Nexus Effect

Ch.62

“No~!” Chrysanthemum wailed in despair and she ran towards the shuttle to clutch helplessly at the cockpit. “Uncle Krarek~!”

Marauder approached from the direction that Garble had been violently thrust onto the scene before he turned his gaze upward. “Well now, I believe that’s enough to get started. The man running Cerberus has called for an immediate withdrawal from the planet. Unfortunately, he forgets who he serves.” Marauder huffed and cracked his neck despite the armor.

The monster was about to continue to approach when the White-Out viciously fell from the sky like the wrath of a deity with it’s ramming barrier flaring hotly. She basically rammed through a squad of enemy gunships, several dozen droids and cyberdemons all in one go.

“Get in.” Paretia demanded coldly as the ramp deployed and the ship’s automated turrets harried the gunships while the pursuing Vulture droids that she’d been occupied with peppered the hull before they were dealt with. Not waiting to be told off again, everyone ran up the ramp.

“Chrys, c’mon! We have to go now!” EDI dragged Chrysanthemum away as she wailed and tried to stay with the shuttle.

“No! I need his head! His brain might still have enough oxygen to-!” She stopped when EDI slapped her across the cheek and then tossed her over her shoulders.

“There’s no time!” EDI carried her to the ship and Saren was the last aboard. He looked over at the shuttle where a surprisingly worthy man had just died. To think, even pirates can die in the act of being a true soldier. “Do you think he’d want you to stay and join him?!” Chrysanthemum devolved into sobs as the ramp raised and the White-Out took off while Javik ran towards the Drive Core.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“Wow! Holy shit!” Marauder gasped after he woke up from a stone slab on Cerberus’s most secret station in the galaxy. “That bitch just crashed a ship on me! Fucking badass!”

“Had fun dying bro?” Bandit giggled as she approached him and helped him up.

“Fuck no, but the way I died was kick-ass!” Marauder chuckled as he rolled his shoulders.

“C’mon, Satan and the Illusive Man are having a spat.” Bandit told him as the two made their way up to the Office, where the others were waiting and listening.

“I warned you what would happen should you fail me and I don’t make promises lightly.” A dark and smooth voice said as the Illusive Man sat calmly in his chair, the Chosen Acolytes glaring down at the mortal man in disdain. “Now, tell me again why you tried to call all of our forces back?”

“The mission was a failure. The Reapers have what they came for. I wanted to call back all assets to-.”

“Are you saying you are unsatisfied with how the Cyberdemons performed? Because I beg to differ.” The Dark Lord cut off the Illusive Man from saying more. “I gave you the means to harness the power of Argent, you’ve created such wondrous demons by infusing Mass Effect technology and Argent energy together. Now you’re saying it's not enough?”

“No!” The Illusive Man shouted before calming himself down. “No, they are everything I have expected. But it’s just that they were...”

“Not human enough for your liking? Typical.”

“But you haven’t told me your motivation. What is it you want out of this? You haven’t exactly shown this much interest in a long time.” The Illusive Man accused which didn’t sit well with some of the others, but they withheld their voices. Satan Asmodeus did not suffer interruptions.

“The Reapers pose a serious problem to all of us, my plans especially. We cannot openly engage them and they’ll continue to be an annoyance unless they’re put down for good. As for what my intentions are, well, open up your computer. I sense their arrival in the Milky Way.” This confused the mortal man, but he did and found not only was this being broadcasted across the galaxy, he also saw their enemy battling ferociously in Andromeda.

“...I see. Perhaps, if you leave enough for Humanity, I will continue to aid you.” The mortal calmly replied and the Chosen all glared, but Satan chuckled in amusement at the human’s audacity.

“That is all we agreed upon. Don’t forget, we do not answer to you. It is you, who answers to us.” With that they left the Illusive Man to his thoughts, as he continued to watch the onslaught. However, his attention was on the fact that there were humans, or something that could be considered human, having power to rip and tear the demons apart.

“Hm, maybe the super-soldier project is needed after all, since Miranda is already at the peak of our race yet still pales in comparison…”

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“Babe.” I was brought out of my hundred-yard stare by Marrow petting my scalp. “Who?”

“I...I don’t know…” I feel like my heart just got crushed inside my chest. I haven’t felt like this since my dad died. Someone I know just died. I know it. “P-Penny. You need to go. Now.”

“Huh? But I’m on mandatory leave and I’m pregnant for a couple more weeks with over 100 of your’s, Yola’s and Marrow’s babies.” Penny still shrunk her womb down to nonexistence and was her usual fit self before chugging a metal flask of hyper-compressed nutrient slurry.

