Your eyes are beautiful. 78%
“Your eyes are pretty,” Rainbow murmured continuing to gaze at Tali with a clouded mind. The quarian in question freezing, her typing on her omni-tool completely stopping. For a couple more seconds the two stared at each other before Dash's mind cought up to her mouth and her pupils shrunk. “I-I mean.. I'm… uhh…”
“Wha-”
“IthinkIshouldgobye!” within the blink of an eye Rainbow flew towards the entrance of the engineering bay, clipping her wing on the door as it didn't open fast enough, and rolling out into the hallway before mashing the up button in the elevator. Her rate of breathing was going through the roof as her mind raced.
You stupid, stupid, feather-brained pegasus! What in Tartarus were you thinking?!
Rainbow made a beeline to the port observation bay the moment the elevator opened up and jumped into cover behind the bar.
What is she going to think now!... What am I going to think now?! That was so… sappy?
Rainbow gagged at the memory of the mushie sentence she'd uttered but the massive blush on her cheeks told another story.
I can just ignore this, right? We should be headed to that reaper, I can't go about distracting her more now, can I?... No, we should focus on the mission…
Yeah…
Luna stepped into the small base that was attached to the reaper, a frown on her face as she lit her horn and cast an aura over the rest of the group. A heavy weight seemed to be lifted off of Dash's shoulders as the aura washed over her.
“This is truly a vile place…” Luna growled. “The dark energy here will not affect our minds but I would not recommend remaining here for long.”
“Wasn’t planning to,” Shepard agreed. “Rainbow, Tali, take point. Luna, Samara, you two bring up our rear. Fluttershy you’re in the middle with me.”
“As you command,” Samara answered, as she stayed in the back with Luna. Rainbow and Tali glanced at each other but said nothing, proceeding with their task to lead the group into the reaper to retrieve the IFF tag. Both of them were scanning their environment thoroughly as the Normandy had detected a geth vessel connected to the reaper as well.
The Cerberus research facility connected to the reaper was completely abandoned, the steps of the group echoing through the hallways. Rainbow felt a shiver go up her spine as the emptiness was just… wrong.
“There are no signs of fighting… I don’t think the geth are responsible for what happened here,” Fluttershy said to Shepard as the entire facility seemed clean and without the scars of battle.
“Yes,” Shepard agreed. “We may be encountering resistance from indoctrinated personnel in here.”
“That’s fantastic,” Tali grumbled as she opened up the door that lead onto the scaffolding built around the reaper. The entire facility shook as the door opened and Joker called in from the Normandy.
“Normandy to shore party! The reaper just put up kinetic barriers, I don’t think we can get through from this side!”
“Then we’ll just have to de-activate the reaper’s shield generators as well as find that IFF. Any idea where we could find those, EDI?” Shepard asked.
“I detected a heat spike coming from inside the reaper, this is most likely it’s mass effect core. Be advised, taking out this core will also de-stabilize the reaper’s orbit.”
“Oh great, I’m sure we’ll enjoy crashing into a gas giant the moment we de-activate the core,” Dash sarcastically said.
“I’m sure Joker can pull us out before we reach crushing depth. We’ll make a sweep for any survivors and intel.”
“Copy that Commander, good hunting,” Joker said, cutting off the radio.
The sight on the scaffolding was much worse than the clean facility had been. Corpses, seemingly burned, lay on them as the group passed by. A stench also permeated the air as it was clear these humans had lain here for a good while. A groan suddenly came from the depths below which put everyone on edge as half the group immediately recognized the sound.
“Husks!” Shepard called out as the first of the corrupted humans crawled up from below. The first wave was easily repealed as the five divided themselves over the edges of the platform they found themselves on and prevented any of the husks from climbing up in the first place. A bit further up another group of husks tried the same thing, this time getting further as there was an increased number of them.
“These things… they were the scientists, weren’t they?” Luna said, looking at the corrupted remains in horror.
“Yeah. Nothing we can do for them, except for putting them out of their misery, now though,” Fluttershy answered as they pushed deeper, the entire group on edge as bigger groups of husks could easily overwhelm them if they weren’t careful.
Bang!
Bang!
Around a corner up ahead two rounds flew by as two husks, half their skull missing, dropped over.
“Shit. Fluttershy, scout ahead,” Shepard ordered, the pegasus activating her stealth cloak and disappearing into thin air. Shy carefully peeked around the corner where the husks had fallen, carefully scanning for any movement before walking up ahead. Another howl coming from below interrupted her little scouting mission as she rushed back to the group that was now running towards her in the opposite way.
“Didn’t see anything that can shoot but they are going to be an issue!” Fluttershy lobbed a singularity at the mass of husks running their way, tearing up a swath of them with the biotic attack. Again the group fought the corrupted beings while slowly giving space to the advancing husks as to not get overrun. Luna, this time, stood in front as any husks managing to advance through the hail of fire would be cut down by her sword. This, however, did not shield the group completely as a husk managed to get into the midst of the group and took a swipe at Tali… it never connected.
Dash had the air forced out of her lungs as the husk slammed into her instead and forced her onto the ground where she slid away. Tali responded to the monster by blowing away a portion of its head before turning to Rainbow.
