenal the Chozo kept on the station for fending off unfriendly sorts, glue grenades and other contraptions of the like. Wrex found what he was looking for eventually, a make shift trophy room where the severed heads of Chozo were being prepped to be turned into Trophies, on the far end of the room was a makeshift throne of carved up crates, with a Tzynn wearing a expensive looking curtain like a cloak lounging about like he was king of the world.

"Good. You are the leader of the invaders. Now we may discuss the hunt."

"What you yammering about you deranged lunatic?" Wrex didn't have the patience for diplomacy today.

"The hunt for the greatest prey of all." The Tzynn smiled evilly. "The Eater of Worlds!"

08M 19D 13H Until the Colossus Fires

While the Krogan had been sent to fight the Tzynn and Liara dealt with the Gaians the other Shroud Gods own forces needed to be addressed as well, and of the two of them the Gorthikians were in the position to do the most damage, going directly after EDI's server worlds.

A mixed unit had stepped foot on Niflheim, named as such for its half fire and half ice world that acted as the host world for EDI's servers. Wrex wasn't present to lead his strike team in person, though he wasn't the only Krogan clan chief he was the one of the few that could be trusted to lead Union forces into battle without the usual reckless Krogan abandon. Instead Leading the task force was a Quarian, Tali, she and her fellow engineers were inside of the customised SCV units made specifically for the Quarians, being escorted by a mixed unit of Krogan, Vorcha, Flerkin, Lich's, Gestalt Rachni and one secret weapon. Tali looked above, where the Satellites carrying a cocktail of Thorian/Eezo/Brain Fruit would do their best to spread their influence across the planet cutting off the influence of the Shroud Gods and keeping them from supporting their subordinates.

The crucial thing was that they require sunlight to work with, or at least some kind of energy they could use for psionics, and while the 'light' side of the planet had plenty of that, and more, to spare, the 'darkside' was another story, the Thorian clusters didn't even get enough energy to stay airborn let alone produce a anti god energy field. A substitute would need to be devised.

"Our plan is simple, but it's not going to be easy, nor quick. But we can do it. We're going to set up a Tree of Life on the light side, which will absorb energy and feed it to the Satellite clusters on the dark side via cables."

They weren't going to the light side right now though, Tali had a lot of faith in Union Engineering but she didn't have that much. Instead they were going to build their base on the narrow strip of land that separated Niflheim's bright and dark sides, it was a little... stormy, thanks to the largest warm front and cold front Tali has ever seen sitting pretty right next to each other. The storms were too bad to set up a landing pad here but the Union did have a base for the organic personnel, an underground bunker deep enough to avoid the storms on the surface and the extreme temperatures. The Gestalt would spread its plant-life across this narrow strip of semi-habitable land and start laying the ground work for the satellites, Thorian spores adapted to Vorcha tissues and carrying lines of Brain Fruit nerves would spread out along both the light and dark side adapting to the extreme temperatures as time went by and laying the ground work for the wider expansion, luckily with samples from Suen the process would be accerlerated.

And then the Gorthikian's started making their move as well. When night fell the creatures attacked, hurling boulders through the air using their telekinesis, though it became apparent that their real objective was to dig out the bunkers, with the boulders being convenient projectiles. Replacing the insulation of the bunker with Spongie Thorian material kept the telepathic attacks of the Gorthikian's at bay but it was only a matter of time before they tore their way into the bunker proper.

"It looks like they're frustrated."

Tali had enough supplies with her to last a month, even if she doesn't she can collect her own waste and grow a fresh bumper crop. Tali could offer a guess as to what the Gorthikians were hoping for, that they'd lead them to EDI's servers and then they would be able to go on the offensive. Unfortunately for them Tali didn't come here to 'Fix' EDI's servers, the AI is more than capable of handling that herself, no what Tali came here to do was wipe the Squids out, and she had a secret weapon to do that.