“That just means, thanks to the Navel Pearl, that you’re supernaturally strong and durable. I will send a message ahead that I’m having you sent to the Citadel on an Imperial emergency that you’ve volunteered to help with. Considering this likely involves the Reapers, then with the treaties we’ve signed you can essentially be considered a temporary on-loan ONI agent.” Marrow replied and huffed as she too used her Pearl to flatten her womb. “C’mon, let’s get you kitted up in the suit we’ve already made based off of the gear that came with the mansion.”

“Huh?!” Penny and Marrow vanished in a flash of green light and I sniffled as I tried not to think of who, or how many of my beloved friends or family have just died. My children are going to be soldiers. I’m going to die of a broken heart…

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“What is happening?!” Laiel demanded of the C-Sec officer who had barged into his private suite’s bedroom, Messana and Medulla thankfully had the reaction of rolling off the side of the bed not facing the door when they heard the boots pounding down the hall.

“Avitus Rix has seized control of the Presidium Council Chamber!” The turian security officer reported frantically and Laiel felt his heart skip in horror. The Council Chamber wasn’t just where they held meetings, hearings and whatnot. It also had control of a staggering amount of the Citadel’s systems! If he’s seized it, the entire station was at risk!

“Then what are you doing?! We don’t matter if the Citadel is lost! Storm the chamber! Stop him!” Laiel ordered as he stood up, his nudity unimportant in the face of potential doom. “Fire at the Presidium Relay! Don’t let him activate it!”

“Yessir!” The turian officer replied as he hurried out, his omni already lit up.

“So it’s finally come to pass. We might die now…” Messana quietly said as she rose from the floor and Medulla helped her up before using her own omni.

“Um, this may be a bit awkward, but my sister just-.” A heavily armored woman, clearly female due to the shape of the armor taking into account her womanly hips and rear, appeared in a flash of turquoise light in the middle of the room. The armor looked heavier than even the sturdiest kits provided and was colored silver and blue. “-Teleported Spectre Shepard to me in the capacity of being a temporary ONI agent.”

“Councilor’s Sparatus, Tevos. Should’ve known you two knocked boots, but that doesn’t matter! What’s happening? Nora sensed something awful just occurred.” The mechanically distorted voice of Spectre Shepard replied, helping confirm the robotic-looking woman was in fact their latest Spectre.

“Avitus has seized control of the council chamber! He can control nearly all systems of the Citadel from there. Go, if you can’t incapacitate him, kill him.” Laiel ordered their special agent, who he was going to force to take four months of leave after this. The woman has no concept of down-time it seems.

“Yes sir! By the way, nice definition there.” Shepard salaciously commented and gave him an obvious up-down scan before she ran off.

“You Imperials are corrupting our people.” Laiel chuckled, already knowing he was too far gone to say such without being a hypocrite.

“Hey! We resemble that remark!” Medulla huffed and crossed her arms under her massive bust.

“Isn’t it resent?” Messana asked and Medula smirked.

“I know what I said and said what I meant!”

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“C’mon, c’mon you hunk of scrap!” Javik snarled at the FTL unit of the rust-bucket ship he’d rushed onto. The module that had been attached, while utterly brilliant and impressive, was in the way, so he had to quickly uninstall it to replace it with the Conduit. This final version was meant for ship-board use, unlike the civilian vehicle-sized previous iteration which was meant to be placed in new systems to improve colonization and travel speeds. Their own Mass Relays.

Whoever made this hybrid drive that used a volatile and risky method of travel was a brilliant and much easier way to go for ship-board units, but for raw speed, they need the Conduit now. “How is it going in there?” Sniffled the woman who had awoken him and lost her uncle. He could sympathize. He lost everything, so he could understand her despair at losing family.

“This Hyper-Mass-Effect Drive is incredible, but it’s in the way for now, please handle it with care. We don’t want to be erased from the Third Dimension.” Javik said to her as he gently handed the drink-cooler sized black box through the maintenance panel to her.

“*sniff* Mom invented it. She calls it the M.E.H Drive.” The alien woman who he couldn’t believe could truly be a Reaper took the box and Javik rolled his four eyes.

“Humorous, to call something so astounding by a term that literally is the utterance of indifference.” Javik shook his head while he installed the Conduit and checked the connectors.

