Before this moment if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would have said a dragon. It didn't matter that I was on the wrong side of middle-age, or some dragons were shown to be assholes. Dragons knew the value of saving, and protecting what is important to them. Sure, some may take it to an extreme, but that really isn't any worse than any other species. Then a dragon decided to place me in a city that was undergoing staffing runs by turian aircraft in order to make sure that the defenders of the world didn't get any strange ideas, like eating the food they grew or using the food stores in the city. Funny how one asshole can change your mind about an entire species after you meet them.
I instantly thank my nerd self for choosing a shroud for my build. The moment my instinctual desire not to become a bloody smear manifested I was incased in nanites quicker than RDJ in any Iron Man movie. Some may say that mine don't look as cool as they were a simple metallic grey that caused me to look like the Silver Surfer was covered in soot if the Silver Surfer was also wearing the mask of The Question. Still, considering that not only did I not die, I only felt brief impacts, my nanites were the best and most beautiful thing I could imagine at the moment.
Still, the experience left me a bit dizzy like I just went on an extreme ride in an amusement park. If anyone brings this up later, I will claim that was the reason behind the complete stupidity of sitting on some rubble after I dug myself out instead of following my original plan of finding a flat surface and getting my ass in the nice and safe pocket dimension that is the Pocket Apartment. Having a safe bolt hole in a warzone was the entire reason I bought it so early, otherwise I would have waited for the Sweet Home so my tech goddess could have a lab when I summoned her.
I came out of my daze until I heard strange clicking and growling. Turning my head, I saw two turians talking to each other as they swept the rubble for survivors, survivors like me. Okay, at this point I'm 90% sure the dragon is fucking with me simply to get more hits on the equivalent of his YouTube channel. Though if I could understand them, I could probably get conformation on that thought.
This caused me to light up in Tron lines that I would have said would look awesome in any other situation, even as the imprint of the communicator/universal translator from Start Trek the Next Generation rose on my very defined left pectoral.
"Command, we have an anomaly in sector 38Z. Please advise," said the turian that had a veteran look to him. At least I'm assuming it was a him as the communicator was using a masculine voice. I can't remember how progressive they were in the game as far as equality of genders, but I don't remember seeing any women off the top of my head.
"What do you think it is?" asked the second turian in a slightly quavering voice. In my mind I was already putting a red shirt on him and labeling him Fried Chicken, or Fred for short. I knew it was unfair as I would have been in his shoes if not for my upgrades, but everything about him was shouting cannon fodder with the instincts I was getting from watching the vet.
"Could be anything. Could be a sex toy, could be their version of a Geth. Either way command will make the call on if we're going to capture it or destroy it."
"Do you really think these things are stupid enough to make Geth?" Fred said as he sealed his doom with the things comment. Seriously dude I know you need to dehumanize the enemy but don't put us down that far.
"They're animals that killed officers for enforcing the law." True from a very limited perspective, so you get to live Vett. "Besides have you seen the stuff they have on top of their head? At least an Asari has some frills up there to make up for their disgusting torsos, but these animals have this hair stuff and it's disgusting. Some even grow it on their face so they can keep food for later. I can't wait for High Command to give the orders to get rid of them."
And Vet just made the shit list. Genocide is bad enough, but wanting to kick one off simply because he's jealous of us beard bros? Yeah, he was now in the die horribly category. Now all I had to see if Mind Defense could keep me calm enough, and if I still had any of the acting ability I worked on in high school.
Okay now that I put the individual words together in a sentence even I can only see this ending in flames, but it's the only plan I have. Cocking my head to the side I make sure that my Tron lines are glowing and say in English, "Are you my Master?"
"Take it in. If this is some kind of human built Geth we should let the salarians take one of them apart," says a new voice I can hear over the communication lines that I just hacked. God I love having this suit in a tech dependent world. Now I just had to wait for these two to get closer and I should be able to go caveman and bash their heads in with the stone rubble. "The containment team will at your location in five minutes. Keep a lookout for active terrorist cells in your area and stay safe."
Fuck. Why the hell couldn't I get the incompetent army that's secure in their superiority? Backup plan is as follows, throw rocks at them and run like hell.
Quickly putting thought into action, I threw the nearest chunks of broken masonry at the two alien life forms. Surprisingly Fred dodged while Vet didn't. Given the fact the shroud enhanced me enough to throw a 25lb chunk of concrete like a baseball the armor didn't do much to save him. His armor was designed to reduce the damage done by small slugs going at supersonic speed, not a much larger mass and it concaves enough to crush his lungs. It's easy for me to make out the death rattle over the communications network I'm hooked into. Huh, I guess this makes me the monster the rookie trains himself up to kill. That will seriously bite me in the ass latSHIT!
Okay, not panicking. I've been shot, and I got conformation that the light version of this armor doesn't stop guns that try and sandblast you with bb's going supersonic speed. Still, that's a good 30 seconds of running my ass off and there isn't a turian in sight so time to open up the door and settle into my new home.
Closing the portal as soon as I move past the threshold, I pull my nanites back into my soul and look at the line going across my right bicep. It wasn't deep, somewhere just over a somewhat deep cut, nothing that a couple of butterfly bandagers can't sure. Going to the bedroom I mentally marked as mine I looked under the bed for a first aid kit. Once I got back into the world, I'd use my suit to tap into a wifi connection and do a search to see if I needed to do anything else because my medical expertise began and ended with bleeding bad, make it stop.
Going to the bedroom closet I put on my Superman tee-shirt, jeans, and boots. Geeky but functional. Looking at the mirror I liked what I saw for the first time in my life. The S on my chest looked the way it should on a superhero chest instead of being deformed by my stomach. My face had lost the round look I had always sported so I looked more like my younger brother that ran marathons, if bulkier. I was no longer balding! For that alone I can forgive the dragon for dropping me where he did.
The best thing are my eyes. I no longer need glasses, and the shroud changed them so they look like the spirals of a gun like in the James Bond opening scenes. Then again, they are more triangular, sharp, so maybe it was best to compare them to camera shutters. No one will notice unless they stare, but it's the perfect way to say that I'm no longer who I was. While my past helped formed me, I'm not bound to it. No chemical imbalance to blame things on, no support structure to build me back up, and thing will go so much worse than they ever could in my own life. If I fail trillions would die, and that would be if Shepard pulled out the perfect win. Time to change that and make sure I don't fail.
There isn't a flash of light or any other special effects. One moment I'm alone, the next moment Gina Diggers is on the other side of the kitchenette, clad in her adventure gear.
"What the wha?" asked a justifiably shocked Gina before pointing her plunger gun in my general direction.
"A better question than how. Listen, I know you have question, I know I did a couple of hours ago. I can answer them and give you a few thoughts that I've had of my own."
