//------------------------------// // Gear // Story: Mass Effect: Element of Kindness // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// Chapter 23 Gear I think I'll be fine putting it on myself 60% "I think that I'll be fine, thank you," Fluttershy said as she picked up the undersuit, Tali nodded and sat down on the empty crate while browsing the tablet that had been provided with the armor. In the meanwhile, Fluttershy was putting on the undersuit which turned out to be quite simple, as, after she had hoisted herself into the undersuit and stuck her wings through the appropriate holes, the suit sealed itself. The thick fabric first pulling itself together to seal the opening that ran across her back and then sealed tightly against her body. "Apparently the suit uses mass effect fields to form an airtight bubble around the wings and has fabricators in the armor pieces around the wing that can create a seal if those fields fail," Tali said as she looked up from the tablet, "I wonder if they could also..." The quarian opened her omni tool and started looking something up, stopping as she noticed Fluttershy looking expectingly at her. "You continue to put that on, I'm just going to look a few things up." Fluttershy shrugged and continued on with the armor pieces that lay about, the first thing she picked up was the large piece that made up the torso of the armor and slid it on. After fastening the straps on the torso piece she moved around a bit. Surprisingly the armor fit very comfortably around her body and she didn't feel too weighed down by it yet. The pegasus swiftly continued to put on all the other pieces of armor, making sure that every piece was properly strapped in place. She silently thanked Solana for using a system of straps that was hard to do wrong. "So, how do I look?" Fluttershy asked as she finished putting on all the pieces of armor, the feeling of thick rubber covering her hooves being incredibly strange to the pegasus. Tali looked up from her omni tool and let out a squeal. "You look amazing," she said as she got up from the crate and crouched down next to the pegasus, checking if all the straps were properly attached and pulling a couple of them a bit tighter. "Now there's this thing I hadn't taken out of the box yet." Though obscured by the visor, her grin was almost palatable as she revealed a transparent mouthpiece of sorts. "Uhm, how's that supposed to help keep the air in?" Fluttershy asked as she studied the piece of equipment. "Mass Effect fields," Tali stated in a tone that suggested that Fluttershy should have known what the answer was going to be. "Oh, right," Fluttershy sheepishly said as she allowed Tali to place the device around her head, a hologram containing a heads up display flickering to life in front of the pegasus's eyes. "It's probably the single most expensive piece of equipment that Garrus's sister got you, these holograms are still in development and I honestly have no clue how she got a hold of one. Let alone integrate it into a face mask," Tali explained as Fluttershy looked at all the information displayed on the visor. The status of her barrier was placed in the top-middle of the display, the bar was completely empty and flashing red, indicating that it was drained. Not that that was too surprising since they hadn't activated the system yet. Another thing on the display was a proximity detector that was constantly pinging the area for movement, Tali being a bright yellow dot very close to the center of the circle while there was a blurry mess of yellow in the place of the engineering bay. The last thing on the display was a section on the bottom left that would usually be devoted to showing the status of the user's firearm but since Fluttershy had none it was displaying the status of Fluttershy's biotic amp. "It's amazing," Fluttershy said as she looked around in wonder. "Do you mind if I start activating all of the systems?" Tali asked, Fluttershy shaking her head as she played around with the visor via her omni-tool. The quarian immediately went to work on all the suits other systems, first, she activated a program that would attune the barriers to Fluttershy's biotics. Once that was running its course, she went on and checked the calibration of all the various mass effect field generators finding them all to be in order. The final thing she wanted to do concerned the fabricators in the pieces around the wings. "Would you mind extending your wings?" Fluttershy raised an eyebrow but opened her wings anyway, Tali went to work opening an obsolete program she had just downloaded from the migrant fleet's databases. "Don't be alarmed at what's about to happen," She told Fluttershy who wanted to ask what the quarian meant but the words died in her throat as two large orange glowing blades appeared along the wing, reminding the pegasus that what she was wearing wasn't one of Rarity's dresses. "H-how?" Fluttershy stammered as she carefully moved her wings, the blades adapting to the changing shape of the wing. "The fabricators in your armor near your wings can pretty much make anything. These are called omni-blades and were pretty much obsolete years ago but to you, they might have a useful function since you might be able to hit something on a flyby." Tali explained while transferring all control of the armor to Fluttershy's omni-tool. That was also the moment the program that was attuning the barrier finished and activated the system. Fluttershy gasped in surprise as the barrier manifested itself, not that it was too draining on the pegasus but the sudden pull on her biotic reserves did startle her. "So what are we going to do now? Shepard said you were going to teach me about cover usage." Fluttershy said as she looked up at the quarian. "Yes, among other things. You also need to be taught how to handle firearms even if you'll be relying on biotics." Tali said, "You'll need to know everything anyway so you can choose which you want to do first." 1. Cover usage 2. Firearm handling [Vote link]