Author's Note: Okay so the 'Until the Colossus Fires' countdown has 'Finale' written next to it to indicate the last time the thing shoots off before this is over. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 95: The End of the Cycle Part 1
?M ?D ?H Until the Colossus Fires Finale
While Liara and the Dragoons were catching up to speed the Shroud Gods were working. Vast numbers of people had already been killed or warped beyond recognition, raw materials to fuel the Shroud beings armies, together with their existing forces in the form of the four baseline aliens, the Extra dimensionals, the Dragoon forces that they converted and put under their command. All of these were being loaded into the fortress ship that the Shroud entities had been preparing, soon they would be leaving the world in Hell, where they'd go was anyone's guess but it was clear that when they get there it would be hell. This was the contents of Liara's and companies spying on the Shroud Entities city, they should probably assume that there are similar sights all across the worlds that make up the Tumours territory.
"Okay, well that's decided, we need to take that off the map before we do anything else."
Even as Shepard said that the fortress ship shook, under attack from the four tumours forces. While Shepard was inside figuring out how to attack Saren was leading the defence of the base, a task that so far boiled down to bunkering in the ship as hard as possible while bombarding the enemy with energy and Mass Effect based attacks trying to keep their limited supply of munitions preserved as much as possible.
In simple terms, they were losing, the Shroud entities had the entire planet they could throw at them and a seemingly unlimited supply of troops, worst yet their forces were growing in power.
The Giants were now covered in a layer of Dragon scales to help protect them from damage, the Beholders now had several Biotic Orbs floating around their bodies to intercept Plasma charges, the Centaurs were now armed with war hammers that smashed apart any obstacles that appeared at foot level while the Skeletons showed better coordination than before, though the Dragoons were beginning to understand why that was.
Dissection on a still moving arm that one of the Dragoons captured, read stubbornly held onto them as they retreated into the fortress, revealed that the inside of the bone had a familiar parasite inside of it. The Worms had been wrapped in a shell of minerals, their unique biology of being able to separate and recombine into smaller or larger organisms at play. Which while Fantastic, but doesn't really give them a good idea of how they were going to get out of this.
"Turtling down and playing defence is going to get us all killed." Shepard summarised their main problem with a sigh. "If we want to get through this mess alive then we need to go on the offensive." Which would be significantly difficult, considering the fact that 'going on the offensive' in the place that they want to do that will also involve getting through the army of monsters that the four tumours have assembled.
"Well we have brought our own monster, though it's questionable as to how happy you're going to be to see her again." Miranda produced a Holograph, revealing a figure in a cryo-pod, Alpha. "Oh Joy, my evil twin." Shepard made her displeasure known. Even taking into account the other Dragoons Alpha was above average for them, with her array of Synthorganic bits and pieces, though for that matter the rest of the Collector Synthorgs were much the same vein.
"You forget that they are not the only weapon we have to fight with." Javik's deep voice echoed throughout the Room, a pair of Pasharti were at his side ready to wreak havoc together with the rest of the group.
"Think you can get by whatever shields that they're using?" Shepard asked the mutated alien.
"One way to find out." As Javik said that a familiar figure appeared and tackled Shepard. "And thanks to you even have a disposable test subject."
Spot happily wagged his rear at getting to see Shepard again.
"Let's not throw my dog into the murder blender shall we?" Shepard asked looking at the group suspiciously before she looked to Liara. "Any chance that they got Thread based shields ready over there?" Liara looked through the scans that they performed on the ship during their oh so brief fly by.
"Doesn't look like it, we should just be able to pop in by all indications." The simplest explanation is that the Four Tumours don't need one, Astral Threads shields protect those who use them from foreign influence, the four Tumours are foreign influence, in all likelihood the technology they needed to protect themselves from this one specific threat would be quite counter productive in the long term. "Before that though, we really need to get you out of that." Liara of course was indicating the broken armour that Shepard had been wearing.
The already crude, patch work and in many cases broken armour that Shepard had started with was in even worst shape after days of fighting against the monsters of the Shroud. Thus a replacement was now in order. With the initial completion of the Colossus the supply of Dragon Scales was not going exclusively to the Colossus, so instead Liara was able to secure a supply of them with the latest innovations for Shepard's use. Several minutes later Shepard was stripped, showered and in her new set of armour, having been dyed a purplish colour as a result of the new innovations that had been added into it.
"Did you do something weird to the Dragon Scales?" Shepard asked suspiciously.
"It now contains Eezo and is generating a locking Mass Effect Field on the Brain Fruit nerves that have been wired through your suit." Liara looked quite proud of her accomplishment. "The strength, durability and regenerative power of your armour have all been increased significantly."
"Hopefully it's enough to keep those seafood platters from breaking this armour." Shepard doubted it personally, this should've been the same tech given to the other Dragoons. "Got any plans to destroy the ship? A bomb would be nice."