"Let's start with why you kidnapped me," she said and I could see her mind start to go into overdrive. In her mind she wasn't where she was a moment ago, no obvious threat but she's used to looking for things that aren't obvious. She's probably guessing I'm a magic user of some kind, and to be fair she isn't wrong. She's also good enough to ask the toughest question to keep me off balance, and it works.
"It's not quite kidnapping," I say with a wince even as I felt guilt rise up. "Listen, you are without a doubt Gina Diggers, and everything you remember happening to you has happened to you. The way I understand it is that you were cloned on a quantum level, basically like Riker was when he had that transporter accident. You are both Gina Diggers, you're just two Gina Diggers that will be shaped by different experiences from here on out."
"So, it's okay because I'm the clone?" she asks as she turns on the female death glare.
"I just said you're Gina Diggers, not a substitute, same as the original in every way that matters," I grumble wishing I had been able to take Social Talent. "Listen I know that despite what most isekai would have the reader believe it sucks being ripped from what you have, especially when you have a good life. There is no way to properly apologize for that so can I at least tell you about the general bribes and how your family back home may be in danger due to my bosses and the nature of the multiverse?"
Gina puts away her plunger gun, and takes out what looks like a sonic screwdriver with a glowing tip. Casually pressing the tip to the countertop, she doesn't even flinch when the counter bursts into flames for a moment before they were put out with another tap. "This is my tuning wrench. Sometimes I need to make adjustments to my equipment in the field that include soddening and freezing. If you threaten my family again, I'm going to see what it can do to a living being when the safeties are off."
I back up with my hands raised, and going by where her eyes flicked to, she did notice my boner. After a lifetime not being noticed, or getting disgusted looks by women being looked at like a piece of meat is nice. "Your family is pure awesome and the only time I'd fight them is when they try to kill me for making you upset. It's what I learned when I was recruited, and what the recruiter didn't say. Basically, I got shanghaied into a company that wants to conquer every universe in the infinite omniverse by using sex. The problem with the omniverse is that nothing is unique, not even multi-dimensional corporations. The worse part is that I don't think all the others want to conquer by turning a planet into a 60's lovefest, and there is a zero chance that they will let each other live and let live. Corporations exist to crush all forms of opposition."
I make a tablet that has the catalogue displayed on it and hand it over to Gina. "Two hours ago, I was told that everything they truly value is listed there so it seems like they value powerful individuals under their control. My guess is that half of the clones of the captured waifu and husbandos are sent out on missions against other Companies, or to defend against agents from another Company."
"So what do you plan to do about it?"
"Get stronger. The build I have so far basically makes me a Saiyan, capable of unlimited growth in combat skills, strength, and mystical powers that aren't physic in nature. Personally, I'll take happy orgies over turning entire worlds into unthinking sex slaves, so I'll fight for them. Maybe I can work hard enough, get powerful enough that I can keep a small section of the multiverse safe from being messed with too badly. I'd like you to come with me. You can make some truly wonderful instinctual leaps where you go from A to G in a single bound. You can travel the multiverse, do an archeological dig on the Sith home world, or Cybertron. You'd get the same perks I have so you'd finally be able to do all forms of magic like your father, or become a fighter like your mother. Yes you'd slowly become what I want, but you're already there. I want a hot, geeky, wonderfully intelligent woman who can build up my confidence when needed, and deflate my ego if I let my power go to my head, someone who can tell me to my face when I'm about to make a stupid decision and then point out why it's stupid."
"So in a nutshell if I agree to bond with you, you'll work on getting strong enough to protect my universe, make sure I get to do things I want to do that don't involve screwing like rabbits on an aphrodisiac, and make sure I don't get too heavily brain washed. Is that it?"
"Yeah, that sums it up nicely."
"So do I sign something saying I officially agree or what?"
"Well," I say with a grin, even as three tentacles emerge from my back. "Remember how I said they wanted to conquer the omniverse using sex? Don't worry, as soon as you are bound the apartment will grant you all your clothes, including your Sailor V costume so we can play Soldier of Love and Justice verses Evil Tentacle Monster in the future."
The look on her face told me I had pushed too hard too quick. Gina may have a raging geek libido but not even she is down for tentacle sex with a guy she met five minutes ago. I should have taken Social talent when I had the chance.
"You don't have to decide right now," I said before she could go on a full rant. "Just keep it in mind and sleep on it. I may have done this build with shoring up your weak points in mind, but that doesn't mean I can't adapt and fill Brittany's role as bodyguard as you stay a squishy archeologist."
"So that's it? You expect me to believe that after you kidnap me, say the fate of my family and friends are on the line and that you want to show me the omniverse you'd be okay if I said no?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Would I like it if I could have sex with you every night and give you powers? Hell to the power of yes, but it won't be a dealbreaker. I know you've been analyzing things with your glasses while you read the rules of the catalogue. I'd do my best to give you as much freewill as I can, but you'd still be giving up some of it in this deal and I know that's a big ask."
"What world are we in anyway? I'm reading faint traces that make me think we're in one of the pocket worlds options, but that doesn't tell me about the world outside."
"Mass Effect during the Shanxi invasion."
"So, a Tear 5," she said just before her stomach let out a growl. "I don't suppose you got Fairy Feast, did you?"
"No, I put survival over fun sexy times. The shroud took up most of my budget with you taking another good chunk. I came close to getting Sticky Fingers, but missed it by one point. If this is anything like my pre-diabetes place the freezer should have a couple of frozen pizzas," I said as I opened the fridge. "I will caution you though, I'm a bachelor from Utah so I'm about as far away from being able to make Georgian southern comfort food as you can get."
"You know it's kinda disturbing how you know stuff about me because I'm fictional in your world."
"If you don't know the favorite food of the entire bridge crew of Star Trek the Original series, I'll eat a sock. Yes I know things about you, but they were presented in an interesting way that made me and others want to learn more same as any other character in a story."
"Okay, I'm getting sidetracked. At the risk of losing my geek cred I'll admit I don't know much about Mass Effect. Between teaching, regular digs, working on inventions, and family time I haven't had much time to consume geek culture in depth. I know it's a game based on saving the universe, and I've been told they did a good job with the aliens but not much beyond that," said Gina as she started making a tuna fish sandwich.
I do a quick run-through of the highlights. I'm a moderate lore hog and don't want to overwhelm her with details that won't apply to my plan. "My plan to stopping things is to find Sovereign and use the shroud to take it over. No Sovereign no brainwashed Saren, no asshole trying to kick off cyborg zombie apocalypse, and then you can give humanity technology that doesn't depend on eezo to go faster than light to kick off a Golden Age. As for credits, I figure that at least Morinth would be fair game to capture and sell as she's an unrepentant serial killer. After that it's off to one adventure to the next, climbing the corporate ladder of an objectively evil company so I can keep what I consider me and mine safe."
I use my shroud to put on some mood music, causing Gina to snort in laughter. "Are you trying subliminal messages now?"
"Maybe a bit, but it's also one of my favorite songs. Do they even have this band in your world?"
