Shepard had started a whole cycle of working through people's problems before the Big Confrontation was set to take place. Garrus and her walked back aboard with the Turian seemingly more at peace than before. He'd let Sidonis go, simply because the man had been suffering as bad as Garrus, having been forced to betray their comrades. To that end, Garrus was now spending some time alone in the weapons bay of the Normandy. They were all waiting for the final word on how to get a Reaper IFF.
Shepard had then departed with Miranda to Illium, as the young woman had mentioned her sister requiring help to relocate safely, which she'd managed to do with minutes to spare and help from Kasumi. Sure, they'd faced a bunch of Mercenaries on the way over, but the mission thankfully went well. Miranda herself was in the office now, tending to shipboard files. Jesse had chosen to help her to keep busy.
It was the running back-and-forth for the Commander that was really starting to show a bit of wear and tear on the woman, to the point she looked a little more tired than usual. She sat herself down on her couch, rubbing her eyes and mumbling to herself. When she stopped, she checked what objective would follow, then murmured, "Helping Jack it is," before standing up.
A ping on her com system caused her to pause. Marching over to the terminal, a bit more awake, she hit the reply button and said, "Shepard here. Go ahead."
"Commander! Glad I caught you!" Fives spoke, "Can I and Jack come up to talk?"
"Sure," She replied, a bit dumbfounded, then tapped a button to allow them up. When the elevator let out a short ding and the doorbell rang, she walked over to it and opened the door. The two were standing right there, in front of her, in full combat gear. She raised a brow and asked, "Guess you want to take Fives with us while we visit that station?"
"Actually," Jack crossed her arms, looking right at her and noticing the bags under her eyes. She spoke, "Five-Oh and his squad said they'd take your place. Garrus and the Cheerleader both told us how swamped you are with work and Clone boy here decided it'd be a good idea to take over for you. You can just relax for the day."
"Mm…" Shepard sighed and rubbed her face, "No can do… Still have to take the Sith Lord, his Apprentice and Samara over to their Galaxy to see his old homeworld, deal with Thane's problem, then Samara's own…" and she looked at the two again. They seemed rather determined to give Shepard at least a short respite here, with her asking Jack, "Are you sure you're gonna be alright after this, Jack? You mentioned it's… A bad part of your past."
"I got this, Shepard," Jack nodded, grinning, "We got this," and she pointed toward Fives, who confirmed it via a thumbs up and. She continued, "Ya gotta get some shuteye if you wanna save the Galaxy. Thane, Rhasits and the Justicar can wait their turn for a bit," and she put her hands on her hips. Fives grinned and bumped fists with Jack.
"... Surprisingly kind of you, Jack," The Commander nodded, then smiled, "Alright… Guess I'll take a break after I tell Kelly not to forward me too many messages," and stretched and yawned. She told them, "Good luck… Send us a ping if you need any help. I'd hate to lose a platoon of Clones and one hell of a Biotic."
"Already have your number dialed," Jack grinned, then slapped a hand onto Fives's pauldron and said, "C'mon, Five-Oh. We got a jungle world nightmare to visit and bomb to kingdom come," then she led the way to the lift. Fives snapped a quick salute to Shepard, then turned around and walked toward the elevator with her. One more wave from the Commander later and the two were descending toward the Hangar.
"Think Karl's gonna mind giving us a ride?" The Clone asked as he checked over his blasters, making sure they were all set. Jack shook her head as the Colonial pilot was visibly working on his vessel to make sure it was ready for travel. The other Clones were gathered around the Raptor, waiting to be given the go-ahead to board when they noticed Fives and Jack approaching.
She spoke, "I got a gift for him and his wife. Some fancy chocolate the Cheerleader recommended," and she tugged at her own blaster's knobs and notches, making sure it was outputting the right amount of power and that it was set to kill. She called out, "Yo, Helo," which caused the man to turn. He waved, smiling, before standing up and climbing into the vehicle.
The entire team was then given the go-ahead to climb aboard, with Fives checking his gear one last time and sliding his helmet on, before stating, "This is gonna be a bit cramped, boys. Bold, why don't'ya hang on to the outside and leave room for us thinner Clones," and that got a few laughs out of the boys, while Bold scoffed and snorted.