"Don't have too much in the way of remote Controlled Bombs." Liara did however present a few racks of high powered missiles. "I presume this will do rather nicely?"
"Quite. So we just strap a porter to this and drop it into the Tumours ship then?" Shepard asked looking at Liara with interest.
"Ships." Miranda correctly bluntly. "They're not planning on conquering worlds one by one after all, this is just one world that they're building from." With that bit of information Shepard's course of action became clear.
"Then it seems that there's no more point in staying here any longer." Whether they won their war game against the Four Tumours was no longer relevant, it would be a very small victory that would put a small dent into the enemy forces that is simply not worth the damages that they would incur as a consequence. "Saren!" Shepard put her finger on the coms and called their field commander. "We're leaving, I'll explain the rest later, clear the LZ and evacuate our people back onto the fortress. Liara has donated some extra bombs, feel free to use them."
"Understood."
Spirit Day came early for Saren and his Crew, having been given the green light to begin launching their all out attack against the enemy forces heavy artillery enhanced by psionics or biotics crashed down on the enemy forces with explosive force as the fortress ship took off into the air. That said a fighting retreat would be dissatisfying, so before they left they would deliver a good bye blow to the enemy.
"It's only a prototype, so I don't feel bad about using it now, if anything this data will help us to perfect the technology." Liara had brought along more than just bombs and armour, she also took experimental weapons with her too.
The unit basically amounted to a capsule with a jump drive attached to it, another disposable Jump unit, filled even nastier Gungnir rods, these ones specially designed with a ZPM for maxing out power and Neu Eezo for maximum damage dealing potential. Even with only the tip composed of Neu Eezo the rod easily matched a mountain in terms of sheer mass, further exacerbated by energy being pumped into the mountain sized mass to pull double damage out put duty. The Rod simultaneously maintained a repulsive and attracting force, repelling air around it to create a frictionless vacuum that used the repelled air to push it down to the target below even faster and harder, what use to weigh one mountain now weighed several, and several of these rods had been deployed over the ship yard all spread out over a wide area, a wormhole of course opened up to intercept the rods, but their mass effect fields caused them to spread out over a wider area, most were intercepted by the worm hole, others escaped and slammed into the planet. Three impacts slammed into the planet, each of them little under twice the weight of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs on Earth. The Dragoon fortress ship left the planet as it was bombarded by multiple extinction level attacks.
"Well that was exciting." Shepard noted as she prepared for their fortress's jump. Suddenly the entire ship shook, as if multiple external forces had reached over and grabbed onto the ship from the outside. "Biotics?" Shepard pulled up the sensor layout and had a look at what they were dealing with. "No space is twisting!" And so was Shepard's scowl, after all she knew exactly who was capable of manipulating space time on this scale in this space. "Damn those bloody tumours!" Like the sore losers that they are the Tumours were refusing to let their prize get away from them. Then all of a sudden.
"Nuh uh uh~! I saw her first!" Space abruptly turned back to normal and the entire group wretched forward from the momentum. All but one that is.
0M 0D 0H Until the Colossus Fires
After over a year of fighting against the Four Shroud Entities Union had succeeded in repairing and reassembling their super weapon and firing it where the majority of the Shroud entities had gathered their forces, supported by Anti-worm hole technology that would prevent the energy beam from being redirected.
The blast of sheer psychic power entered their bodies, carrying the message that their gods did not exist, that they were ultimately a figment of their collective imagination. It was a message that sadly never reached them, swallowed whole by the Shroud Gods, inflating their power like filling a balloon with water.
Then the ground work that had been laid in the Union was unleashed: The Tebrids that had become fast friends with the Sathyrelians was introduced to a new game, one in which they competed to build up ships and conquer the Galaxy, though for the people of the Union their 'game' was much too real.
The Asari were hit with the madness of Hedonism, vast cults of pleasure led by the Ardat Yakshi sought to bring the galaxy into the mindless bliss of pleasure and pain.
The Krogan, Turians, Batarians and Chozo were reduced to factitious hunter tribes, wandering the Galaxy on great den ships as they together with the Tzynn hunted the most fearsome prey in the galaxy, whether that be the Union remnants or each other vast swaths of the galaxy had been turned into a slaughter field.
The Quarians, Salarians, Flerkin tore each other apart, seeing enemies everywhere that they went, resorting to mutilating themselves and each other with genetic alterations and cybernetics to ensure loyalty and to survive in the harsh and relentless Galaxy.
The Elcor's cautiousness was turned against them, their bodies left rotting from within as plants grew from within and took over, the rituals that the Liches used to maintain their species had given them over to the Composer while ever increasing swaths of the galaxy was consumed in the endless rot.
