Earth - Summer of 2012
Pain. Something I was too familiar with. Had to be, if I wanted to keep surviving. Keep fighting and winning. Keep pushing forward, making impossible decisions, all for the common good.
What a load of shit. I wasn't surviving this.
Holding the RFI in my hands, charging it to full capacity after putting a smack down on John, something I didn't enjoy one bit, I could feel my life burn away. It was like a fire burning through my veins, or maybe acid, it was a burning sensation is all that matters. I could hear John White and Lucy Kuo cry out in agony. She resigned herself to her fate, deciding that it as the right thing to do. I convinced her it was, even though I knew it wasn't. They were dying, all of them, every conduit in the world, because I was left to make the decision. The only asshole with the power to use this stupid device properly.
Kessler you prick. You travelled through time just to show me half of what I needed to know, letting me believe I had it all figured out, only to have The Beast arrive, kick my ass with relative ease, then later figure out who the Beast really is and what he's doing, and then be faced with an impossible decision.
All for the common good.
Fuck you Kessler. Fuck time travel. You know what, Fate, Destiny, whatever you want to be called, eat a bag of dicks. I hate all of you. Trish didn't deserve to die over this bullshit. There was no justice being done here. No heroics, no saving people, just more killing. I was committing fucking genocide. My only solace? I wouldn't have to live with it.
Regardless, it didn't matter. The pain would end, the world would be, in the eyes of those that carried on, saved, and I doubt many would care that the conduits died as a result. Yeah, you could argue numbers and say the math is sound in this decision, but an argument could be made that evolution, humanity's progression to the next stage of life, relied on me to take John's side.
Speaking of, despite his imminent death, he was taking great effort into mustering his powers to stop me. I directed some energy to him, hitting him square in the hand that was generating one of his energy orbs he used to pull me towards him. Only, I could see the debris that was being lifted up by the power of the RFI, my power, being pushed away from him. He was repelling? Why? In fact, his whole body looked like it was getting brighter and brighter, just like the RFI. Was he-
Suddenly I was blinded, pretty sure the last thing I saw was his energy being dispersed like the RFI, except it was mostly directed at me. Idiot was trying to kill an already dead man resigned to his fate. It was too late to stop what I had started. Yet, I couldn't blame him. I was the bigger idiot for listening to Kessler the day he told me to open that package. Shortly after I could see nothing but light. Not sure if I was dead yet.
Whatever. I'm done. This is over. If this fails, then it doesn't matter. The RFI was starting to wind down, my power sapped completely and the light was so bright that I could barely tell that my eyes were closed as I fell back, unable to feel anything after I began my descent. My last thoughts of Trish, and that if I didn't get to see her, that I'd better be sleeping peacefully for eternity or I was going to raise hell after all that I had to go through. Okay, those were my second to last thoughts. My last thoughts were also my last words.
"Fuck you all to death."
Sometime Later
Hunger. Thirst. Emptiness. Must feed. Must Consume. Must absorb.
There. GO! Source of... of... energy. Must collect. Must Consume.
Energy, electricity, fuel. Keep moving, keep growing. Must become one again.
Again? What was I trying to become? Wait. I? What am I? Who am I? How did I get here?
There is no sight, no sound, no taste, just... being. The Burning. What am... who... where am I? Where... where am I going?
Pain. Something new to me. I couldn't describe it, nor did I want to understand it for I'd have to keep feeling it, but after becoming aware of my ever growing hunger, I quickly realized that I had to be something in order to feel hunger. Instinct was mostly all I operated on. Every so often, I'd have a small string of consciousness, making myself more and more aware of my existence.
Like now. I wasn't quite sure what I was or what I was doing, but I was getting flashes of... life? Were these memories? Were they mine? I couldn't make sense of them. People struggling against fate, was about all I could muster as a thought before the thought and the... visions? Memories? Drifted away with it. Then I saw horror. People, dying, at the hands of... well giant hands of metal. What was that? It was descending from above... was that Hell? What's hell?
My string of consciousness was shortly lost and replaced by the hunger. I couldn't tell you how long I was like this. Coming in and out. Was this how I always was? Was my existence purely to engorge myself on energy?