"All due respect, Fives, your pauldron's probably pokin' your girlfriend in the face," Bold joked back, making the other clones laugh again, while Fives and Jack became somewhat visibly embarrassed. Jack lifted her left hand rather quickly, presenting the third of her five right toward him. Karl let out a short laugh at that, too.
He told them, "Alright, kids. Brace for takeoff back there. Jack, put on a helmet," and he powered on the Raptor's engines. They sputtered, then crackled and hissed, then roared to life as the Normandy's landing bay doors opened, revealing the superstructure of the Waystation. Powering the engines, Karl gently nudged the craft out of the hangar, then told Jack, "Put a helmet on, just in case, Psychotic Biotic…" as he veered right and dipped down and away from the ship.
Powering the engines to the maximum made the vehicle speed past the enhanced frigate and the drydock it was held in, arriving in the middle of a mass of military and civilian traffic. The Raptor pilot pinged the defense squadrons to let them know they were departing, before he slotted in the coordinates on his nav-computer and said, "Alright, we're nearly away…"
When they made it out of the hustle and bustle of the fleet, the man said, "Everyone, hang on to your teeth…" and powered the jump drive. A moment later, the Raptor winked out of reality with a flash of light, leaving the sensors, DRADIS and Radars of the hundreds of ships around them, all while aiming toward the Jungle World known as Pragia.
… Jack had no idea what to expect. She had left the Cerberus facility on Pragia a broken mess after breaking out. What would even wait for her there except some old ghosts?
Those old Ghosts were the reason she was going there. To put'em to rest or break them to pieces, obviously. Pressing her back into the crash seat and re-checking the pressure seal of the suit she'd been given for the trip over. She felt her stomach turn inside out every time they made a jump via the FTL drive of the Colonials. A bright, blinding white flash of light and her entire body felt like it deatomized and then reatomized the wrong way around.
She breathed in deeply, mumbling to herself, "How the fuck do Colonials do this all the time…?" as she rested a hand on the glass of her helmet. The Clones answered with their own subdued groans. Fives held his stomach, visibly nauseous despite the helmet. The Biotic pushed her index and middle fingers into the upper front section of the helmet as gently as she could, telling him, "Don't barf on me just yet, Five-Oh…"
"Working on not doing it," The man replied, then hiccuped rather audibly and hunched over, leaning against the electronic warfare console to his right.
The pilot cast a glance back, smiling a wry smile and quipping, "I warned you all it's a rough ride," before interlacing his fingers and stretching his hands forward, palms out. He heard his fingers crackle and pop, added, "Well, for newbies to our FTL," as a joke, then turned back to preparing the next jump.
He then warned them, "Be ready for another couple of hours of this…" which caused the entire complement to let out varied expletives in both Earthly English and Basic. The young pilot was much more joyful ever since his wife and their baby returned to his embrace, so the mirthful laugh he let out came less as a surprise and more as an annoyance.
As they jumped again, Jack felt bile rise in her throat…
After about the fifth jump, however, they'd gotten acclimatized to it. A little greener for their troubles, the Clones and the Biotic all turned as Karl reported, "And jump complete. We're here… I'm transmitting our arrival through the Com Buoys to the Waystation, just in case we're gonna need help…" then he stopped for a moment as his craft's sensor suite pinged an object ahead. He reported, "And there's Pragia…" with half a mouth.
Jack and the Clones all looked out through the main cockpit window, with the Biotic standing up and pushing through the clones, only to stop nearby the front seat and stare dead ahead. The system's sun crested the edge of the Planet, slowly descending behind it and creating a teal glow visible in the upper atmosphere.
Deeper in, lightning flashes lit the night, gathering monsoon clouds swarmed across the isolated jungle world's surface and violent storms visibly raged over the green and brown of the surface. Pragia was a strange world of overgrown jungles made up of non-native flora and fauna and, as mentioned before, raging tropical storms that flooded and further fed the aforementioned non-native plants.
Karl looked at the Coordinates that Jack had secured from the Cerberus databases about the Project she'd been part of, all while scanning the planet's surface. When his system pinged the location as within one of those storms, he told Jack, "This is gonna be even bumpier than we thought. You sure you wanna go through with this?"