"Yeah, and you suck for trying to manipulate my mind. This is a steel trap mister, unchangeable by mortal means."
"Please, we both know that If I got Luke Skywalker and Han Solo to make out in the same bed, you'd sigh away your entire fortune to whoever would let you join them. The fact that you started drooling like a slash fangirl at the image before I even finished the scenario proves my point."
"It ws cuz of the sandwich. Apparently, my food making skill is just that good," Gina denied in the most unconvincing manner.
"Hey, no need to deny it, I'd do the same for getting in bed with 7of9 and T'Pol from the Star Trek franchise. The Company knows the weak points of geeks like us and knows how to exploit them. Also, I'm 99% heterosexual, but I plan to live for thousands of years, so I'll probably be up to some experimentation in a century or so. So, add my own bribery to the list to join."
"For someone that's supposed to let me sleep on it you're still selling a bit too hard."
I simply nod. "I could probably use some time to rest and decompress myself. I'll see you in the morning."
I made my way to my room, stripped, and attempted to sleep. Attempted because I was five different kinds of nervous about Gina's answer. Should I go to Earth and enroll in the N7 program? Maybe work as a mercenary for a while and be the grizzled vet when the first game starts? I don't know what time it was locally when I finally drifted off to sleep but I did and had dreams filled with sex and violence. At least I know one thing about my brain wasn't changed by my new powers.
I woke up to hear Gina slamming the cabinet doors. Not being a morning person in any shape or form I get out of bed and go to the kitchen area. The moment I walked in Gina turned a glare at me.
"I can forgive bad cooking, and even the kidnapping, but if you are one of those Utah heathens that decry the sacred coffee bean, I will be forced to kill you in self-defense," she growled at me.
"Hate the smell, hate the taste. I have energy drinks and hot chocolate packages for the caffeine fix," I say as I start making my standard breakfast of three scrambled eggs, low fat turkey sausage, onions, bell pepper, Italian seasoning, and a dash of garlic salt with half a handful of shredded cheese mixed it. I wasn't too hungry this morning, so I split it and gave half to my guest and it met with her approval.
We spent about ten minutes like that, simply eating and letting the morning food wake us up for a big day. A silence that was broken by words I really didn't want to hear, "I've decided to leave. You seem like a good guy, but I've met enough good guys that turn into monsters, some of them literally. You kidnapped me, so I just don't see a way I could trust you enough to not to turn me into a mindless sex toy."
So, this was it. Could I really just let her go like I said I would, risk everyone dying? Was her free will more important than all those lives?
No, that's the wrong question. For the first time in my life, even if it's at the worst time, I get to say this is about me. I wanted to be better physically, emotionally, and intellectually. I didn't choose morally. Either I felt I was strong enough to withstand the temptations or I knew I was going to break my code because while mind control had always been a dark fantasy of mine, I knew it shouldn't be done in real life.
With a wave of my hand the portal opened in the living room. If I was going to become a devil, then let me be an honorable one. Yes, I would manipulate people into wanting to be part of my harem and giving up a chunk of their free will, but I will be honest about it and keep my promises.
Gina looked at the portal, and then took off her shirt. Her pants were next as I stared in open mouth shock. "Buy sticky fingers. If I'm doing this I don't want to settle for bad or average sex. I want mind blowing, puddle making, eyes turning into hearts sex."
"Yes, ma'am," I said as my shroud stopped mimicking the exercise shorts and retreated into my body. I quickly made the purchase, with no regret about going into debt by one point. Sure, I wouldn't be able to order another waifu until it was paid back but that was a small price to pay for a happy sex life today.
Once I started kissing her, I knew that being in debt was worth it. I could feel her desire for little love bites down her pulse point. Now most people would stop the wonderful kiss we were both enjoying to start nibbling, but I didn't just get a shroud for the power to manipulate an element. In the original setting they were described as being able to create Green Lantern like constructs so that is what I put to use.
A tube with a second mouth grew out the back of my neck and then started nibbling at my girl. I could feel her stiffen in surprise for a few moments before relaxing. After that there was no holding back. Even as my hands played her large breasts and pink nipples like an expert musician another construct tendril, this time with a feather at the end, ran up and down her inner thighs and lightly touching her pussy lips.
This apparently was the golden teasing technique as I felt her shudder and have her first orgasm of this round. Deciding that had probably lubed her up enough, I changed the feather into an unsharpened number 2 pencil with a domed top. I knew from porn stories that woman are usually sensitive there so I don't want to put in my dick right away, though on the other hand I wanted to use that sensitivity to make her want more quickly.
Slowly the probe in her pussy began to grow even as I continued to lavish her outside body. I had encased her feet in my shroud and began to massage them even as I started to work on her calves. Soon when the probe had reached the girth of a small dick Gina was doing her best to grind on it and get as much pleasure as she could.
Looking in her eyes I saw they were rolled back in pleasure, only the whites visible. Deciding to go to the next level I took out the probe completely and then replaced it with my dick the same moment I pushed the soaked probe into her ass. Her eyes went open in shock and locked onto my smirking face. Deciding to enjoy the sensation she tried to set her pace.
I knew from the comics that she liked it a bit rough so I didn't let her. Telling my shroud what I wanted I felt my hips work at a rhythmic pace even as the probe worked at a slightly faster one. The two different paces set Gina off again and I decided it was time to end this as my nanobot cocoon was now covering her butt.
When she screamed out in pleasure during her second orgasm, I shoved my face into hers and put a tentacle tongue down her throat. My aura raced over her upper torso, stimulating every erogenous zone they encountered until she was completely covered.
She was willing, she was in mind destroying pleasure, she didn't even last two minutes before she was done and fully mine.
The sensations that followed claiming her are impossible to accurately describe. No one can feel their soul, and I'm not sure I didn't go a little insane as I felt some of mine break off and settle into Gina. This is how the Company let us share so much through the shroud, we literally have a part of our soul inserted into the waifu we chose to share ourselves with.
The woman who came out looked more like a superhero than a squishy nerd. Six feet tall, only two inches smaller than me, and wit the impossible combination of well-defined muscles combined with large breasts. Here bright blue eyes opened, and when I looked closely, I saw that her iris had an almost circuit board pattern.
"Jinkies, now that was a ride worth the price of admission," said Gina as her eyes locked with mine, completely uncaring about her own nudity. "So, you got me, now what?"
"It depends on you. Your dad is Merlin level of magical awesome and he tried to teach you. I'm guessing you can learn magic quicker if you start with his style and I can learn from you. My first plan was to shelter in place for the invasion, then hack the public records and show that I was a survivor from one of the parts that was hit bad so that's why no one really recognizes me. However, if you become a super mage or just have a plan to help the marines hold out by giving them food until reinforcements arrive, we can hit the universe in a big way."
"I can't even cast a fireball right now, making food is a no go."