No. I was something else before. I remember my first conscious thought. It was too coherent for a new born. I was no helpless babe in the woods. Woods? Babe? Right. Something from where I was originally. Where was that? I don't know, I can't remember. Too hungry to think. Why did I feel like I was separate? Not Whole. Not one. Scattered. Pull together. Must eat. Consume. THERE!
A celestial body, on it was a power source, touch down and leave again. Large and spread out, could last a while.
Wait.
That! What is that! I can feel power drawing me towards it. Thoughts. Somebodies mind! They were in pain! Like I was! YES! GO! Can become whole again! They're dying?! NO! Have to save them! Won't lose my chance to become myself! Have to save her! TRISH!
TRisH?! Oh! No! I Don't want to remember... but I have to. It's my LIFE! I need to become whole again! I can't take this anymore! My name! Shepard! NO! That's not me? IS IT?
No, that's the other. The one that calls to me. I'm COMING! I'll be there soon don't diedontdiedontdie
Cole you need to relax or you'll fry HER MIND YES! I'm Cole! I AM COLE MACGRATH!
I feel myself get pulled closer and closer towards this beacon. I'm not sure where I am or how I got here, but my mind was returning to me, as was my body. I could feel myself becoming whole again. I wasn't sure what happened to me, and I knew it probably had something to do with that dickhead John. Couldn't just let me go in peace, had to give me a final fuck you. Ha, honestly I'd do the same thing. Now I have to deal with whatever new headache is coming my way. Or rather whatever I'm heading towards.
I can feel whoever this person is, Shepard? Only name coming through. Only other thing I'm getting is...
Pain. Horror. Destruction. Death. So much death. Something I'm all too familiar with. I wasn't going to let them go through that. Images of mechanical beings larger then any monster I've fought, larger then the highest skyscraper I've ever climbed, and probably larger then any mountain I've ever seen. Immense, all of them.
Oh no.
One of them was here, but it was leaving. Good. Why was it here?
Doesn't matter, had to go to the beacon. Prothean beacon? I don't like this mind melding that appears to be going on, especially since I normally only get the memories of dead people. I could sense that she was still alive, but her body couldn't take much more of what she was going through.
So close. I was so close to finally ending this endless, directionless journey. Whatever the hell I was doing and what I was, it was not fun. I did not want it anymore... but was it honestly worse then what I had to live with?
After the thought entered my head I removed it and it was replaced with another image from this beacon. The more I got the less sense it made, so I just hurtled to the machine that was torturing this poor woman and slammed myself into it.
Then the burning stopped, the hunger subsided and I felt whole for a brief moment before the familiar sense of unconsciousness took me.
Pain... okay, enough of that. I sound like an edge lord emo kid. Fine for an angsty teenager in high school, not for a 28 year old conduit that has been through Hell and back.
Groaning due to the soreness of my body I strained to open my eyes. My eyelids themselves felt like heavy weights that had been clamped down on my eyelids. When I tried opening them, it felt like rust was falling off the old unused weights as I was moving them and it was taking forever due to the fact that I was worried about harming myself. I'd never felt this bad, not even after the blast in Empire City.
Eventually, I managed to open my eyes, and I bared the brunt of the sharp pain I felt when the light hit my eyes. For a long while my vision was extremely blurry and splotches of light orbs danced around in front of my face. I knew I would have to wait quite awhile before regaining that so I just laid there, processing how my body felt.
My hearing seemed to work just about as good as my eyes. I could hear talking, but I couldn't fully make out what I was hearing. Words like 'Geth' and 'Eden Prime', the only thing that I could imagine was about me was 'new friend', and 'saved'. Not sure what the hell was going on so I focused on my own problems.
I started by wiggling my toes, which I'm pretty sure I wasn't wiggling because I couldn't feel them. Great. RFI didn't kill me, it crippled me. Fuck. Trying to move my hands to see if I at least had control of my upper body, I was able to slightly twitch my fingers, but not much other then that. I sighed, and my throat was dry and tightened itself over the strain, as if I hadn't used it for years, coming out painful and raspy. I found myself barely capable of moving my head, looking for water, to no avail.