The Animator attempted to unite the machines together against the threat, and succeeded, but they were ultimately wiped out in the end, leaving the rest of the Galaxy to be drawn and quartered by the forces of war, paranoia, disease and hedonism.
"No, no that isn't right."
0M 0D 0H Until the Colossus Fires
After over a year of fighting against the Four Shroud Entities Union had succeeded in repairing and reassembling their super weapon and firing it where the majority of the Shroud entities had gathered their forces, supported by Anti-worm hole technology that would prevent the energy beam from being redirected.
The beam bathed the enemy forces in genetic alteration technology. The Reapers invented the technology to remake the galaxy in their image, the Liches adapted it to use on the Flerkin so that they could save their species with an unlimited supply of corpses, now it was meant to reduce the enemy forces to mindless beasts, unable to believe, unable to worship, unable to sustain the life of their masters.
It was not meant to be.
The energy was absorbed by the Four Shroud Gods, each of them experts in manipulating the physics that such a massive weapon relies upon, each of them experts in inducing mutations into a given target. With the energy absorbed the four of them turned it on the Union, the Formless acted quickly to block the transmission that was being run through the fabric but by then it was too late, over half of the galaxy, including most of the military force of the Union, had been mutated into monstrous creatures that were under the Four Shroud Gods control.
"Not this one either."
0M 0D 0H Until the Colossus Fires
After over a year of fighting against the Four Shroud Entities Union had succeeded in repairing and reassembling their super weapon and firing it where the majority of the Shroud entities had gathered their forces, supported by Anti-worm hole technology that would prevent the energy beam from being redirected.
Soon a massive shield was erected around the planet in question, thus preventing the Shroud Entities from sending any of this ships through the shield, offering them a place of safe refuge as they used Wormholes to send their forces all over the Galaxy unopposed.
"Well, that was just a stupid idea."
0M 0D 0H Until the Colossus Fires
After over a year of fighting against the Four Shroud Entities Union had succeeded in repairing and reassembling their super weapon and firing it where the majority of the Shroud entities had gathered their forces, supported by Anti-worm hole technology that would prevent the energy beam from being redirected.
The neutron sweep tore through the enemy forces like a hot knife through butter, leaving behind a trail of corpses in their wake, but they would not die alone. The Shroud Gods manipulated the Fabric and the neutron pulse continued fed by the combined psionic energy of the Shroud Gods forces, tearing through the Galaxy. Trillions were dead, over three quarters of the Galaxy had been killed!
"I'm gonna say... no."
0M 0D 0H Until the Colossus Fires
After over a year of fighting against the Four Shroud Entities Union had succeeded in repairing and reassembling their super weapon and firing it where the majority of the Shroud entities had gathered their forces, supported by Anti-worm hole technology that would prevent the energy beam from being redirected.
The nano-technology swarmed, infecting the bodies of the Shroud Forces, intent on destroying their minds and shattering the Shroud Gods over their knee. Unfortunately in the process they gave the Shroud entities a massive boon of a weapon. The Nanotechnology was taken over through it's connection to the Shroud entities followers, transformed into a violatile weapon, a massive wave of grey goo that ate everything and turned it into more nano-matter to increase it's own mass, supplemented by the Thorian to create a pseudo husk material and mass produced horrors beyond the survivors wildest nightmares.
"Well that's fantastic."
?M ?D ?H Until the Colossus Fires Finale
The members of the crew woke up one by one, a motley crew of experts consisting of military strategists, technological engineers, physicists, a information broker and most precious of all someone who had met with each of the Four Tumours in person and understood what they were capable of. As each individual had regained consciousness they were greeted by a figure that they didn't recognise, in fact even calling it a figure might just be an exaggeration. In simple terms, a thin white figure with no face, no clothing of any kind, just a outline without any filling, a being that had so little presence that they were scary, like they could stab you in the face and your wouldn't even notice if not for the pain.
"Oh great it's another one." Shepard looked at the figure like it spat in her oatmeal.
"Shepard do you know what this... thing is?" Liara was cautious, as were the rest of the people there given Shepard's reaction.
"Another reality tumour." Shepard stated as she crossed her legs and glared. "What are you supposed to be? The Colouring book of Creation? The Dry Eraser of dismay?" The colourless figure actually looked like it was hit by Shepard's insults.
"I am The End of the Cycle." The White figure Copied Shepard's posture. "And I can do without the insults thank you very much!"
"The end of what cycle?" Saren questioned with a glare.
"Which one do you think?" The newest of the Shroud entities asked with a snort.
"Lemme guess? Some Grandiose line about being the culmination of 65 million years of madness?" Shepard gave a snort in response to her own jab. "It's the Liches Shroud entity." The End of the Cycle didn't deny the claim. "The Liches and everyone that they turned against the Reapers that is, convincing them that the Reapers will be defeated at all costs if necessary."
"That's over nine tenths of the Galaxy!" Saren snapped feeling like he was duped.