"Okay, so shelter in place then."
And so began the best quarantine of my life. It's really amazing how much enjoyable being locked up is when you literally have the girl of your dreams willing to have the wildest sex imaginable at the drop of a hat. Though that doesn't mean she didn't put me in my place when I deserved it…
"Twenty-four points? I thought you said that just getting sticky fingers put you in debt!?"
"Do you know how people say you need to read something three times before it sticks? Apparently, my old self needed to read something half a dozen times. Just getting an elemental shroud covers two talents I bought so they were refunded."
"Fairy Feast and Sweet Home, now. Momma needs a new lab and I'm tired of the scavenger level cooking we're doing searching the ruins. Also, I'm not doing the dishes for the next month."
"Yes ma'am."
***
Or that she didn't screw up…
"Gina, why is there a hole in our bedroom wall that leads to the unending void?"
"Well, you remember when you thought that eezo may be magic because of how it creates the same biotic powers across species?"
"Yes, I remember you winning that argument by pointing out that biotics falls under psychic powers in the Catalogue so eezo was concentrated physic energy at best."
"Well, I may have put a teeny, tiny, miniscule acceleration spell on a bullet with a mass effect field. Apparently magic and physic powers play really, really well together and it punched a hole through several walls, a floor, and then reality itself."
I had my shroud form a paddle at hearing that. "Bad scientist, drop your pants and assume the position."
***
We even screwed up together. Let's just call it a bonding experience…
"Sweet baby Bajebus what the heck did you do!?"
"I followed the spell you wrote down and used those 5000 mana points to summon fire!" I said even as I continued to run.
"Five, you use five units of mana to start a bonfire, 5000 summons a fire elemental that's pissed off because it's so comparatively cold its danglies froze off! Those were hearts, not zeroes!"
"If we survive this you are taking art classes! Until then run faster!"
***
However, these amusing in retrospect moments were few and far between. For the most part Gina was in her lab either building a Pilon to help with our support system. With this we would actually be able to teleport stealth satellites into orbit so we would know what the turians were doing on the ground and in orbit. The only reason we didn't use this to help the marines is that Gina said it would take about a month to build even with the resources she had in her lab.
So it was that after three weeks after I dropped into the ruins of a city, we intercepted a transmission saying the marines were pulling out and Shanxi officially became the first human colony to be occupied by aliens. A month later said aliens would get their fringes kicked in and were kicked off.
"Ready for the first satellite launch?" Gina asked in excitement. "The eezo we found really helped me calibrate the gravitational matrix and I was able to get things done a lot quicker than I thought I was."
"Is it still a launch if we are just going to push it out a hole you made in space?"
"Eh, it's close enough," said Gina even as she used the Pilon to open a portal and tossed an object about the size of a Rubik's Cube into it. "Besides, I'm going nuts here. You said that there were a lot of archology involved in beating the baddies in this universe, and I'm itching to get on a good dig."
"As always, I bow to your superior knowledge and experience, as long as you wait for the invasion to finish before you go out. I'll even make sure to bring the bowing into the bedroom when you want to spice things up."
"Not until we finish making episode XXX of Sailor V and the tentacle monster, but thanks for the offer. Now shush while I look for potential dig sites."
I left and decided to go outside, and see if I could go hunting as we were running low on meat and vegies again. While I didn't have Wild Talent, Martial Talent helped me learn how to shoot a gun, and Gina was able to hack into the local system and find out what is or isn't good for human consumption on this world. We had been pulling out further and further into the wilderness so we could hunt easier and now we were in a mountain with a few caves.
I was hunting a buck that had made its way into my sights when I heard the rumble of an engine. I had been picking off small groups of turians while I hunted at times to increase my fighting capabilities, and at this time I could take down a group of five from an ambush. The group I saw standing in front of a cave was much larger, but seemed to be held at bay by a woman standing on top of a tank with a large gun.
I settled in and waited for something to go wrong. I figured that if everything went right then I probably would have recognized the situation from one of the Mass Effect games, even if it was an older crewmember talking about their past. My faith in literary causality paid off after only five minutes of waiting as it was about that time that a flash came from the cave, distracting the woman, and letting hell break lose.
In the blink of an eye one of the turians drew a holdout weapon and shot at the woman. She dodged but that was the cue for the others to swarm the tank, and for me to start shooting. I think whatever mental aspect that came with my upgrades overcompensated because I began to butcher an old song I heard as a kid.
"One little, two little, three dead turians, four little, five little six dead turians knocking at heaven's door," I muttered even as I only dropped two turians with ease and only wounded the third.
My little distraction gave the woman enough time to get into the tank, where she should have been to begin with, and begin her own massacre. First time I had actually seen someone back up and try again after they failed to hit another person with a moving vehicle, but it made for an amusing site and quickly cleared out the remaining aliens.
Once the last of the targets had been killed, I came out of my hiding place with the riffle Gina made me in easy view. Life had taught me that an angry woman is bad news, so I figured that I should make sure the angry woman driving the tank directed her bad news somewhere else. It seemed to work as her voice came out of hidden speakers and she said, "You another one of Williams specialists?"
"That depends on if being one will get me shot by the cannon," I replied in an even voice, making sure to project my words like I had learned to do in drama class a lifetime ago.
The hatch opened and she got out and looked around. "I figure saving my life gets you enough trust not to shoot you as long as you don't try to do the same with me. Now we need to move, I have teammates in that cave and I need to figure out what caused that flash."
Soon I was following her admittedly nice-looking ass into the cave. Seriously, first Gina and now this mystery woman, are all my adventures going to have kickass hot blond women? I mean that'd be nice and all, but I prefer redheads.
Soon we were in a small cavern with two humans on the ground and a bunch of dead hulked out turians, and a glowing alien monolith. "Please tell me you know what that thing is."
"No clue, but the skull heads wanted it so we were going to make sure they didn't get it one way or another, now help me check on my friends," she said as she went to the more injured of the two, leaving me with the man with long brown hair.
I quickly walked up to the man and saw his eyes flutter open as I checked for a pulse. Now normally I don't notice men's eyes, but when they literally glow with an inner light like two LEDs my mind can make connections. There was only one person with eyes like that in the game, the Illusive Man or as I liked to call him the KKK leader of Mass Effect. He would personally be half the reason humanity wouldn't play well with others over the next thirty years or so, and I held the bastards life in my hands.
In the end it was the baby Hitler choice. Do I kill a potential innocent for what he may/will do in the future or do I spend the time to uplift him and show him that humanity needed to unite with the other species against the Reaper threat?
Hey Blondie, did this guy have glowing cybernetic eyes before being around the creepy alien monolith?" I asked my companion.
"What?" asked Blondie as she was suddenly by my side and saw the LED glow of TIM's eyes. "Fuck Jack, what did you and Ben find here."