The movement was stiff and exhausting. Both the sound I made and my slight head movement seemed to gather the attention of those present in the room because they all surrounded me immediately. The four of them standing around me, I was vaguely reminded of those crack pots that claimed to have been abducted by aliens. They were barely more then outlines, given my terrible vision at the moment, a brief terror at being probed freaked me out but I quickly got over it when they started talking, their proximity making their words understandable and their voices clearly human... I hoped.
"How the hell is he awake? How is that even possible?!" The exclamation was muffled through whatever was going on with me, but still the words were understood and I could only make out who was talking if they were gesturing which the one to the bottom right was doing. Seemed to be a bit taller then most there save for the one guy on the top right. Both broad enough to safely assume they were men. On average, I'd assume the two smaller people were women, but knowing my luck I'd lose that bet and they would be a mismatch.
Either way it didn't matter to me, I just wanted to know where I was.
"I thought you said he was in a coma doc?" The one on my lower left gestured this time. They were just a shy bit shorter, if I was accurately seeing this, then the previous man who spoke. Their voice sounded silky, but firm. A sense of authority, but not overbearing. I think it was a woman.
"I don't... I don't know. Yes, the tests I ran concluded... that doesn't matter. Look at his wounds." The one who was clearly a woman and clearly the doctor, standing to my left, lifted their arm, and something just appeared as they waved it over me.
Oh shit, I really was abducted. These aliens just sound like humans, or maybe it was some telepathic translation power that allowed them to easily communicate that worked automatically. That's kind of cool actually. Still pretty freaky though. God I hope they don't probe me, or that they already had. My thoughts were interrupted by the man standing to my upper right.
"When I last saw him he had injuries that would have left lasting scars." A clear tone of shock was evident despite his very authoritative tone. He didn't seem overbearing either, though his deep voice held with it a sense of experience in it's base. It was obvious he was in charge or believed he was, or maybe should be.
"I never saw him before this, I was already out cold by the time he came through the beacon." What? "At this rate, when do you think he'll be good enough to..." She paused, shocked to see me attempt to sit up.
God, it was a chore. No, it was damn near impossible. I remember this feeling. The day I opened that package and activated that damned Ray Sphere, and the day the Beast made his debut in Empire City and drained me of my powers, were the only days I've felt this weak, battered, and beaten, since I got my powers.
Still I tried to get up. The doctor placed her hand on me to try and coax me to stay put, beginning to say something about needing rest most likely, but drew her hand away sharply due to being shocked.
"Ow! Oo. My goodness! Wha-what was that?" Her confusion and alarm was understandable. Unlike last time, when I had no idea how to control my powers, I was setting everything off and hurting people without even trying. This time was different. I had the experience, only problem was I was too weak to fully control them, and I knew I could drain something and get my self right sooner then later. However I ended up still having my powers and staying alive after using the RFI I had no idea, but I wasn't going to just lay in this hospital for the rest of my life.
"So-" I tried to apologize but began to cough at the attempt to speak. I looked around and didn't see any IV stuck to me, which now made clear why my throat was dry, and probably for the best. Even though I had mastered my powers to the point that I could sleep with people and not harm or kill them, even unconscious, this sorry state I was in wouldn't have been safe for them to touch me long term. Come to think of it, how the hell did they get me in here?
"Careful, Chakwas. I had to use biotics to get him in here remember?" man to my bottom right spoke.
"Of course, Lieutenant. Lapse of judgment due to... well shock, over his recovery rate." Chakwas explained, still obviously perturbed. Given they didn't know who I was, I wondered just exactly where I was.
"Wait, what?" The other woman spoke. I could tell now that my senses were getting stronger that she sounded younger than the doctor.
"Right, we didn't tell you yet Commander. When Sgt. Williams went to grab this guy to bring him back for examination, a spark came off him and her shields were fried immediately. If she had kept holding him she probably would have been severely electrocuted. I noticed it quick enough to pull her back with my biotics, and decided to carry him here the difficult draining way. I had a headache for nearly the entire time you guys were asleep."The one referred to by his rank of Lieutenant described the events and I winced. Embarrassed and a little guilty for nearly killing somebody by accident.