"We didn't go through five hours of my guts doing cartwheels to turn back now, Helo," The girl replied as her fingers curled and her glove dug into the leather of the unoccupied co-pilot's chair. Her pupils slightly dilated as a faint biotic glow appeared around her, mixed with an aura that felt eerily familiar to the Clone Troopers. Fives stood, walked by Jack's side and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently to reassure her they were still there.
She turned to him, cracked a small smile, then nodded, before telling Karl, "Get us down there and stay low. Don't wanna hear your boss bitching at us for losing you while we're operating here clandestinely," before patting Helo on the shoulder.
The pilot let out a low, slow, mocking laugh before nodding and starting to pray. He tilted the nose of the Raptor down toward the planet, coming in at as flat of an angle of attack as he could afford in order to be able to land safely and have enough fuel in the main engines for a return trip. As the craft entered the upper atmosphere, just as darkness settled, small wisps of orange glowed on the cockpit's front.
The stubby nose of the craft began to glow thanks to air friction. Though the heat caused quiet claxons to let out their muted wails aboard the craft, the temperature spike wasn't enough to damage the ship or dampen the moods, with Jack even letting out a cheer as they descended through the turbulent atmosphere.
Thick layers of black clouds greeted them, swirling masses of wind and rain slamming into and moving the vehicle left and right. It was the first time in forever Captain Agathon was thankful Raptors were such fat birds, because if this had been a Viper, the high-speed winds would've knocked them off-course long ago.
Before long, the craft penetrated the upper cloud layer, seeing the dark-green of the thick canopy below them. Helo almost screamed as he jerked the craft's control stick back. The ship violently lifted its nose, jerked up by both her pilot's sudden movements and the engines powering to maximum burn. They skimmed the tree-tops, the turbofan flames of the engines burning several layers of thicket below as they stabilized them in flight.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Helo!" Jack called out, barely holding on.
Beside her, Bold, Fives and several of their brothers had tumbled over each-other like bowling pins under the sudden application of gravity's favorite way of saying hello. The pilot breathed quickly and heavily, mumbling, "I didn't expect the frakking ground floor to come so quick…" before letting out a short, despair-filled laugh and saying, "Approaching Pragia facility…"
Once again, Jack looked ahead. As she was helping the boys up to their feet and letting them prep their blasters, she saw it:Faded white panels made out of a material she had no knowledge of, mixed with prefabricated buildings, glass and steel. Cracked, broken windows turned opaque by condensation and plant roots growing through the panels and walls, ripping out chunks of what little human civilization was visible to try and reclaim it.
The return of Nature to reclaim what was once its land was poetic in a twisted kind of way. The men, Clone and Human alike, didn't dare imagine what kind of experiments Jack had suffered through down there. An entire facility, its Cerberus signet still visible, if fading from the constant rainfall and the ever-encroaching jungle…
She felt a chill shoot up her spine as a dark-red glow shined through the darkened windows of the skylight. Her usual expression of happiness, her cocky smile and self-assured posture, all shifted. She hunched over, eyes wide as she rubbed her wrists through her suit. Fives noticed this again, then gently shook her and said, "Jackie… It's fine. If you don't wanna do this, we can just head home…"
The dropship touched down on the upper landing pad. Karl shut off the engines and the ship as a whole. The sounds of the machine faded and went quiet, giving way to the rapid pit-patter of the tropical rain outside. The hatch hissed open next, with Karl standing up and drawing his Magnum pistol before pausing as he saw Jack hesitate.
Fives and the Clones walked out first, forming a perimeter around the ship and scanning the jungles for hostiles. As their gazes swept across the canopy, Bold remarked quietly, "I have a bad feeling about this," as he hefted his Z6.
"Bold," The ARC Trooper of the squad spoke in a flat tone.
The Gunner turned and asked, "Yeah?"
"Shut the kriff up," His officer replied, which got a short, strained laugh out of Jack.
She asked, "I guess the whole 'bad feelings' thing is universal, ain't it?" as she drew her own blaster rifle and joined the formation. The troopers affirmed her statement quietly, to which she gave a tilt of the head forward, then turned to Helo and told him, "You stay the fuck inside and batten down the hatches. Rather we didn't flood your precious Raptor."