"No wonder you look like a colouring book character." Shepard stated as she examined the white figure up close. "Those four races each have their own unique culture and biases that shaped what they think the galaxy should be, but the Union is all over the place."
Saren thought it through. If he and a great many of their Turians had their way the Galaxy would be a military industrial complex. The Salarians would probably have turned entire planets into petri dishes and the Asari would spend all day talking, debating and eating little sandwiches while back stabbing each other all day long.
"You think the same fate awaits those four?" Saren questioned indicating the way they came from.
"It seems that before that happens they're going to spread their creed across the entire galaxy and absorb their respective cultures into their own, or flat out crush them." So not helpful. Not helpful at all.
"That's all well and good you understand but there is one small problem." The group turned their attention back to the featureless figure who spoke up. "My interest in your entire conversation is well into the Negatives." The figure's tone projected an image of immense boredom. "Where is the talk about beating the Reapers?"
"...it's on hold now until we can beat back the Tumours." Shepard informed the entity bluntly.
"And that is why I'm siding with them over you." The featureless figure informed the group again, immediately they moved to go on the offensive, but there was a banana in Saren's holster, Liara's biotic turned into lavender and blueberry foam, and Shepard just let out a sigh.
"We're in a mind palace guys, everything here is under his complete and total control." Shepard intoned dully.
"How very observant of you, it's a shame that you haven't applied that elsewhere. But let me fill you in on what you've missed, the Reapers aren't coming until they're good and ready, and that won't be until both your Union and the 'tumours' as you've called them have worn each other down with years of fighting. Your Colossus? One giant wasted investment with a grotesquely expensive weapon firing off a bottomless supply of energy at the Tumours." What an appropriate name. "And like any good cancer they eat anything that you can throw at them, twisting it into their favour with their blatant power to pull and tug on the fabric of reality!" The white figure calmed down from one rant, and then broke into another. "Let's say you geniuses do figure this out, lets say you do figure out a way of defeating them. You'll have spent months, if not years in a battle that you cannot win against an enemy that can adapt faster than you can and assimilate your own forces into their own. Just ask her!"
Liara's own memories played out, her work to advance the Thorian's Psy-blocker, how it was designed to cut off the Tumours influence on their forces from reaching them from the dark of the void, now with the re-introduction of the extra-dimensional factions in the Unbidden, Aberrant, Vehemont and the Insatiable they had effectively by-passed that issue, and Liara had no idea how to fix it beyond 'shoot every enemy unit in sight.' It gets worst, the enemy could access their development cycle and bastardised their technology or get a heads up on how to beat it. At any given point in time they can tear open a hole in reality and abused the warped laws of reality therein to twist the rules of time, space and matter to suit their own ends. There is no way that they can beat them with what they have short of a miracle, now they have the proverbial miracle in front of them and even he's saying there's nothing that any of them can do.
"Even if you say that, the fact that we're having this conversation means that you haven't decided yet have you?" Despite the blank figure's talk that's exactly what it was at this point, talk. "If you fight the Tumours you waste resources on a pointless struggle, the longer you struggle the longer they'll have to build themselves up." A worst case Scenario, there's nothing stopping the Reapers from popping over to another galaxy to harvest it of life, there's a big enough gap in cycles to do that. They'll pop over to the next Galaxy over, out of reach of them, replenish their numbers, and come back here. "If you lose they'll go on to kill the Reapers, the sooner that you lose the greater the chance that they'll catch them."
"And what of the state of the galaxy when they're done?" Shepard asked with a glare. "How are you so sure that-" Shepard was actually startled when she realised what was happening here and she actually started to laugh. "Oh that's rich!"
"What is it?" Liara didn't seem to get what ever joke was happening here at the moment. "They're worshipping him too, them and their forces." Shepard gave the follow up to her explanation. "They're still butt hurt that the Reaper's beat them the first time, so they want to go after them this time, they even have convenient worm holes that they can use to chase them down." "Then why aren't they?" Saren asked with blatant suspicion. "Because they already beat them once before, so they want our tech, troops and tactics to throw at them this time." No matter what side of the conflict that wins, this guy gets what he wants, but his problem is that the longer the war goes on the less likely it is that he gets what he wants. "Alright. In that case we just need to speed run the Tumours defeat." Now they were coming down to the brass tacks of the situation.
"And how are you planning on doing that?" That was the question everyone wanted to know.
Review Section:
Monster King: Working on it. It is starting to feel pretty long and drawn out though.
RonaldM40196867: Kind of. If by lethal you mean 'Ability to kill people' I would go with Volus as the least lethal, Krogan as the most lethal Mass Effect race and the Liches as the most lethal of the Union races.
Niekro31: You'd be surprised how many people think that. They keep thinking I was referencing Futurama for some reason though.
starfire202010: Welcome to my hell.