Wait shields?
"I take it that's why he is on a cot and not in a proper medical bed?" The one referred to as the commander reasoned. I was confused, why does that matter?
"Yes. We discovered quickly that he disrupts electrical equipment. Safest bet was keep him off machinery and use whatever we could." I couldn't take this anymore, I wanted to know what the fuck was going on, and where I was. I needed to get up.
The doctor had walked off at some point during their back and forth and came back having produced a packet with a straw attached. She lowered it to my mouth and I hoped to hell it was water or some other liquid that wouldn't put me to sleep. Though to be fair, I wasn't sure how powerful a dosage you'd need to put me out with drugs.
When I closed my lips around the straw, I realized that it wasn't plastic, nor was it paper, or metal, or wood. It was a soft material like plastic but there was no way that was plastic. Disregarding this for now I sucked down the contents and thank god it was water. I slurped down the whole packet in seconds. Chakwas took the packet away and I breathed a satisfied sigh, calming a bit now that I was being taken care of. Of course, this process would be a lot faster if I could get my hands on some raw energy.
"So he drinks water, looks human, but electrocutes you and short circuits/overloads anything he touches. What is he?" The Lieutenant asked.
"We should ask him. He is awake. Chakwas, mind giving him another packet, something tells me he hasn't used his voice in a long time given how dry he looks." The Commander spoke.
Chakwas agreed and fetched another packet of water. I drank it down greedily, and could already feel my body starting to react to being rehydrated. If she had been feeding me juice I probably would have gotten enough strength to stand and drain the light fixture.
The man to my right leaned down a bit, still not able to make out his features, only determining their age and gender from their voices, which again could be for nothing if these guys were aliens using telepathic translation like I said.
"My name is Captain David Anderson of The Systems Alliance. Do you have a name?" Systems Alliance? Definitely aliens. They didn't seem hostile though. Just confused. Well the feeling was mutual.
"That's a human name if I ever heard. In the case that you are aliens though... If I give you my name and answer your questions, are you still going to probe me?" My throat was still sore but I managed to squeeze out the response adequately enough. There was dead silence for a brief moment before somebody sighed out of clear annoyance.
"Oh great." The Lieutenant spoke.
"That's... some really old fashioned thinking from somebody who looks so young." Chakwas spoke again. Now my confusion was insurmountable.
"Old fashioned thinking?" I barely managed to repeat the words. What humans have they interacted with before me? Was it normal? Were those crackpots actually Earth's ambassadress without anybody really knowing? My thoughts were interrupted by the Commander.
"It's a human name because we are human. How well can you see right now?" She seemed a bit impatient, but not angry, at least not at me. I looked around.
"I'm in some room, I figured a hospital, if you are really human, otherwise some alien space ship probably. I can't make out fine details, and the light is basically in my eyes. When I opened them my vision was very blurry, the light was too bright and I have, had, no have some floaties bouncing around. You guys are basically just grey men to me." I started to sit up, this time, nobody tried to stop me. I couldn't tell, but the silence permeating the room was either them realizing they were made, or something along the lines of stunned silence. I was betting the former, mainly because I couldn't really understand the latter.
I looked around, and decided to close my eyes and focus on my radar pulse to sense a source of energy to drain. When I reached out, knowing I'd pick up the light that was basically above me in the ceiling, I decided I didn't want to darken the room, and opted for maybe an outlet. Instead, my pulse came back and nearly overloaded me with the information of just how much energy this building was generating. Even weirder was the fact that two of the four people in this room had very weird energy signatures. I didn't have time to contemplate what it meant before I nearly fell off the bed, but was caught by somebody. When I opened my eyes, I realized it was the, now very apparent, human woman that I was certain was referred to as the Commander. I didn't take the time to take in the details of her face, I just noticed her silver-white hair, before my eyes closed again due to the spinning and wanting to avoid laying back down.
"Shepard! Be-" The Lieutenant yelled a warning before being interrupted by the sight of me not electrocuting his superior. I was starting to get this sick feeling in my stomach at that realization. These guys bore the ranks of military. Navy specifically if I remember correctly. Damn it. I don't like this.