"Thanks for thinking of your pilot," Helo joked, then lifted his gun and said, "Take care of yourselves…"
He hit the button and the hatch closed as the troopers and Biotic walked away from the ship. Moving onto the roof of the compound by going up a small flight of stairs from the landing pad. Water flowed around them, through grates and into pipes that led away from the station. The ground was wet, but not slippery, thankfully.
Advancing toward the Skylight, the group only saw windows that had been tinted by the rain and muck. Jack mumbled, "This'd lead down into the central part of the research station. C'mon," before lifting her blaster carbine. She was thankful Fives had decided to gift her one of these things, considering just how powerful this kind of focused plasma was.
The men followed behind her, with Fives being the closest one to no-one's surprise.
They marched further onto the roof, to the sight of bullet holes drilled into the metallic white panels by kinetic weapons from here. The skeletons of the security guards were still visible on the roof, the broken remnants of their bones laying beside the corpses. Jack spoke, "Had to make a run for it through here. I killed several guards while running, obviously. To the only landing pad…"
"You did what you had to do," Fives reassured her as they sidestepped the skeletal remains. They marched down the steps and entered through a side entrance, finding yet more marks of damage, bullet holes and holes drilled into the wall through the use of Biotics. Blood stained the floor in strange, almost terrifying patterns, by the sides of long-abandoned skeletons.
Jack paused, looking down. Though cobwebs lined the walls, dust caked the floors and the broken panels and little electricity still coursed through the power lines, there were visible signs of footsteps. Human boots and the form of Krogan and Vorcha feet. She scoffed, wrinkling her nose and growling, "We've got some company, fellas…"
The Clones all visibly tensed even worse than when they landed, each scanning corners and walls and any and every nook and cranny within the base.
To the muffled sound of rain, the troops and their Biotic ward advanced down the corridor, past cracked windows and broken walls. Malfunctioning doors and dented panels smeared with yet more of the life force of some poor bastard or other greeted them the more they advanced, with Jack becoming more and more strangely terrified.
They walked past old holding cells with shattered glass windows, water leaking within, puddles reflecting the darkness. Only flashes from the lightning outside ever lit the area around them, forcing them to use their flashlights as they waded through the destroyed place. They walked past a mound of debris from a collapsed wall, crunching broken glass shards underfoot.
More old, long-dried blood stain appeared, spread across the walls, floor and even ceiling. Shards of shattered bone lay embedded within the wall panels around them like the shrapnel of an exploded grenade, with Jack mumbling, "Jesus fuck, I forgot about all of this…" as she visibly tensed. She told them, "... When I escaped… I left behind a lot of corpses, as you can tell. Not all of'em are in one piece."
"No kriff," Joked Fives, his voice slightly shaky with concern as he sidestepped one of the blood stains.
Bold added quietly, "Looks like you did more than just leave corpses behind, girl," before pausing as he felt a shard of bone break beneath his armored boot, sending a shiver up his spine. Jack couldn't help herself, grinning like a cheshire cat at the quip while they continued their trek. Arriving at a broken door, whose internals had been torn apart, the team paused as Fives took point.
The door itself looked like it had been shattered and reassembled all wrong. Chunks of its internal wiring were visibly poking through almost melted steel plate, with both sections of the intricate sliding mechanism's plates split just enough down the middle to allow one soldier at a time to slide on through, although it was almost like they'd be stepping through the open maw of a monster with how many edges there were..
That was what Fives intended to do. With his right hand outstretched and pistol pointed dead ahead, the man moved through the opening. He felt the plates on his armor's front and back scrape against the jagged steel. As soon as he managed to slide all the way through to the other side, he found himself staring at the innermost part of the base.
Arranged in three different levels, each bearing battle damage from Jack's presumed escape, and lit only barely by the lightning that flashed through the opaque glass of the skylight above, the atrium area was a sprawling complex with multiple doors on each floor. Many of said doors looked even more damaged than the one they'd waded through.
The top level, which they were on, had a catwalk that lined the perimeter of the wall. To their right, a chunk had been ripped out by what Fives could only assume was more biotic representation from jack and all the other kids caught in this place. It separated them from the rest of the floor, though if he was to go by what he was seeing of the first doors, the rooms there were caved in and destroyed.