“Mom is silly like that. Then again so are all of us kids of her’s. I know Uncle Krarek is in a good place, but it still hurts.” She replied as he climbed back out of the wall and looked at the buxom chitinous woman as she rubbed her eyes. He wasn’t quite sure what to do. Do the societies of this Cycle consider physical contact comforting like his did?

He warily opened his arms and approached her, then wrapped them around her when she practically gravitated to him and put her face to his chest to cry. “Um...there, there?”

“Thanks. I know you’re going through a lot too, but losing Uncle Krarek is my first big loss.” The woman hiccuped and nuzzled his armored chest as he patted her back.

“I don’t know about your kind, but mine, we compartmentalize. Other species who were part of our empire generally described us as cold and calculating, when really we put our emotions aside most of the time. I’m just channeling my grief and wrath towards those who destroyed my people and risked the same for yours.” Javik assured her and she cried harder for some reason.

“I’m an Empath. I can taste your pain you idiot, don’t lie to me…” Her words stunned him. A species so biotically attuned they can sense the emotions of other creatures perfectly rather than through observation? Wait, she’s supposedly synthetic, how can machines perceive emotion? How is she suffering if she’s a Reaper? AI shouldn’t-right. She isn’t an AI.

“I am not lying. While I feel my pain, I do not let it adversely affect me when it is counterproductive.” He gently pushed the young woman away and looked into her opaque green eyes that were oddly expressive. “Just what are you? We never encountered anything like what you’re modeled after.”

“You two can make googly eyes later, is the Conduit ready?” The krogan named Wrex demanded roughly and Javik leered at the beast, whose species clearly wasn’t ready to be uplifted even now. So insensitive.

“Yes, it should be charged...right about now actually.” Javik replied after a peek through the access panel.

“Great, we’ll be heading straight for the Citadel then.” Wrex stormed back out of the Engineering bay and the Prothean sighed with a shake of his head.

“Don’t be so condescending. The krogan are people like any other, just much more controlled by their emotions. In fact, if we survive this, I’d like to introduce you to the Empire. Since you’re the last of your species thus far, you fall under our aegis.” The woman, ah yes, her name is Chrysanthemum, Chrys for short, said-wait.

“What?” Was he hearing her right?

“Oh, right. We have gene-neutral breeding programs to revitalize endangered and near-extinct species. The only reason we haven’t done this for the krogan is because the Council doesn’t want us and our breed-happy breeders overpopulating them again.” Chrys replied cheerfully.

“What?” Is she saying what he thinks she’s saying?!

“Uh, yeah. I’m technically one of them too, although they’d be biomechanical.” Chrys added on.

“What?!” Machines that breed?! Just how advanced is this Empire?!

“Uh...standing offer?” Chrys smiled with a green blush to her light lavender cheeks.

“...Maybe.” She was a bit young for his tastes, but she seemed nice.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“You’re too late, Shepard! Sovereign is on his way! I’ve awoken the Relay to Dark Space and once it finishes powering on, the Cycle will come full circle!” Avitus roared as he launched biotic projectiles at the Commander, who used her own biotics to intercept or dodge as she fired at the augmented turian. Avitus wasn’t a biotic before, just what has Sovereign done to the man?

“That’s what you think!” Shepard snarled as she batted a blast away with the back of her left fist, the impact barely registering. Hot damn was she strong right now! Does the Empire send hyper-pregnant women out as heavy troops? She hoped not, she felt dread that she was putting her babies at risk right now, but needs must and Avitus needed to be stopped!

Thankfully, or not from her perspective at near-ground-zero, a world-shaking impact smashed through the Presidium tower, tossing both Avitus and Shepard before the tower groaned and began to topple over. “No! You risked blowing us all up by shooting the Presidium point-blank with a railgun?!” Avitus roared as he retrieved his dual pistols that were not of any design on the market. “I’ve failed, but I’ll take you with me!”

“As if! I’ve got too much at stake to lose!” Shepard snarled in return and used the thrusters in the armor that allowed her to fly to tackle the floating former Spectre out of the air, through the window and out into the hot air of the Presidium that had just experienced a point-blank railgun blast smashing through the tower. This in turn saved them both and she turned around to take the brunt of the skidding landing further away from the ruined tower. The impact left them both winded and panting as Shepard held Avitus in a full nelson on the ground. “Ugh...ready to give up?”

“I’d say no, but I don’t think I’ll get anywhere by this point.” Avitus growled as he struggled momentarily and went limp in her robotically enhanced super-powered grip.

“The Reaper is tearing the Citadel Defense Fleet apart!” Shepard heard through the open channels and huffed in exasperation along with regret that she wasn’t able to prevent such heavy losses.