"Can you get me an energy source, so I can see and think and hear straight. Hell stand straight." No response came. I just felt her guide me to my feet and walk me around the bed towards the opposite end of the room. I could feel the energy of something close by and she told me to do what I had to. Little did she know this would give me the opportunity to fight my way out if I absolutely had to.
"Okay, stand back, I've never actually done this while somebody was holding me." I stated as I raised my hand towards the source of power.
I smiled when I could feel the energy sapping from the power source, the sound of static as electrical arcs jumped from my fuel source and into my hand, spreading through my body. God, that feeling was soo good. It made me feel powerful, unlike anything I've ever felt in my life. The only thing that could top it was the feeling of a blast core or when I went into the sewers in Empire City to turn the lights back on by connecting my self to those substation generators. The electricity, the power I felt coursing through me when I did those things. Having these powers wasn't always so bad. I could feel my strength and health return to normal as I... I opened my eyes... as I apparently drained a holographic terminal dry. The golden-yellow arcs of electricity produced with my powers flowing around my arm until the machine was dry and then dissipating.
My elation mixed with confusion. What kind of space age tech was this? The hologram shut off and the terminal went dark. No lights producing themselves or anything.
"Whoops, too much." I was about to discharge a low amp bolt into the thing to restart it but whatever power source that was hooked up to had already replenished the machine. The orange images popped back up and I was amazed. Being a bit of a nerd I had always wondered what it would be like to have tech like that. Here it was.
"Gotta get me one of those? Though, I probably can't afford it." I sigh, dreams are sometimes just that. Only dreams. When I turn towards the people behind me, I take into account their shocked faces.
The Lieutenant was Caucasian, with dark hair, and dark eyes. He was about my height, and honestly about the same build. Chakwas was an older woman, probably in her 40's maybe early 50's. She had dark grey hair, didn't make her look old at all but rather gave her that elegant experienced look. She barely had a wrinkle on her, and she seemed to be quite lithe. Her outfit was different from Shepard's and the lieutenants. Noticing just exactly what she was wearing I briefly had a panic attack about being in some top secret futuristic lab.
Anderson was taller then the Lieutenant and I only by a small margin. Chakwas not being that much shorter then us. He had darker skin, African descent was my guess, given the name and everything, dark hair that was shaved down to a crew cut, and definitely was in charge based on his Captains Uniform. He was older to. Unsurprisingly rougher looking then Chakwas, which is only fair the guy was probably a field agent.
Shepard was probably just under my height by 2 inches. I was about 5'11 so she was still pretty tall for a woman. She had, as I said before, shoulder-length, wavy, Silver-white hair. Her discerning and calculating eyes were a sort of orange, maybe amber colour. Her eyebrows were black, and her left one had a scar through it coming at an angle, starting at the forehead and coming down, stopping just before the eyelid. She definitely looked young, and was beautiful to boot. She had a small scar that started on the right side of her upper lip and went maybe an inch above it as well, just accentuating the hot bad ass she likely was. I think she was close to my age. She wore a light coat of purple lipgloss, or lipstick, or whatever that was. Her skin was tanned, and from what I could tell from her exposed forearms, she was in good shape, athletic with some muscle build. Not to mention she appeared to have a C-cup and a nice ass. Okay not important, just... wow. If this was a soldier then...
Anyway they all looked confused as hell, probably never seen a conduit use their powers before. Although come to think of it, I don't know that our existence was actually that global. Certain governments knew about us, and certain organizations. The inhabitants of Empire City and New Marais definitely knew, but I suppose outside of that unless you had active conduits in your area you may not of heard about us. Deciding that was the likely answer to their shock and bewilderment, I offered them the only thing they actually asked me for as a way to bring them back down to earth.
"Yeah, so now that I know you aren't aliens, my name is Cole MacGrath. Am I still in New Marais?" I flexed my muscles and stretched, rotating joints and cracking my knuckles and neck. Wanted to be limbered up and have all the left over kinks worked out of my body as much as possible before the possibility of a fight breaking out. After that fiasco with Moira I wasn't trusting government officials so easily.
"New Marais?" Lieutenant responded.
"Never heard of it." Shepard spoke next.