The hole would let them jump down to the second floor, leading to several rooms that weren't quite as collapsed or damaged, though they had visible plant growth slowly crawling its way in from then. A gust of wind whistled by Fives's ears, followed by the footsteps of his comrades, as he realized that many of the windows in those rooms were broken.
He hummed, then looked at Jack and asked, "How many kids were stuck in here with you…?"
"... I don't know," She replied, her voice low, "Not like it matters much, anyway…" and her eyes locked onto the drop. She moved toward it while the Clones exchanged quick looks, then followed her, feet clanging against the steel catwalk. Descending onto the second level, the group marched toward the first door…
… And Jack froze on the spot as a scarlet glow came from the opposite side of the Atrium, on the first floor. As she grew pale, turning to face it and fidgeting with her fingers nervously, she whispered, "There you are…" and pointed at the door that light came from. She said, "That's my room down there… C'mon," before turning away and walking into one of the corridors.
The beams of their flashlights painted the walls as they walked through, Jack noticing more holding cells in the corner of her eye, each with a bunk, a desk and a bathroom. She told them, "My cell was a bit bigger than this… Whole place was built around it and the thing they stuck me in there with," which caused yet another series of concern-filled gazes.
This hallway had been trashed, too. They were piecing together the way Jack had escaped in their minds, with the cracks and craters left in the plates and the windows having shattered outward this time. The floor in the hallway had cracked and almost fallen inward. An oval trench had been dug from the starting point to the end, with Fives stating, "Must've been a Biotic Charge…"
"Yep… I was fucking pissed…" Jack replied with a slight edge to her voice, tilting her head to the windows of the cells, which had also shattered inward.
Passing by one cell, the men noticed blood staining the frame of the shattered window. The Biotic told them, "They hated me and I hated them… Same as I hated every researcher and guard in this shithole…"
"Still," Fives started, "You alright?"
"Memories are coming back," She replied, tugging at her fingers again. She seemed surprisingly docile, her bombastic attitude and swearing toned down, but not fully gone. She told Fives, "Let's keep moving. We still got a bit of ground to cover and a room I wanna check out before we head to the lowest point in this place."
He gave her a gentle fist bump in the shoulder, then nodded and readied his pistols again, with Jack leading the way forward. Passing through yet another shattered door frame, the group made it onto a stairwell, only to pause as they saw a dead animal laying on the platform. It was a giant, familiar quadrupedal lizard, though its form was dark, twisted and mutated.
It had four eyes, two on each side, like a Varren, but they were glossy, burning orange and very much empty right now. The spikes on its back jutted out like rapier blades, visibly stained by black blood. Jack knelt beside it as Bold said, "That's gotta be the biggest Varren to ever exist. It's twice the size of a human…"
"And was clearly pissed before it died," Jack mumbled as she put a hand on it.
She paused, noticing the pool of still-warm blood on the floor and its eviscerated stomach, an open wound marred by shrapnel from what was very clearly a Krogan's claymore shotgun. She scoffed and said, "We really do have company… Blood Pack," before standing up and saying, "It died fairly recently, too. Still surprisingly warm for a lizard. Let's go."
A few steps down the stairs and to the ground floor and they found themselves in another L-shaped corridor. Jack took the lead again, approaching one door frame she saw was sparking with electricity. She growled, taking cover by the left side of the door frame, right next to a blood stain and a hole she'd probably drilled with her biotic fists.
The quiet hum of a power generator filled their ears, Jack herself whispering, "Great… We got power in here," with veritable glee.
Her biotic aura flared as she prepared. When she felt Fives give her a tap on the shoulder, which was the usual signal troops gave for being ready to breach, she nodded and pushed in, blaster drawn. When she entered the destroyed room, which was a massive office, she saw nothing but destroyed furniture.
An overturned double bed lay to the right, its rotting bedding sprawled across the floor. The desk, facing toward the door and away from the broken window, was still standing and with a still active computer on it. The generator lay to the left, connected to the power grid via the wires pulled from behind the wooden panels lining the walls.
Sidestepping a few overturned shelves whose content, mostly books and miniatures of some kind, lay on the floor, Jack approached the terminal and said, "Smartasses actually left it powered. Keep me covered, boys… I'm gonna check something," as she drew her tablet and connected it to the computer. Leaning forward and tapping the haptic interface, the young woman pulled up all available files.