"I'm going with something bad," I said gesturing to the turian bodies. "Listen, I'll level with you. I'm not with Williams, but the people I work for have more intel than he does. We have evidence there is more out there than the aliens we've seen so far, and one of those races has the ability to create Husks. Cybernetic zombies are the best way to describe them, and the reason I haven't dragged you out for both of our safety is because Husks are usually more gaunt, not buffed out like the turians seem to be. Still if your friend didn't have eyes like this before we need to leave before whatever happens to him happens to us."
"We aren't leaving Jack to die."
"Not yet, I'm just saying we get out of the caves. If he lives, he gets medical attention. Right now you need to contact Williams and I need to contact my boss. First one who's team arrives gets the monolith."
"Yeah, okay, I can do that," she says even as she gets up and start heading for the cave. I may not be able to do cold blooded murder yet, but if I can find a good reason to kill him I will. The dead bodies looked like option three when choosing between mindless husk and the everyone is a cyborg ending in the third game and that meant that the thing in the cave is Reaper tech.
Actually, if the monolith actually was what let people get turned into cyborgs it would make sense. Put a few of these on every garden world and the Mass Relays, send out the signal and the magitech nanobots deploy. If the turians decided to try and forcefully activate it the nanobots were undirected and went into Hulk mode.
If this could connect directly to Harbinger then it would go a long way to making a path that would end the Reaper threat before it began. If I could get enough of Harbingers mind to inhabit the monolith, I may be able to capture it. If Harbinger could then analyze the Tech Shroud it would be able to use it to bring organics and synthetic beings together in a way it probably never dreamed of before.
Soon the two of us reached the outside of the cave and we both went to different sides to contact our people, close enough to see each other but not hear what the other was saying. I quickly sent the location for the alien artifact to Gina and opened up a line. "Hey Gina, I need you to pull a Scottie and teleport an object and a person for me. The object is an alien monolith that you get to play with, and the person is a possibly mind controlled man with minimal cybernetic alteration. Full safety measures for them both, we're talking Borg level of system corruption and assimilation being possible. We're going to try and save him, but that may not be possible."
"Aye Captain! I'll be makin' sure nothing goes wrong on my end. Anything else I can do for ya?" Gina responded in a truly horrible Scottish accent. Seriously, how can anyone not love a nerd of her level?
I was about to say no, when an idea struck me. "Blow up the cavern so it collapses in on itself. If we can make them think the artifact blew up and caused a cave in instead of disappeared that would probably work for the best."
"And it's just a normal cave?" asked Gina with some hesitance in her voice that it took me a moment to figure out through the shroud.
"Don't worry, there is no evidence of advanced civilizations beyond the monolith. If I had to guess I'd say it was dragged in and left there by the turians no more than a couple of months ago so it isn't an archeological dig site."
"Okay, then one cave shattering kaboom coming up. Thanks for the present."
"Anything for my geek girl," I respond even as it looks like Blondie is still on her call. She did look nice, and there was a voice in the back of my mind explaining how easy it would be to capture her. Gina wouldn't mind, Blondie wouldn't mind, and it would make dealing with Jack and the monolith a lot easier.
I shook my head firmly, that wasn't going to happen. I was only going to capture people who deserve it, or people who I really need. I am not going to collect every hot woman on the flimsiest pretense of making my life better. Yes, this was a huge temptation for me, but I was strong enough to overcome it wasn't I?
Blondie finished with her call soon after I decided not to capture her, walked over and said, "My team will be here with a full biological containment team in 10 minutes. How long until yours gets here?"
"30 minutes, looks like having regular backup can be helpful. Like I said, it's all yours, just don't expect me to hang around and answer questions once they get here. I'd ditch now but I don't want to leave you alone if more turians show up."
"I won't say no to another reliable gun. You know we never introduced ourselves, I'm specialist Coré. Well, I say specialist but me and my team are just people Williams trained in guerrilla warfare and listed as mercenaries in his payroll."
"Steven. I guess you could call me a mercenary too, but my boss is more concerned with artifacts and technology. She wants to find the next prothean artifact."
"Doesn't everyone?" asked Coré.
"Yeah, but she's on another level. Listening to her you'd think the future of the entire human race depends on finding the right artifact, and considering some of the things I've seen she may not be wrong."
Before Coré could respond there was an explosion and a thundering rumble from inside the cave, singling that Gina had finished her end.
"Jack!" shouted Coré as she ran to the pile of rocks blocking the cave entrance. "Steven, help me move this!"
I was about to do so when I heard the sound of an approaching aircraft, and considering that Coré said her backup was another five minutes away I tackled her instead and dragged her to the tree line even as she attempted to separate my head from my body for doing so.
A turian ship appeared and then soon left. I guess they were already sensing the Alliance ship coming and decided that rescuing dead bodies wouldn't be worth the rest of them dying.
Two minutes later an Alliance ship was in view and I let Coré go. The woman could hit hard and if I had Gamer powers, I'm sure my combat and durability would have gone up by at least one level holding her.
"Okay Gina, I need a portal back home," and as soon as I finished asking Gina delivered and a rip in space appeared.
I walked through and idly wondered what conversation the woodsman they would send to track me would have with General Williams before I was confronted by Gina wearing the angry face number six, indicating a high level of annoyance. Always best to tread carefully in these situations.
"Honey I'm home?" I stated/asked in my best Ricky Ricardo voice. It was super ineffective.
"Two, there were two zombie borgs. I can handle one borg, but two is too much without notice. You're just really lucky that the one you told me about is in a coma and didn't give me any trouble or I'd be haunting your ass."
I cringe, "Sorry, I only checked on the coma guy. The person I was with checked on the others and said they were dead. Should have remembered that dead is transient in this universe. I'm hoping that we can cure the coma guy of indoctrination, but I guess it would be better to practice on the guy that has already died once."
"Do we have to?" asked Gina and I could feel her discomfort from the shroud. "I never really went into biology because experimenting on living creatures seemed wrong, and those were rats."
"Yeah, I agree that this scores big on the shady meter, but this is one of the necessary evils. Indoctrination plays a big part in the Reaper plans, and it's the specific reason I picked Mind Defense. So, while we're immune no one else is. We can just capture someone and they'd be cured, but they would be trading one form of mind control for another, so no doing that without their permission. I'm going to try to use magic psychic along with the shroud to try and break the connection. Where did you put them?"
"Over here," said Gina gesturing to a corner of the lab. It looked like she took the beds from a couple of the spare bedrooms as she didn't have any medical beds or tables. Maybe I should consider getting a medical doctor next, every adventuring team needs a healer.
It was easy to see why Blondie thought her other companion was dead. Chalk white skin, fresh burns, sunken glowing eyes, he looked more like a corpse than anything else, however he was still moving. Really, he was thrashing hard against the forcefield bonds that the Pilon was generating and a part of me was surprised the bed was holding out until I remembered that they were probably ratted to survive Kryptonion level snu-snu and be in perfect condition the next day.