"I'm almost positive I've heard that before." Anderson spoke.
"Yeah, it's on the East Coast of The United States. Are you guys fucking with me right now? I've had a long... day? God how long was I out?" Everybody in the room looked more and more alarmed with every word I said. I was starting to get very uncomfortable and the hair on my arm and neck was standing on end. I looked down to see what I was wearing and I was topless only in a pair of boxers. Damn it. Wait, the metal floor is really warm. Cool, heated floors, but why is there so much power running through this place. My head is buzzing with how much power is around me.
"15 hours. Wait. Hold on a second. Are we seriously going to gloss over what he just did?" Shepard turned to the others, slowly leaned forward and gestured with her hands towards me and the terminal.
"You guys have never seen a conduit before have you?" I paused a moment before I looked over at Chakwas. "15 hours? That's it? I thought for sure I was dead." Chakwas nodded at first then shook her head at the rest of my statement. She looked befuddled, like she was uncertain of how to proceed.
Anderson on the other hand almost looked like he had seen a ghost.
"What in the Hell is a conduit?" The Silver haired soldier questioned. Nobody had an answer of course. Well, not a real answer anyway.
"Does it make you capable of travelling through Prothean beacons? It sounds like he thought he was on Earth before ending up on Eden Prime. Though last I checked we have no such Beacon there." The Lieutenant spoke up. I realized he was the only one I didn't know the name to but at the time I couldn't care less.
"What's a Prothean Beacon? Eden Prime? Where on Earth is Eden Prime? Is this some religious cult location or something? Or a prank? Well done Zeke, you got me." Now they all looked at me like I was missing a head. This was too much weird, even for me. Nobody reacted this way to me before. Usually fear, due to not understanding why a man was shooting lightning out of his hands, shock and awe at what I was capable of. Some times even hate was tossed my way. This however was... too strange for me to handle.
"Was your last memory in New Marais?" I nodded at Captain Anderson's question. The man raised his left arm horizontally across and away from his torso after I nodded, holding his eye contact, until an orange holographic gauntlet... thing, appeared on his arm. He looked down and used his free hand to... tap at it? I was just amazed he had something like that.
Suddenly this dark pit dropped in my stomach and I almost wanted to cry out in frustration. As soon as that thought entered I pushed it aside, assuring myself there was no fucking way I had just done what I think I had done. I was simply in a secret government facility where they had access to all kinds of tech. Probably developed some time after they acquired the First Sons tech that was years a head of the rest of Earth... tech based on the designs of a guy from the future.
I was tired of being polite.
"My clothes, and my amp, where are they." I was more demanding then questioning now. The air in the room suddenly became thick with tension and I could see both the younger soldiers tense their muscles, as if they were ready to get into a fight. Unfortunate for them that I was able to get some juice in me. A lot of it actually. Chakwas seemed to take a few steps back, and Anderson's face was studious until his eyebrows shot up and he looked at me, and then back at his holo gauntlet.
"Your clothes were torn and burned. There was basically nothing left and I had to cut them off you. I was waiting for you to wake to put these on." She handed me a pair of pants and a shirt that were similar to what Shepard and the Lieutenant were wearing, but without the insignia.
"By amp, are you talking about the speaker you'd hook a guitar up to about a hun-" The young male soldier began his question before Anderson cut him off.
"Shut it Alenko!" Lieutenant Alenko promptly shut his mouth with a 'Yes sir!' and just stood looking at his superior with confusion. The Captain was still looking back from his holographic sleeve to me and back again before he shook his head and the hologram disappeared. "MacGrath. Sit down for a minute, get changed, have some more water. There are rations on the table there for you to eat. The mess will have breakfast ready in an hour. Everybody else, follow me." When he walked up to what I now noticed to be a door in the room, it slid open, in sections. It seemed really inefficient, and beyond what we could do on Earth.
My doubts about them being human somewhat came back as Anderson took a step out the door and looked back to see if anybody was following him. Chakwas and Alenko were moving to do so but Alenko would look back at me every so often, obviously uncomfortable with the fact that Commander Shepard stayed put, staring at me, studying me like I was a puzzle to be solved.