Several windows appeared on the screen, each pertaining to a different section of the projects being carried out here. A window appeared on the top left, showing the blood work of several subjects including herself. "Subject 0", they called her, the very first of the hospitable Children of this damned research station.
"Project Tenebrae," She whispered to herself, typing a new command. She utilized the touch-pad to close several of the windows, then selected one specific set of files and opened them. A window appeared, a media player of some kind that displayed the video footage. As Fives walked to her side, holstering his pistols, she hit 'play'.
… A human male scientist with a receding hairline and dark eyes stared into the camera. He pulled on the hem of his labcoat, tugged at the collar to arrange it, then stared dead ahead and began to speak, "Project TENEBRAE, Teltin Facility, LOG-001. Begin recording…" before taking a deep breath and starting, "After a search for suitable candidates was conducted across human space, we've discovered approximately thirty subjects bearing the specific genetic marker we require. Each of these subjects, though very young, have shown incredible Biotic aptitude, on par with Asari bearing a somewhat similar genetic makeup."
"Chief among them, the most surprisingly capable is Subject Zero," The man spoke and an image of a very young Jack flashed on screen, taken from her mother immediately after her birth. The girl's fingers visibly curled on the keyboard, clenching into fists. She only relaxed a little as she felt Fives' hand on her shoulder, which caused her to breathe a sigh.
She listened on to the Scientist as he spoke, "Subject Zero's abilities are beyond even those of the most capable of our candidates… What we do here today will shape the future of Mankind and her Biotic children and she will be at the core. Log end," and the video ended before the window shifted to the next one and was paused.
She grit her teeth and said, "Fuckers took me when I was a baby…"
"Yeah…" Fives sighed deeply. He gave her a gentle squeeze on the shoulder again, trying to reassure her, though he didn't know what to say either. He simply added, "Seems like a bunch of the Logs are corrupted, though, kriffin' annoyingly enough," and that got a nod out of her, causing her to return her focus to the matter at hand.
The girl sighed, hit play again, then listened…
"Project TENEBRAE, Teltin Facility, Log-009. The Artifact around which we've built this damned place reacted to her," The man spoke, a smile on his face, "And she reacted to it. The glow it emanated, the sheer power surge felt throughout the base… It was something the likes of which we'd never seen before. And her biotics… The shade of scarlet was unnatural, but the boost it provided during combat... We must find out more…"
"I remember now," Jack murmured, "The damn thing whispered to me. It whispers all the time," before looking at her left hand, watching it be enveloped by the lilac glow of her biotics. A faint wisp of scarlet passed through the energy field, which caused her to clench her fist as she said, "... I pasted one of the other subjects here during a fight… Everyone else hated me after. And for good reason, too. You didn't wanna be put up against me if you were one of the 'lesser' test subjects to these fuckers…"
Fives commented, "Doesn't sound like you enjoyed doing it, though."
"It was the only time I was allowed out of that room, Five-Oh…" She replied, looking at him, "You'll see it when we get there…" then she hit play again.
"Project TENEBRAE, Teltin Facility. Final Log… She's escaped," The man spoke as the alarms around them wailed and the distant thunder of Jack's rampage drew closer. "Every enhancement we've made, every single Subject we've sacrificed in these tests… It all culminated in this. Subject Zero is free and there's nothing that can be done…" only to blink as the door ahead cracked and broke off from its frame, shattering the window behind him. He stood up and spoke, "Subject Zero, please! We sh-"
The camera cut off, leaving only static behind…
"Yikes," Fives wanted to lighten the mood, "Talk about comeuppance, eh?" to which she simply stared at him, a faint smile on her lips. He sighed and said, "C'mon. If you wanna place a bomb, the center of this place is our best bet…" before taking her hand and picking up the tablet she'd linked. Though momentarily stunned, she nodded as they walked out.
The team formed up again, stepping into the main part of the Atrium, the Ground Floor. There, they saw various terrifying items:In the center, a fighting arena made up of extremely heavy concrete barricades placed in a circle, several of which had been destroyed by Jack's presumed previous rampage, as well as shattered glass, pools of water formed in the craters left by aforementioned rampage and the skeletons of the science staff, broken tablets laying on the floor.