I approached the deadman's bed first, and tried the most basic of psychic tricks, to see his mind without being in it. At first it was confusing, like watching a kaleidoscope while on acid, vague and ever-changing shapes and colors at the end of a tube.
Now according to Gina, her father taught her that magic was an artform. Just like the blending of three primary colors produced every painting or picture in history magic was always going to be unique to the caster as a painting would be unique to an artist. In this I was currently finger painting stick figures like a child in daycare. Still, forming a focus spell around my right hand I could twist one way or another like manually tuning a car radio, and it seemed to work. I could see the main thought, what he was consciously thinking and shadows in the background, what he was subconsciously thinking.
His conscious thoughts were completely dominated by the monolith, staying close to it, protecting it, giving it other people to convert as he had been. Being restrained and unable to fulfill his duties to protect it was causing him physical pain. In his subconscious his humanity struggled to hold onto his identity, to remember his favorite food, his brother that he lost in the invasion, anything about his life beyond the monolith, but it was slowly fading into nothing.
I played with the dial again, this time trying to see a representation of the monolith's connection. Was it a continuous connection like a cable, sending and receiving information, or was it like a virus left on its own until the host was completely consumed?
The answer was as horrifying as it was practical, the Reapers used both for indoctrination. I could see completely new programs being downloaded, looking like 8-bit bugs from an old videogame to let me know that they would stick around even if the cable was severed. The strange thing is that they were becoming more and more aggressive and dangerous looking but weren't attacking the man's mind. Each one was going nuts, like they were trying to find something but were unable to do so, or they were unable to do anything to it.
Shit, they were trying to get to me and it was probably Mind Defense that was saving me. I immediately put development of a spell that could detect indoctrination at the top of my research list with Gina. Reaper mind control was freaking scary.
Dropping the dial part of the focus spell I created a knife that was supposed to sever non physical bonds. However, I could tell that the tool was inferior. The mix of cosmic powers was off when I created it. Oh, it was still a knife, but instead of being a stainless-steel butcher knife that could slice and dice a tailpipe it was a knife from the stone age, one I knew would take time to cut through the cable if it didn't shatter in my metaphysical hand.
Still, a knife, no matter the quality is what I had so it's what I'd use. Moving my hand in a chopping motion I only succeeded in cutting half the cable, and I could feel the cutting power of my knife go down as the spell began to destabilize.
I could easily hear the host of the indoctrination program scream out obscenities at me, begging me and Gina to stop, but I didn't. Again and again, I brought my arm down, the symbolic motion allowing me to strike again and again at the intangible bond between the man and the monolith.
I felt the knife shatter and the feedback made my hand go numb. Still, I was able to create another knife in my left hand and was about to bring it down when a surge of power came down from the monolith. I felt Gina tackling me to the floor, breaking my concentration and bringing me back into the real world. I saw both men we had been trying to save die as white fire engulfed them both, quickly turning them to ash.
Gina told me later it was probably a failsafe, a way to make sure that any attempt that may actually succeed in truly break indoctrination is stopped in such a way that as little as possible could be learned about the attempt. We still threw the remains into the local sun, better safe than sorry.
AN: Thank you for everyone that voted in the pole and left comments. The fact that TIM would die became obvious early on, but some comments made me realize that going full renegade and crushing his throat right off the bat wasn't the way to go. Also as many guessed this was very much a paragon/renegade choice like you may find in the game. The next poll I do will have a neutral option as well if we're still in Mass Effect. So I have a plan for the Reaper artifact, and while it is plot relevant I live to hear the ideas of those reading this. If you come up with a better one or if I really like it I will try and put a scene you want to see into the story. Quality not guaranteed, this is to see if I can actually bring the ideas of others to life like a professional writer as much as it's a bribe reward for inflating my ego by actually writing a response to my story.
Our next step was figuring out what to do with the monolith. Gina wanted to disassemble it on an atomic level until she found out every secret. I got the feeling that the failsafe that killed our two guests offended her on a personal level, and she was taking their deaths just as personally. I did my best to comfort her, but the bad thing about having a waifu with a good heart is that they often get stuck on a guilt trip.
I on the other hand had a theory. I scanned it into the same area of my shroud that held the Catalogue, and sure enough I got a response.
"Well, I admit I'm impressed," said the dragon as a part of my shroud turned into a communicator. "You are the first agent in the last century to realize we'd collect technology and other resources along with mates without being told. After all, it is the mandate of every company to get more. Just because we have a hundred million Central Power Batteries of every color doesn't mean we don't want a hundred million more. Reaper technology is more limited in use, but it's made up in its rarity. Upper management is convinced that we will run into a universe where Harbinger enslaved and turned every sentient into a cybernetic being within the next two thousand years, so we are likely to give you a good price in points if you wish to sell."
"What condition does it need to be in?" I ask with a nod to Gina. "In fact, what would the Company give us if we gave them a full report of how this worked and some defenses against it?"
"If your report finds something our own team has missed in the past quite a lot. Usually, I'd say it would be next to impossible, but Ms. Diggers here has a tendency to make fools of those who use the work impossible in relation to anything she is working on. Contact us when you are ready to sell and I'll have and adjustor sent out as your recruitment didn't include technology appraisal."
"Will do," I say before turning to my blond girlfriend. "Did you hear that, Gina? You get to go full on mad scientist on this to tease out every secret. They've probably had one Gina Diggers go over one of these already, but I think you can find something your alternat missed."
Thanks to the freaky anime physics Fred Perry likes to use I can literally see the sparkles in her eyes as she gives a squee of delight. People tend to, rightfully, get her to reign in her mad scientist instincts. I had no doubt I'd spend time strapped to a machine so she could register exactly how the artifact attempts to convert me while she also records how Mind Defense stops it.
"Oh, and Steven, congratulations on the premotion," says the dragon with a tooth filled grin. "Because you identified some of our less obvious problems you are now a special agent in the corporate wars. At our whim you will be chosen to obtain information from, or even sabotage agents from rival Companies. Don't worry, we will provide you with what we feel to be an appropriate number of credits going in, and if you succeed you may even get bonuses."
"You just made my life more difficult for the drama, didn't you?" I ask in a deadpan voice.
"Yes, the audience loves to see our characters suffer, so we hope this will boost your ratings."
I groan as the call disconnected and Gina went to begin her experiments. I spent my days trying to use the shroud to build as solid of a background for Gina and myself as I could. Education was the tricky one. If she was too obviously gifted then people would wonder what she was doing out here instead of with the Alliance, and not gifted enough meant that no company would buy her designs so we wouldn't have any money for her to hunt down Reaper technology. Still, at the end I was able to create what I felt was a good balance, a girl who showed intelligence before but who's brilliance didn't begin to truly shine until after her family moved.
