Hello there,
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If you like how Shepard is a total genius badass, you should check Arrival : Ruptures to enjoy more of the same.
—
Normandy
Engineering
Shepard watched the krogan inside the gestation tank sleep. He was a big one, with smoother, broader, and more symmetrical cranial plates.
There were no issues with the tank itself, so Shepard got ready to let the krogan out.
Entering the command, the pod quickly drained the amniotic fluid and opened the glass panel. The krogan fell on his knees, coughing out the liquid in his lung, trying to get his bearings. Eyes focused, the massive alien rose to his feet and seemed to be ready to charge.
"Human, male." The krogan observed, before grinning, "Shepard."
"You know me?" Then again, Okeer was a fan of his, so perhaps he taught his legacy the same?
"Okeer implanted me with memories of your battles. Downfall of the Hegemony, Terminus operations, your fight against the Sovereign." The memories were disjointed, but they all proved one thing.
The human before him was dangerous, more than any other organic in the galaxy.
Shepard shrugged. He couldn't blame Okeer for giving his perfect soldier the education to go with it. "Anything else he implanted?"
"I am trained for battle; I know things, but the tank…. Okeer couldn't implant connection. His words are hollow." And it was a good thing, seeing as Okeer wasn't liked by the rest of his kind.
The krogan frowned. "I need a name. Warlord, legacy, grunt… grunt. Grunt was among the last. It has no meaning. It'll do."
Grunt, huh? He had heard worse names. "Then you are now a part of my krant, and I am your battlemaster. From now on, your enemies are my enemies." Shepard declared. The best way to earn a krogan's loyalty was to treat them as part of a krant.
Grunt agreed easily. "And yours are mine." Something amusing must have crossed the krogan's mind, for he chuckled. "Heh, Okeer's imprints may have failed, and I feel nothing for his enemies, but fighting yours—the thought fills me with anticipation."
—
"Shepard, I think we have them. One of our colonies in the former Terminus Systems just went silent." The Illusive Man had called him, saying it was important, and Shepard was now standing in the comms room.
And it was important. "If it isn't under attack, it soon will be. Has Mordin delivered the countermeasure for the seeker swarms?"
"Not yet." He didn't have the chance to ask, but Mordin didn't seem the type to fail.
Tim took another drag from his cigarette, and Shepard wondered how many he smoked a day. "Let's hope he works well under pressure. There is something else you should know."
That can't be good.
"Two of your former crewmates, Kaidan Alenko and Ashley Williams, are stationed in Horizon."
"They are targeting them to get to me." Fucking bugs were asking for it now.
"My thinking as well."
"I'll go deal with this."
—
Shadow Sea
Iera System
Horizon
Mordin's countermeasure was ready, but he could only take a small unit with him.
So he took Garrus and Grunt.
"We're groundside. Mordin, are you sure these upgrades will work against a swarm?" Time was limited, and Shepard didn't have the time to go over the details with the professor.
"Certainly impossible. But in limited numbers, we should confuse detection and make ourselves invisible to swarms. In theory."
Garrus chuckled. He was beginning to like the Salarian. "In theory, professor?"
"Experimental technology. The only test is contact with seeker swarms. Shepard is leading the mission. Look forward to the results." Mordin sounded excited.
"Grunt, here." Shepard handed the krogan a massive shotgun, one that would shoot several clustered laser bolts that dispersed like mass accelerator shotgun fire.
"He, he, he. This is going to be fun."
As if hearing Grunt's desire to test the weapon, Collectors came flying and took cover behind the walls ahead.
Garrus picked off the Collector carrying a particle beam with a headshot, and Grunt fired his new weapon, nailing two Collectors.
More bugs joined the fray, and Shepard neutralized them before they could land.
Once the area was clear, the team pressed forward but unknowingly entered the range of the enemy jamming and lost contact with Normandy.
The HAB area was filled with Collectors carrying off the colonists, as well as husks, who charged at the team.
"Garrus, you and I deal with the bugs. Grunt, you have the husks."
"Understood."
Grunt fired his shotgun, taking out multiple husks with each pull of the trigger, while Shepard and Garrus focused on the ranged enemies, who were not leaving the cover, content to let the cannon fodder swarm the team.
Shepard disagreed and threw a massive singularity, drawing the enemy out of cover, though the Collectors resisted, using their wings in an attempt to escape.