She looked through the files at her bloodwork and said, "Hey, take a look at this…" as she turned the tablet, revealing the images of strange cells in her blood, spread amidst the white and red cells. Fives gasped, eyes widening, then looked at the others.
Bold commented, "Yep… Those are what we are all thinkin' they are, boss."
"Kriff me," He whispered. When he saw the confusion in Jack's eyes, he told her, "... That's a kind of cell we have only in our Galaxy. Midichlorians, they're called…" and he put his thumb and pointer on the tablet to zoom in. He whistled and whispered, "And that's a lot of them in there. Concentrated, pretty much…"
"You're basically like General Tano or the Sith Lord, Rhasits," Bold told her straight-up, causing her to pause and blink.
"We'll talk more about this after we plant the bomb. C'mon," Fives told her. They marched toward the main room again, watching as the scarlet light appeared again, followed by the silent whispers of unknown voices, spoken in a long-dead language and repeating and echoing. Jack visibly tensed, already stunned by the revelation of having the Force Molecule in her blood.
Entering into her room, however, she froze as she saw it. As if it had burrowed up from the ground, a small, jet-black pyramid with jagged symbols carved into its black stone stood in the middle of the room. Much of it was buried beneath the surface of the place, but the tunnels had been collapsed by her little rage fit.
The door, she soon remembered, was also gone, flung high and far through the window at the rear of the room, the only visible way to see outside. Before she and the others could react to what was on the tip of the pyramid, however, three massive Varren jumped through the broken window, growling and snarling, teeth stained by blood, flesh and steel.
Jack growled, powered her Biotics and didn't even hesitate to save herself and the Clones the trouble. A rippling shockwave punched forward from her, burning bright scarlet and impacting the creatures with such kinetic force that the glass behind them shattered into sand. The girl breathed heavily, mumbling to herself, "Holy shit…"
"That certainly felt familiar," Fives mumbled, then looked over at the pyramid and said, "And that thing has a Sith Holocron on it."
"... That's the damn thing that's been whispering to me," She spoke, then paused. The men all noticed the marks of nails on the pyramid. She told them, "I'd been trying to claw out the noises, the symbols…" before she knelt and hit a button on the side. A syringe of some kind ejected from a slot on the Pyramid next, clinking to the floor… "And they'd inject me with that stuff whenever they were doing tests… All the other kids changed because of this shit…"
"Looks like Nox has quite a few more questions to answer, then," Fives spoke as he slotted the item into his pocket. He paused, hearing something fall over in the room. All of them had been so focused on the pyramid in the middle that they forgot to look around and see that the shelves were freshly occupied and cleaned, the desk was upright and the bed even had new bedding.
All of them turned to where the noise had come from, only to pause as they saw a young man staring back at them, his eyes burning the same shade of auburn as one would expect out of a Sith Lord. His skin was pallid, almost grey, veins bulging out and hair greying. He stared, stunned, then whispered, "Subject Zero…?"
"... Fuck… Silas?" Jack spoke, stunned.
"... You remember me," He replied warily, "I'm amazed…"
"Yeah, well… Kind of hard to forget the only normal person I saw while roaming this shithole," She replied, staring at him. She then looked around and asked, "The fuck are you doing back here? I thought any other kids who survived got out after I did," all while staring him down. The visibly distraught young man nodded.
"We did… But some of us still hear this place's calls," He replied, taking a step forward and waking up with blasters pointed at him, all while Jack took a step back, powering her biotics. He glared at her and asked her, "Can't you? You were the one who was stuck closest to the Holocron… To the whispers of the Lords. They're calling us all back."
"... Are you fucking crazy?" She asked, voice a low growl.
He shook his head, "Look, Zero…" then he motioned to the artifact. Its symbols glowed, with him stating, "You have to know that it wants us to be back here," and the whispers intensified. "It wants all of us," He told her, "To restart Project TENEBRAE… To awaken what's within us…" and he walked forward again, only to stop as he woke up with Fives's blaster pointed at his head.
He tried to power his Biotics, but Jack was quicker than him. She grabbed him by the throat and pinned him against the pyramid, aiming her blaster right at his face and stating, "... No… You've fucking lost it," with a growl, "Don't you remember the shit they did to us in here? It wasn't just me who got tortured for these Cerberus freaks' little profit-gathering op!"