"That's an order Commander." Anderson spoke up again. Shepard looked me up and down one last time before scowling and shaking her head. They all left, Anderson waiting for everybody to walk past him, keeping eye contact with me the whole time. His look was grim. I didn't like it.
He spent a second longer before shaking his head and turning to leave, the door closing behind him. During that time, I used my radar pulse again, bracing for the feedback. It didn't matter, it was still quite a bit, something I would need to not be relying on in this building... wait. This wasn't a building. I was sensing to double check Shepard and Alenko's signatures, them being the two that felt odd before, and low and behold they read differently from regular people. Not a whole hell of a lot differently but enough that I knew they would probably be more trouble then the others. As for my new revelation, what kind of building has... what I could only describe to be some advanced currents that are similar to a jet engine. The only difference is that it seemed the engine was purely run on energy generated with some fuel injection of some kind but there was so much that I couldn't make out exact details. I just knew this couldn't be a building. Did they have some sky base?
Regardless, I noticed the green panel on the right turned red and it didn't take a genius to figure out they had locked the door.
I immediately got dressed, taking less than 2 seconds to do so. I scarfed down the ration left for me, and washed it down with another water packet, risking being drugged. Luckily, no such thing took affect, and I was ready to move. Taking note that military rations aren't the worst thing I've eaten, but definitely wasn't pleasant.
What really bothered me about this situation was they didn't know what I was referring to as an Amp, which was annoying because it meant it was lost or stolen. Except Alenko was talking about hooking up a guitar to a speaker. Who ever refers to an amp for music as a speaker. Probably loads of people honestly, but I've never heard it. So I was put off. It didn't help that he sounded like he was about to say the words 'a hundred'. I really really really was not happy about this.
Looking around for my bag, it would appear that was missing as well. Annoying. No way to contact anybody and I was stuck with a bunch of strangers. Definitely human, but government officials probably apart of some clandestine group. Don't really care for that honestly.
I went to the nearby terminal that I had drained and considered trying to figure out how to operate it. I took one look at it and realized I did not have the time for that, ditching the idea within seconds.
"No plan survives first contact..." Or however it goes. I stepped up to the door and drained the energy from the panel. "I'm out of here."
The door slid open, and there stood Shepard with a gun in my face, or at the very least what I thought was a gun. Had to be, the way she was holding it. It looked so odd though. They make them like that? Really? I was now convinced I had some how fucked up with the RFI. Stepping back, I slowly put my hands up in mock surrender.
"You really don't want to do that." I stated. I didn't think her scowl could get any more, scowly?... but it did and she held firm to her position in front of the door as I backed up slightly. The door wasn't closing because I had made sure to damage the circuit in case they planned on locking me in again.
"Oh really? What's going to happen if I do?" Her threat was not to be taken lightly. I noticed she had tied up her loose hair, into a ponytail, a few strands hanging loose over her forehead and sides framing her face. Fire in her eyes told me she was going to shoot me if given any excuse.
"If you do, it's the end of you and your Systems Alliance. Whatever that is." She raised a brow at that last statement.
"Have you been living under a rock for a 100 years?" She blurted out. I took that moment of surprise as a distraction and I used my right hand to throw up a polarity wall... and it didn't work.
The result was my arms sparking with electricity like they do when I'm in a fight, and it alarmed the Silver Commander to fire her weapon. My natural resistance was going to have to be used up and my healing afterwards necessary because I was stunned by the fact I couldn't use my powers to their fullest. Leaving myself open for punishment from this femme fatale.
BANG BANG BANG
Two of the three rounds hit me square in the chest and the other hits me in the shoulder. The pain... it's different from normal bullets. In fact, it felt like the shrapnel of a grenade or metal shards thrown by Alden. Strangely, combine that sensation with the Beasts powers on a minuscule level and that was what she was firing at me.
After the rounds hit me, moving my body with the force of each round, I fall onto my back, letting the pain settle in.
Holy shit that hurt. The burning sensation was intense and the force of the tiny rounds was alarming. That was a pistol? It looked like one. It hit like a way higher calibre. I closed my eyes and reluctantly sent out a radar pulse. The feed back wasn't as intense this time, more prepared for it and also suffering from chest wounds. They were already starting to heal but would take awhile before fully closing if I don't drain something.