The days spent inside turned into weeks and then a month. I polished my project to as close as perfection as I could, and so did Gina. When she was recording us using the artifact as a prop during a tantric ritual, she made a breakthrough, it reacted to the raw creation power we released, sucking it up like a sponge. We then tried other forms of magic, and it reacted in a similar manner. It probably didn't apply to all Reaper technology but this device at least ate magic. Once she discovered this piece of information my interaction with Gina was limited to reminding her to eat, bathe, and sleep until the lockdown ended.
Once the turians were kicked off the planet and the asari came down to help humanity I started to try and track down Blondie so she could give me a meeting with General Williams, well probably ex-General by now. Still disgraced or not, the old man probably still had some people who would take his call and not hang up when he mentioned death rays. That's right, with all the technology available to me through Gina's adventures I'm picking the deadly ones and selling it to the military for what should be loads of money with even more money coming down the line if they agree I can sell the power generator designs to the civilian market in five years. More than enough money to fund some digs for Gina but first I had to sell them.
"Didn't think I'd ever see this place again," said General Williams as he looked at the clearing I had set up before nodding to a fit black man to his side. "This is David Anderson, a recent N7 graduate that distinguished himself during the war, and he's going to be the one evaluating these weapons of yours. This entire deal depends on you impressing the best of the best so I hope you brought something really special."
I hadn't. That isn't to say that they wouldn't think it's special, but these are the lower grade lasers compared to what Gina has in storage. Still the Amaran dual photon re-accelerator cannons with a modified energy source should be enough. I only brought a prototype as we didn't have the personnel or facilities to mass produce these.
"The problem gentleman is that as far as humans have come weaponizing mass effect technology the rest of the galaxy has been doing it longer and better. This is where the Brianna Mark-1 comes into play. They can be attached by hardpoint to an advanced power suit, and are capable of punching through twenty inches of steel armor. A must have when you are trying to punch through an alien energy field."
"How many shots?" asked Anderson as he looked over the rig I had attached to a humanoid hurtbot.
"Depends on how much pressure you put on the generators. Close to a million if you don't do a spray and pray technique, only a few thousand if you do."
"Let's start with a barrage of about twenty shots at the midrange target," said Anderson and I nodded, the hurtbot and rig getting into position as the VI in the robot allowed it to understand and follow simple verbal commands. In 45 seconds, the target was nothing but melting slag and I could tell that I had sold the design for a price of five million credits and they found it cheap. A part of me felt bad that they probably wouldn't even see the fully functioning lightsabers in action, but the rest of me felt comfort that we were keeping that for ourselves. Maybe next time we could market an upgrade of the gun from Fifth Element.
"If we had these during the war we never would have been kicked off," muttered Williams.
"Maybe, but the biggest hurdle was in space and there typical mass drive weapons are still better," I admit even as I wonder if Gina could make some of the teleporting missiles from Shlock Mercenary. The distance involved in a space battle was just so intense that most weapons don't work unless that could travel at or close to light speeds over incredible distances.
Both Anderson and Williams nod as if they were giving me points for admitting that before Williams started to speak. "Still would have been one hell of a game changer. With something like this we could have basterdized into tunneling equipment, get to the cities from underneath where they couldn't see us. Still, no use reimaging a lost battle, and I will make sure this gets my recommendation for however much it's still worth."
"It's more than I had before," I say with a shrug as if my future plans didn't rely on this. Still a one-way ticket to Omega for a recruitment drive would still be in budget. I wouldn't enjoy it, but better to enslave a blackened soul like Aria than to kill an innocent person like I'd be forced to do as a mercenary.
"Don't worry, between his vote and mine I think we can get sell the rest of the Alliance brass on this," said Anderson with a firm nod. "Humanity needs every leg up we can get and an entire technological base that the aliens don't have is exactly what will give it to us."
We make small talk for a while after that before they got into their vehicle and left. I simply walked over to a hidden target and used the flat surface to open a portal home.
I was actually feeling good at the time, so I should have known the universe was going to kick me in the nuts. My first indication of this happening was a nervous Gina. While not a paragon of calm Gina has memories of seeing enough that she can usually remain calm if she isn't geeking out or getting too horney to concentrate.
"Hi Steven. Do you remember how I was trying to see if I could use the Reaper artifact to tune into their thoughts so we'd be one step ahead? Well, it worked, but instead of low activity that would indicate a hibernation mode I'm getting a lot of chatter. I think that when we tried to save those guys from becoming brainwashed techno zombies, we did something interesting enough that they see us as a threat. So, yea we can hurt them, but the bad news is that I think they are waking up and getting ready to invade thirty years early."
After spending five minutes creating new swear words, Gina explained that she wasn't sure it was all the Reapers just one or two active ones. So, while we may not be completely fucked if it was just Sovereign, we were still fucked on some level. I wracked my brain to figure out what change it was that caused this and could only come up with one answer, magic.
I have often heard in writing circles that there are few things as dangerous as a magic user that has had time to prepare in their place of power. Magic is one of the greatest equalizers in any universe, it didn't matter if you were an ant, if you were an ant that could make the sun wink out of existence then you can make the large humans bow down and worship you. If Harbinger had been doing this for over a billion years and magic existed, then he had probably run into the issue of beings being able to effectively fight back. Artifacts like the one we found ate free floating magic, so over thousands of years it would be harder and harder for the average person to do magic, forcing them to follow the typical technological developments. A new species that still used refined magic was probably a nightmare for the Reapers.
Still, knowing the reason why didn't change the fact that my original plans were dead and it was time to enact plan Omega, aka humanity gets the shaft and the Asari save the galaxy. If I could get to Tevos she would have the political power to order her pet Spector who's name I can't remember to meet with me and then we could hopefully get someone to rally behind. The problem is getting a face to face with Tevos.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. The old saying that every problem looked like a nail when all you had was a hammer came to mind. My main tool was products given by the Company, and they all revolved around collecting women in one way or another. If all the Reapers were awake then Sovereign was going to go to the Citadel and open the path to dark space, and if it's just Sovereign freaking out he's going to go to the Citadel to open the path to dark space. That meant that right now it was a race to see who got there first because if I did, I could capture Sovereign. Yes, it would completely destroy any ability to stay hidden in the shadows to collect women in this universe, but there are other universes.
Luckily for me the teleporting technology wasn't all Gina worked on during the time we were stuck in the house. One thing you can say about comic book characters is that they have excellent time management to pack all of their inventing and adventures into such a short span of their lives. Gina perfectly expressed that by recreating the Millennium Falcon, with a few minor tweaks here and there, for when we finally entered the Star Wars universe. The homemade FTL drive Gina cribbed from space fairing races in her own universe wasn't as good as a hyperdrive, but it was still better than the locals used.
"So, we're really doing this, we're really off to save the galaxy from evil robots?" asked Gina in an excited voice.
"Yeah, we are," I responded having an idea about what was coming next but wanting her to have this moment.