"There's more to this place than just 'profit'!" The man barked back, trying to power his own biotics, to rage against Jack's strength, but the girl's powers manifested, pinning him to the pyramid with a thunderclap and a gust of wind. He grit his teeth, trying to fight back as he groaned, "IT… Can't… Have all… Been for nothing! All that suffering…! It must have a plan for us…!"
"It doesn't! All it wants is to HURT US, GOD DAMMIT!" Jack replied, voice cold, fury welling in her chest as her eyes began to glow that same fiery amber. Fives, having noticed this, put a hand on her shoulder again. Feeling the familiar gesture that was meant to calm her down, the young woman gasped, all that fury that welled in her chest slowly fading. She took a step back, letting the man fall to the floor. She stared at the man, watching that fire fade from his eyes.
Fives told her, "He's as stuck in the past as you were, Jackie," and he holstered his pistols, "This ain't worth it… You both gotta let go…"
She turned to him, pausing only to watch him take his helmet off and offer her a kind smile. Sighing, she stared at the broken man on the floor, who was mumbling the same whispers as the Holocron, and told him, "Get out of here. Now. Get your shit together and leave…" only to watch him scramble to his feet, slightly afraid of Jack. As he gathered a few of his belongings and scrambled out, Jack called out to him, "And Silas?" which caused him swivel about and look at her. She told him, "It's Jack… Not Zero."
The man nodded, then scrambled out of the place.
"... So, no Blood Pack-" Bold started to try and lighten the mood, only to gaze outside and see a few dead Blood Pack members, namely a Krogan warmaster and his escorting Vorcha, currently being eaten by the plants. He said, "... Yeah, nevermind. I think we got an issue with this Sith Bantha crap here, sir."
"It's mutating everything around it," Jack nodded, staring at the Holocron, "And if it's one of that weirdo Nox's things… Well, we either take it with us and risk some weird shit, or we leave it here to get nuked with the rest of Teltin," before staring dead into the crystalline surface of the Holocron. She thought for a moment, wondering if… Yeah, Halsey or Rhasits could probably use it.
She grabbed the Holocron, feeling a slight surge of energy from it, pocketed it and said, "C'mon… Let's blow this shithole," before grabbing the bomb off her back and setting it up…
… Not long after, the team returned to the Raptor. When Helo saw them coming, he wanted to crack a joke. He decided it was best not to, considering how dead serious the joking Psychotic Biotic looked now. With a detonator in her hand, she climbed aboard first, waving to the Colonial Pilot to take off the moment everyone else was on.
After a tense moment aboard, clicking the cap of the detonator on and off, the woman felt Fives's hand wrap around her shoulder. She looked at him, smiled a little, then sighed and said, "Fire in the hole…" in a murmur. When she thumbed the detonator, a rippling thunder echoed across the Surface of the planet. The blinding explosion of what one would assume was a nuclear warhead sent shockwaves across the place, burning out chunks of the jungle and rattling the Raptor as Helo pulled up and ascended into the upper atmosphere, then away.
A hole had been torn in the clouds by the blast, visible from orbit, and a bit of pride welled in Jack's chest. When she saw the other Clones give her and Fives approving nods, she cracked one of her trademark grins, then waved to Helo to get them out of there and back to the Waystation. Back home, to the Normandy.
As the engines spooled and roared and as the Jump Drive powered, Jack lifted up the Holocron, staring at the burning red, glowing item with a bit of melancholy. Despite all the pain it had caused her and her fellow 'subjects', this fucking thing was far too interesting… Far too familiar to simply let go. And if they could use it to somehow fight the Reapers, considering it was one of Darth Nox's items?
Why let it burn on a planet, she thought to herself…
Then she wondered if Shepard had actually taken their fucking advice and rested, or if she went on to have yet more missions where she helped the Crew ease into their new jobs. Part of her knew they still had to go to Korriban to check the place out, which meant visiting the Galaxy the Holocron, the Clones and General Tano and Rhasits had come from, which… In all honesty, would prove to probably be the most interesting part of the mission aside from the Collectors themselves.
… She did genuinely hope Shepard had taken some time off, though.