“Rainbow, are you okay?” she said with a tinge of concern in her voice.
Rainbow got onto her hooves, shaking her head to get rid of a bit of disorientation. “Just a bruise,” she groaned.
“How many people did Cerberus send in here...” Fluttershy said in awe of the number of corpses littering the floor after they cleaned up the rest of the husks.
“Too many,” Shepard grunted. “We should expect this from them by now.”
“What are those?” Luna stared in horror at a large monument of sorts, spikes sticking into the air with bodies impaled on top of them.
“Dragon’s teeth, we encountered them two years ago as well,” Tali told her grimly. “They are the things that create the husks.”
Luna remained silent as she stared at the sight, shaking her head to continue on again as she had nothing to say on the matter which she hadn’t already. The five passed an airlock down into an internal section of the reaper.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Everyone but Luna hit the deck as rounds whizzed by splattering something behind the group. Fluttershy, before hitting the ground, had already fired a snapshot in the direction of the incoming fire with her Black Widow rifle.
“Hold fire!” Shepard ordered as he saw the three husks that had managed to sneak up on the group from behind. Fluttershy looked through her scope to see what had fired on them, finding a geth standing up though it didn’t look like any regular geth she’d encountered before. It had N7 plating welded on as a shoulder pad along with a significant hole in its chest. Had Fluttershy been Tali she might have nailed the machine right through said hole, but curiosity took over so she decided to wait as it hadn’t tried killing them yet.
“Shepard commander,” it simply stated before turning and walking out of sight deeper into the reaper.
“What in the world… It actually talked?” Fluttershy questioned in confusion.
“An individual geth should not be able to talk, they have as much intelligence as a varren,” Tali said also in slight awe.
“Guess that leaves one thing to do then,” Shepard smirked, “We’ll just have to ask it how it does that ourselves.”
Well, that romance was pretty short lived.
And enter Legion, one of my favourite characters.
10364671
give it some time
not gonna be a 1 chapter thing
10364671
10364682
I think Rainbow taking the hit for Tali might be an indication that there's still some feelings between them.
Yay, Legion.
here comes e'rebodies favoritte robot!
10364698
I suspect they're both in very "wtf?" territory at the moment. Tali might want to corner Rainbow at some point and have a conversation, but they both know Rainbow is interested in her now. What isn't defined yet is how Tali feels. Until that's resolved, it's all awkward conversations and "umm's" a lot.
Are we just going to choose the romantic option every time it comes up?
10364923
Well, of course. What else would we do?
Legion will be brought along for Tali's loyalty mission, right? Way too much special interaction from that to pass up.
Should be "husk" I think?
Yay, Legion! My favorite
gethpersonal synthetic assistant on the Citadel!Kinda wish we could see some side interactions y'know? Gabby and the crew, Luna and one of the team. Samara or Grunt could be interesting conversations.
Just kinda wish there was more signs of development. I enjoy (for the most part) what we get, but it feels like there's a rush to get done with 2. Also my reader's greed.
Thats a lot of, scientists. Then again, it is a Space Hulk and they needed Militery level Protective Assistance?
Oh Goodie, Legion. They have yet to interface in detail with the new crew, so its like a parralel universe?
Tali and Rainbow? No... Please no.
If I can't have my Flutter x Liara then I sure as shooting am gonna aim for Rainbow x Tali
I’m not gonna lie, pretty conflicted about this route between Tali an’ Dash.
On one side I’m pretty distraught, because Tali is the romance I almost always chose during my play-throughs. Hell, my fist time around I was aiming for Miranda, and then Tali comes out of nowhere and tells Shepard that she’s interested... Dumped Miranda in a heartbeat, and didn’t even think twice about it. Plus, we already know from previous chapters that she already had the hots for the good ol’ commander, so there was potential for the story to go in that direction at some point (a fact that I was very on board with). However, this new scenario we’ve been presented with may very well bring doom upon the Tali-Shepard shipping.
Though I’m also kinda optimistic about it because it creates something that hasn’t really been explored all that much in ME stories as a whole... The Love Triangle!. Or as I like to call it, Relational Conflict! Assuming that Tali still has these feelings about Shepard (possibly vice versa); feelings that could potentially bud after a certain loyalty mission, it creates an entirely new dilemma for these characters. Now say Dash persists with these new feelings and Shepard catches wind of it, this could go a multitude of different ways. It’s a good old fashioned conundrum, and I would be on board for it!
I’m suddenly wishing I hadn’t put this on hold, but that’s on me.
I love how mutch Legion has to offer once you cheat him in the saveslot from the start. Great content most players never enjoyed. Just like the block/cut content from Kaidan & Bitchface surviving.
10364830
This will be entertaining.
10364923
Why not?
10364994
Exacly
10365214
Yep, personaly i hope this shows that Geth can be talked to...
10366483
But who is eith Shepard?
10570634
Got to love that Geth
Did Shepard made all the loyalty missions? Otherwise he will lose crew he will need for ME3.
Hope he upgraded all systems of the Normandy for the same reason. The Scar removal is the most important to stay sexy for romance scenes