Garrus fired a shot, angling it to take two Collectors out at once, leaving the other two to Shepard, who pulled both triggers at the same time.
With one last shout, their krogan teammate headbutted the final husk, and the coast was clear.
Interestingly enough, they found a husk that was already dead, and even a surface examination showed that it was more advanced than the previous version Shepard had seen.
The Collectors, and their masters, the Reapers, weren't playing around.
Pods, the kind Shepard had locked himself in, were strewn around in the next hab section, with Collectors waiting for them in cover.
The enemy's position gave them an advantage, but Shepard had the means to neutralize it.
"Garrus, Grunt, I am going to hit them from the back; keep firing."
"Got it."
Activating his anti-grav generator, Shepard launched himself to the top of the prefabs behind where the Collectors were taking cover, making them an easy picking.
Under fire from two sides with nowhere to escape, the Collectors were downed easily.
—
They finally came across several colonists, who were stuck in stasis due to the seeker swarms, and since they didn't have the time to take them somewhere secure, Shepard decided to leave them where they were.
Several more Collectors dropped down, with one distinct difference.
One of the drones began to glow, releasing a bright light as it floated.
"Watch out for that. It's possessed by a Reaper and has strong biotic equivalent powers."
"Since you two are acquainted already, we'll leave him to you." Garrus turned his scope to the Collector Assassin instead, dropping the particle beam carrying unit with a headshot.
"You will know pain, Shepard."
Shepard biotically leashed a tree, breaking it in half, before whacking Harbinger down over and over again while Garrus and Grunt killed the remaining Collectors.
"Heh, biotics seem fun." Maybe he should ask his battlemaster for a way to get them?
—
They found a locked entrance to a supply depot, and Shepard hacked the door open.
Inside, they found a single colonist, hiding behind a wall, who was not caught by the swarms.
"What are you …. Holy shit, Shepard. I thought you were dead." The man almost fell as he took a step back in shock.
"Just took a beauty nap. I heard two former teammates of mine were here. Kaidan Alenko and Ashley Williams."
The man frowned, and Shepard could guess he wasn't a fan of the Alliance, or just Kaidan and Ashley. "Oh, them? They were on the other side of the colony, trying to calibrate the defense towers."
"Do you think they are all right?" They didn't have the countermeasure against the seeker swarms after all.
"Kaidan and Ashley won't go down to Collectors; I am sure they are fine."
"Collectors? You mean they're real? God damn it, those Alliance reps must have brought them here." The man sounded angry now, and Shepard sighed internally.
He hated these idiots.
"They were coming either way. Now sit on your ass; we'll deal with this."
—
Collectors were waiting on the other side of the supply depot, and Sovereign joined them as soon as Shepard was spotted, though he shot the Collector drone before Harbinger could possess it.
The bugs were easy to defeat, but the enemy had brought in a new, heavily armed and armored unit, meant to be a personnel-sized tank.
It fired a kind of biotic shockwave from its cannon arm and seemed resistant to laser fire to a degree.
Rather than take any chances, Shepard nodded to Garrus, who put a hole through the new abomination's chest and the sack on its back.
Another short trek brought them to the transmitter, guarded by a Scion, as Shepard decided to call it, and a swarm of husks.
Shepard fired both microwave beams at the creature, boiling it alive, and watched as it burned a quarter of the husks, with Garrus and Grunt dealing with the rest.
Shutting down the enemy jamming in the current section, Shepard called Joker.
"Normandy, do you copy?"
"Joker here. Signal's weak, Commander, but we got you." Joker responded.
"Let's test our new weapons. I want you to target the Collector cruiser's engines. Once it's grounded, we'll clean it out. They already took most of the colonists; we can't let them leave." It would be a waste of time to wait for the towers to come online when Normandy could do a better job.
"Aye aye, Commander, standby."
Shepard was sure Joker was itching for revenge.
—
Normandy came swooping down from the clouds, getting low enough to be able to target the engine section.
Twin laser beams ignored the cruiser's shields and punched through the thrusters, coming out of the other side.
Explosions shook the ship, but the massive monolithic vessel stood straight.
"Shepard, incoming." Garrus called out, and the team fell into cover.
The cruiser was grounded, but the battle was not over yet.
Now that their escape plan had failed, the Collectors came en masse, with husks, drones, and scions flooding the area like one continuous wave.
"Damn, we must have pissed them off." Garrus switched to the beam mode, cutting a swat of Collectors in half.