I could hear Shepard walking up to me, slowly, some voices coming from down the hall. My enhanced senses shows me her odd energy approaching me, and when she gets close enough, I simply grab her leg and send a shock through her body. She squeezes the trigger one more time, holding it down which causes the pistol to continuously fire into the floor, apparently not piercing through to the floor below. It fires until I hear a beeping sound and the sound of pressurized heated air is being released as a clip pops out from the bottom of the gun, but not from the grip like most guns I'm used to.
I use the advantage of her temporary paralysis to sweep her leg, do a hand stand flip, plant my boot on her chest as she hits the ground and fire an arc bolt at her that turns into arc restraints around her neck, legs, and arms. She regains control of her body and begins struggling against the restraints. Her face going from a scowl to a deep grimace at her predicament.
"It's no use, I've captured many people for the Five-Oh with these, and they last awhile. Be happy I didn't just drain you. Speaking of." I raise my hand above my head as I kick her gun away from me. The light in the ceiling flickers and my wounds rapidly heal as I drain the energy from the fixture. I can see the look in Shepard's eyes as she looks on in astonishment at how I was healing my wounds by draining electricity.
Getting a bit of satisfaction from clearly impressing this woman in some way, I turned to make my leave, the light now out, for a moment. I knew the generator on this ship would resupply it soon. Before I left however, something caught my eye.
I didn't notice it before, but in the corner was a pod of some kind, big enough to hold a person. Inside was something that looked nothing like a human being. My curiosity got the better of me and I approached it.
When I got closer I held up my hand, encasing it in electricity to illuminate my surroundings. Yep, that wasn't human. What the fuck was that thing? Definitely dead, since I didn't sense it any of the times I used my radar pulse. I wondered what kind of energy signature it would have given off while alive.
"You looking at the body?" Despite her early fury at being captured her voice was a bit more calm then I expected.
"What is this thing? Monster? Alien?" I had my fare share of experience with monsters. Experience I sometimes wish I could forget. A chill went down my spine, thinking of the time after I defeated Kessler and ventured out of Empire City before The Beast arrived to destroy it.
"Alien. I'll give you more info if you just let me go. You star-"
"Shut up." I didn't see any buttons I could press on the pod but I could tell it was operated with electricity so I drained the system. What I hadn't taken into account is that the body was being held in cryo-stasis, probably to preserve it for whatever reason they had for doing so. When the frost built up on the glass of the pod cleared, signalling the body being thawed, the pod's air tight seal released. It didn't open on it's own though, so I had to force it open with my hands. Wasn't too difficult.
Now, fully exposed, I held my hand up over the body and examined it. The thing wasn't wearing anything. It looked like a humanoid avian creature. The alien's body was slender, over six feet tall, and possessed what looked to be a metallic carapace, with a hump on it's back. It's hands had two long, proportionally thick fingers and an opposable thumb each, all of which were tipped with talons that looked like they could rend flesh from bone. It's eyes were forward facing, and it had a set of mandibles around it's mouth. Given these characteristics I assumed that it was fast and hunted live prey. It didn't however take into account that whatever it was hunting got the jump on it and put a bullet through it's head. From what I could tell, the blood this thing spews isn't red, probably blue or purple or something.
Actually, it was more accurate to say the bullet was put through the lower back of it's head, entering through where the brain stem probably was and exiting out of it's now mangled face. I considered that the brain was probably in tact, and decided to test something out an ability I haven't actually utilized since I was back in Empire City.
Using the free hand that wasn't being used to light up the room, I slowly inched it towards the aliens swept back cranium. Hoping that I still had the ability in question, I wasn't sure how it would work with an alien species. Their brain could be completely different from a human brain and there was no telling how their neural pathways operated. I just hoped it was similar enough that I wasn't doing something stupid.
Who am I kidding? I may be smarter then I look but I do dumb shit all the time, especially since I got these powers. I heard somebody enter the room right as I touched the bird person's head, not having time to berate myself for being careless before the last memories of this thing coursed through my mind.