"Am I correct in assuming that you have no intention of revealing to us where your servers are?" Tali was having a nice luncheon with an old friend she discussed her plan of attack on the Gorthikians.

"I do not." EDI's Synthorg body replied in no uncertain terms.

In simple terms, the entire planet had been dedicated to EDI's use, she had multiple redundant servers, transmitters and power stations across the planet, each of them connected together via a network of underground rails and subways, transporting energy cells and materials to help maintain the planet. EDI's main concern is that eventually the Squids are going to figure out that they can do just as much damage to EDI just by picking a spot and digging down.

"I will however tell you where to find the Squid's base of operations."

Even though EDI had been waiting for back up she wasn't on the back foot. The Gorthikians like to live underground, EDI had seismographs that were tracking seismic activity all over her world so she had a idea where they ripped out the rock for their base of operations, EDI then stacked that information with the point of attack, the direction her visual sensors said the Gorthikians attacked from and the time between attacks EDI has an approximate location of where the Gorthikians have made their base of operations. That left the issue of troop transport. The Fenrir's were a little poorly built for this, even though the amount was small they still relied on fluid based locomotion in order to get anywhere, which in the snow freezes solid, so Tali had to work on some customised vehicles.

The Ice Blade was a giant high efficiency snow mobile that was forty percent engine and ten percent Generator, with access to super conductive materials in below freezing temperatures Tali engineered one of the most high efficiency generators the galaxy has ever seen, but that alone wasn't going to move her creation, that honour went to the system she built into the blade to scrape ice and snow into the fuel tank and use electricity to convert that into hydrogen fuel to act as a propellant, with a smooth friction-less undercarriage lightened by a minor mass effect field they could get pretty far on Tali's new creation. That now led to the new situation.

"We found one group." The Scout team was led by a relatively young Krogan, if Tali knew about the Krogan's little 'tradition' concerning scouts she would've deployed the Flerkin team instead. "Moving to intercept!"

"What? No come back to-" And then the Krogan scout team cut the communication with Tali, later on saying that she broke up from the Blizzard, something that she vehemently disbelieved thanks to Quantum entanglement based communicators.

According to Chief Wrund 'We were all young once' so it's normal to assign the most reckless Krogan to the scout teams as a light warning to them, with the understanding that anymore screw ups would require more extreme action. A group of five Rocket propelled Krogan charged through the Gorthikian's base camp, grinning eagerly as they went to war against the creatures. Initially it was a slaughter, the Krogan caught the creatures by surprise and were able to pulp a few of them with their weapons and their brute strength. Then their suits locked up, the fire fueling their jets were cut, even their weapons and omni-tools stopped responding to them. In short, the Gorthikians had completely hacked their systems, so now not only did they have advanced warning of the Union presence on the world, but they also had hostages as well, a fine mess indeed.

08M 19D 13H Until the Colossus Fires

Samara had led the rest of the mixed Justicar/Ardat Yakshi unit to a world that was acting as a scientific outpost for the Tebrids, and was now looking through a pair of high tech binoculars at the bio-dome where the Tebrids had made their base of operations, before she ultimately shook her head and breathed out a sigh in the negative.

"What exactly did I expect from these spineless creatures?" Samara cursed under her breath as she turned to the rest of the unit.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Falere was out of her armour for this meeting, though she would soon be back in action. They already deployed the Psychic Jammer's around the planet, so the Instrument's influence should be weakened. But right now that didn't matter.

"The Chitering abominations are playing a game with them!" Samara snapped as she clenched her fist in frustration. The Unrepentant Hedonists were sent after the Unrepentant Hedonists, as a consequence the two sides were now sharing their favourite past times. "Send a report and cut the planet's signals off. The longer those things have access to the extra net the worse off we will be!" Without their extra net connection the proverbial ant's nest would be kicked soon enough, and without the safety of their little fortress Samara would be raining down hell on both the enemies and the traitors heads.

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