"In that case we need some theme music," Gina said as she used her own tech shroud to make a speaker that was soon belting out a familiar tune. I could feel the rumble of the engines as they started up, and even though Gina installed inertia dampeners I swear I felt the thrust as we moved in the atmosphere. As we left atmosphere and made our way to the Shanxi-Theta Relay I would swear to my dying day that it was as if the sky simply parted for us, revealing the wonder beyond.
This was the first time I had been in space, free of a planets gravity well and it was everything every astronaut said it was. The number of stars is unbelievable in their breadth and beauty. If I ever go back home, I'm bringing technology with me to uplift my own world. Sure, the Company may grumble about having to extend their porn field, but it would be worth it to share this view with everyone else.
"I never get tired of seeing this," said Gina as she felt my awe through our link. "You'd think it would become an every day sight but even after finding the tombs of gods there is still something really exciting about space. It really is the final frontier."
"Heh, the voyages of the Millennium Cheetah, with the continuing mission to seek out fictional realities and search for treasure," I continued as I gave our ship an impromptu name.
"To boldly go where we have only dreamed of before," finished Gina as she used the computer to do a quick calculation to make sure we entered the giant rail gun the right way. We were shot across the galaxy in an instant to be caught by another. "It's going to take us three jumps and twelve hours of flying to get to the Citadel."
"Will the autopilot be able to handle it?" I asked with a bit of worry.
"With how much I added to it using the shroud it should. Seriously this lets me program basic VI's in hours, and I could probably crank out a fully functional AI every couple of days with this thing, talk about over powered."
"You're the one who's over powered Gina, most people wouldn't know how to design an AI so they wouldn't know how to make the shroud help them in doing so. I could probably scan an existing AI and then download them into a body, but building them from scratch is a bit much for me. Though if the AI is good enough, we can properly break in the ship," I said right before I began to nibble the sensitive spot at the name of her neck.
The next three hours were spent enjoying the ship and roleplaying as Han and Leia, then it was a few hours of sleep and finally a few more that we used to prepare the best we could. When we arrived, it was chaos as Sovereign and the Geth were already attacking the Citadel, but it wasn't as bad as it could be. Having just come back from the brink of war the turians were out in force slowing Sovereign down. The down side to that equation is that there was so much debris that the VI couldn't find a way through to Sovereign and the Citadel Tower without a thousand warning about probable death and dismemberment.
"I wish Ace was here," wined Gina as she turned off the warnings. Honestly, I didn't blame her. If the king of all things that fly was here, I'd feel better too. As it stood, we only had a rudimentary plan. Gina was on pilot duty as she literally knew every nut and bolt of the ship and had the best chance of bringing out enough of its flying potential so we didn't die in a ball of fire. I was on guns, so I had the easier job of shooting every Geth ship that looked at us funny as well as the larger debris.
I was never more grateful for taking a combat perk than in those moments. Every shot I took, be it at a Geth ship shooting at us or at debris, was better than the last, and considering how many shots I was taking my experience bar was filling up fast.
"Please tell me you have a plan to deal with that," said Gina as she saw Sovereign extending tentacles to the tower.
"Jump out, cover Sovereign with the shroud, and sell immediately after capture," I said even as I had the shroud form a jet pack.
"Please tell me you have a better plan," grumbled Gina.
I didn't answer and just used the Pilon to teleport me outside, something that almost cost me an arm because apparently opening a teleportal while moving is not a smart thing to do. Still, I was out and making my way towards Sovereign, pushing more and more of my shroud out of my body while trying to stay on course. The plan was to immediately envelop Sovereign so I could convert and sell him. Though on retrospect giving him the target he was most afraid of was probably a bad idea, something I just thought of as the glowing red eye that show lasers began to turn towards me.
The jet pack responded to my panicked thoughts and I was able to evade the first and second round of lasers right before I landed just off of the red eye. After that the shroud I'd been pulling out slammed into Sovereign quickly covering it.
At this point in time Sovereign didn't have any pawn aside from the Geth, and I didn't feel any of them inside the being. However, what I did feel was over a million AI's acting under the umbrella of Nazara.
I completely covered myself in heavy armor from the shroud and hunkered down. I could feel that my shroud was being fired on, but I allowed it to become background noise like raindrops hitting a tin roof. My main focus was the AI's and holding Sovereign in place as I had to subdue the AI's one by one as it turned out the shroud wasn't made to do multiple captures. I was lucky that each AI took less than a minute at the start, and each one fell faster and faster as the nature of the shroud adapted to make things easier.
I was grateful for that feature as at one point someone got the bright idea to bombard my shroud with EMP pulses, causing actual damage. It stopped when Sovereign almost escaped, but that still set me back so it took me an hour and a half before I was able to capture and sell Sovereign.
I sagged in relief as I feel the void where the killer ship had once been. I was able to give the galaxy time, but not much else. It can't come to a fight like the games, so I needed to find the plans to the Crucible, meet the Catalyst, and maybe capture and sell Harbinger if I want to go with the big three route. However, an idea was beginning to form in the back of my mind. Like many I was disappointed with the ending provided in Mass Effect 3, though given the options I often took the cybernetic one. Now however I may be able to provide a third option and see if it's possible to give organics a cybernetic soul like I had. Magic, true magic, existed. If I could convince the Catalyst that technomancy was a thing that could bridge the gap between organic and synthetic then I could end the war before it really begins. We would probably still need the Crucible built, but it didn't need to be completely built in this universe.
I pull the shroud back in as quickly as I could, except the ones attached to the Citadel, those I turned into anchor points and had it pull me in. I had some business to take care of in the tower but first I attempted to contact Gina telepathically for the first time. "Sovereign is captured and sold. Are you doing okay?"
"Not really. The Millennium Cheetah crashed after a Geth ship got a lucky shot. The shroud protected me, but I'm kind of on the run from the natives that probably want to do some extreme questioning."
"I just purchased All Roads Lead to Home for you. Find a flat surface and then go back home, I'll meet you there."
I quickly make a few other purchases, Exit Stage Left, Rainbow Bridge, and We Will Meet again, dropping my balance to 24 points when I thought it would be 104. After a quick inquiry apparently the AI that rang me up had a malfunction and didn't charge me 80 points for the basic shroud so they simply corrected it by putting me in debt.
I knew better than to argue with a regular faceless organization, so trying to get those 80 points back from an actual Evil Company was a complete nonstarter. Instead, I simply used the shroud to guide me to the tower so I can place a personal invitation to meet with Tevos. After all, just because I had a few more options doesn't mean I shouldn't set myself up to succeed if I needed to capture her in the future. Then I set the information about the Reapers leak from Sparatus' personal computer area because screw him.
Finally, I show myself changing into the light armor that makes me look like a synthetic being, wave to the camera and then create a portal to home in plain view. If I couldn't be hidden in the shadows I was going to give my audience a good show while I'm in the limelight.
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Last edited: May 13, 2021
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