“Well? Aren’t you going to do something about that?” Avitus snarked, only to gasp when Shepard quickly squeezed on pressure points in the back of his neck until he passed out. Shepard knew reading about turian physiology would help someday.

She rolled the ex-Spectre off of her and used her omni-tool to create cuffs from Omni-gel that she slapped on his wrists three times over the usual and did the same for his ankles. “This is Commander Shepard, Spectre. I’m going to board the Reaper, Sovereign.”

“Affirmative Spectre, but how are you going to get to that thing? The range on it is obscene and I don’t think any of my fastest remaining ships could possibly get you close.” Replied the Citadel Fleetmaster Admiral, who she never personally met to her shame.

“I don’t need a ship. If you see a person-sized high-speed object, please don’t shoot at it, that’s me.” Commander Shepard readied her suit’s thrusters-.

“Reaper is breaking off, I repeat it's retreating.” Someone reported over the comms.

“No! We can’t let it escape! It will just return with more of its kind!” Shepard desperately called out as she took off-. “Ow!” Shepard yelped when she slammed into something solid and found herself clinging to an icy blue-white ship that wasn’t there moments ago. “Huh?”

“Hold fire you C-Sec idiots! The cavalry's here!” Called out the brazen voice of Paretia Dustrumus, which Shepard only recognized from the brief encounter with her a few weeks ago.

“Where the hell did you come from?! I don’t know who you think you are, but if our ships couldn’t close distance with that thing, there’s no chance you-.”

“Prepare to eat your heart out.” Paretia snarled as the White-Out, a common frigate of the former Batarian Hegemony, modified to the nines by an overzealous and capable pilot, gunned out of the airspace of the Citadel so fast that Shepard’s magnetic adhesion threatened to fail and peel her off of the bottom of the hull, but she managed to hook on a suspiciously hand-sized pit in the hull. “The White-Out has done the Omega Run in under Twelve minutes!”

“Hey! Spectre Shepard here! I’m kinda stuck to your hull! So when I join the boarding party don’t be surprised!” Shepard called out in the hope that her suit’s comms would be able to function being jostled so heavily. Fuck, she was just impressed her EVA-rated power armor was holding together at such a velocity. This is still only the first functioning prototype too!

“That monster is made from my people! You can tell by the shape of its ‘eyes’ and ‘face’!” Snarled a voice that Shepard didn’t recognize.

“Roger that Javik, Commander. I’d invite you aboard, but this bastard is not getting away!” Paretia roared as she dodged an incoming laser blast, the beam sweeping around to try and catch them as Sovereign disgorged a small fleet of droid gunships, vulture droids and even smaller three-finned droids. “Alright, I hope you lot are kitted up in EVA gear! Because with the Kodiak gone, you get to drive Kr-his klunker. Please try to bring it back. H-he just got it upholstered, painted, t-tuned up...”

Shepard recognized that tone. They lost someone. Whoever was lost, Penny sent her prayers to them and whatever afterlife exists for them. Humanity lost a lot of their belief in religion centuries ago, but the Empire has brought a whole slew of religiousness back to their society, if lacking the traditional monotheistic structures.

After a moment of quiet reflection to herself, Shepard braced to disengage from the White-Out. They were nearing Sovereign, who was approaching the Mass Relay. They had to stop him from escaping! Someone aboard shared the sentiment and fired the railgun, which, at their speed, was further enhanced and punched right through one of the four ‘eyes’ of the monster, which visibly recoiled from the shot. Just how heavy was that round? Usually ships the size of the White-Out don’t have the ability to fire shots that impactful.

Whatever the case, this slowed Sovereign down long enough for the bay doors underneath the ship to drop open and reveal...is that a vintage turian Armax Armada slam-van? Those things are ancient! They stopped making them over 80 years ago! N-not that Shepard knows so much about alien cars! Nope! Her vice is weapons! Heh...still the first civilian-sold turian military vehicle though...

Shepard’s momentary preoccupation with the vintage vehicle passed and she detached from the White-Out, which began frantically fighting the droids with the Citadel fleet slowly drawing closer. She latched onto the side of the silver-painted van-ah~ it still has the-ahem, the hand-holds were helpful in this.

The old grocery runner wasn’t fast by space travel standards, but with the velocity it maintained upon launch from the White-Out along with what control it did have over its trajectory, it flew directly into an opening in Sovereign’s hull and whipped around to land a bit roughly in an occupied hangar, which had droids aiming at them immediately. Swell.