The newest addition to the team was having fun, at least. "Now this is a battle worthy of legends!"
Shepard unleashed the full might of his biotic prowess, wiping out the enemy in droves, yet they still came. Garrus and Grunt, not to be left behind, were fighting the battle of their lives.
It all came to an end when one final enemy appeared.
A flying construct that seemed to be multiple husks fused together flew into the field and fired twin particle beams from its eyes.
Its armor was too thick and simply absorbed the laser fire. Shepard was sure enough punishment would bring the creature down, but the colonists inside the ship may not have the time.
"Cover me."
Shepard ran out of cover, leaping right to avoid the first particle beam fire before leaping left and then into the air.
Hanging onto the heavy unit, Shepard threw the grenade inside where the husks could be seen and dropped down.
Confined into a narrow space, the laser beam grenade unleashed its full power inside the creature, causing it to explode violently, taking out the reusable grenade with it.
—
Shepard was familiar with the inside of a Collector ship, though not with the corpses waiting for them.
Someone was here before them and had wiped out a great number of bugs.
"Seems we're late to the party." Shepard could guess who had done this.
"Better late than never."
Proceeding towards the bridge, they passed through eerie corridors and sections filled with corpses, and eventually it became clear this was the work of laser weaponry.
—
Kaidan and Ashley were swarmed by Collectors protecting the entrance to the bridge.
"Is it just me, or do the Collectors fight better now?" Ashley complained. The bugs seemed to put up a fiercer resistance at every bulkhead, and it was getting tedious.
Alenko nodded, launching a singularity that pulled the enemy out into the open. "They are controlled by a general; with how many died, it must mean more processing power for each unit."
A third laser bolt came out of nowhere, and Ashley turned around.
"Excuses, excuses." Shepard called out, firing at the Collectors, not even bothering to take cover."
Two more shots came in; one was Garrus, while the other was a krogan they didn't know.
Ashley grinned; finally, Shepard was here. "And here I thought we could have all the fun to ourselves. Way to ruin the party, Commander."
"I could leave if you want." Still not bothering to take cover, Shepard bent his head slightly to the side, dodging a biotic attack from Harbinger.
"No need now that you are here. Garrus, nice to see you too." Kaidan greeted the Turian who had taken the heat off of him.
The turian shot down the final drone before turning to the humans. "Kaidan, Ashley, saw your handiwork out there; good job."
But the reunion would have to wait. "Alright, there is most likely a Collector General inside. We need to take it down and shut down the self-destruct system before Harbinger can trigger it."
"Aye, aye, Commander."
—
First one in, Shepard's first target was the Collector general, who was furiously typing on the console.
Stepping from behind him, his team quickly cleared out the bridge in a well-executed attack, and Shepard hacked into the mainframe of the cruiser.
"Shepard, you fight the inevitable—" Harbinger was cut off as Shepard shut down the comm systems, followed by the self-destruct mechanism.
"Alright, good job, people."
—
Taking the ship was the easy part compared to dealing with the thousands of colonists stuck all around the vessel.
His crew wasn't enough to deal with the number of people that needed medical assistance, and there were still thousands more stuck in stasis, which was another matter entirely.
At least they had managed to recall the seeker swarms and incinerate them, avoiding any future risks.
The Alliance had eventually arrived to take over the ship and install better defenses on the colony.
There was just one problem.
Kaidan and Ashley were bitching over Shepard's cooperation with Cerberus.
—
Darkspace
Harbinger pondered.
Something the ancient machine had rarely done in its over one billion years of existence.
This human was proving to be a hindrance, the likes of an organic that had never been encountered before in the countless cycles.
First he had stopped the Watcher from taking over the Citadel and then had single-handedly taken over a ship belonging to the Prothean remnants.
Harbinger had destroyed the ship in an effort to take Shepard out, only for the mortal to somehow survive and come back.
And most importantly, the weapons he had created were a major threat.
The antiproton torpedoes had proven to be extremely effective against the technology they had spent hundreds of millions of years perfecting.
Nazara had discovered it firsthand.
Regardless, the cycle would continue, and these humans had certainly earned the right to rise as a higher ascendant, while the rest would be confined to lower forms to be preserved.
With the second Prothean remnant vessel downed, something greater would have to be fielded.
—
Galactic Center
Beyond the Omega 4 relay, a ship that has been deemed unnecessary for the current cycle just had its reactor activated.