Touching my feet on Horizon's rich soil felt incredible for far more than just the low gravity of the small world making me feel like a hulk sized ballerina despite the huge mass of my gear.
I was on an alien world.
As a kid I never once even fantasied about being an astronaut, and now I had my lizard man feet stomping on an inhabitable world lightyears away from earth. I took a few breaths of the planet's dense atmosphere before dawning my helmet. Not even the rush of breathing in such a potent cocktail of life sustaining air would make me forget what I'd done to Garm and Kuril. Helmets are important to continued living.
We had touched down on the outskirts of the colony full of prefab buildings, offline cannons built by the Alliance waiting for commands that would never come from the inhabitants. The collectors advanced tech disabled the power grid before they unleashed their army of chitinous drones to deliver their paralytic stasis inducing toxin on the relatively defenseless humans.
Off in the distance we saw the collector ship, a massive monolith that stretched into the clouds maintaining the collector aesthetic blend of insects and cyborgs by grafting cavernous hives onto an enormous metal superstructure. The scale would intimidate me if I wasn't so busy wondering if I can safely eat collector bug meat. Probably too much tech in them to make the effort worth it.
"Mordin, how certain are you that the countermeasure will work against the seeker swarms?"
"Should be invisible to seeker detection capabilities... in theory." the scarred salarian scientist spoke cheerfully, "Looking forward to seeing if we survive."
My hearing was almost sensitive enough to pick up the sound of everyone's sphincters clenching in terror at Dr. Mordin Solus's cavalier attitude about our safety. I just loaded up my incendiary ammo mutation and activated my defenses. No way to go back now, especially with first contact happening immediately as a small team of collectors approached the drop zone. A quick hosing from my looted M-76 Revenant put them down, their barriers and chitin exoskeletons providing little obstacle to the hundred and twenty high caliber superheated slugs I could fire in just over ten seconds.
Unfortunately for us, this is not a game. The collectors are not a series of hand placed enemies a studio made for us to overcome. The collectors did not exist for us to win against them. The ship we can see in the distance is crewed by tens of thousands of these bug man cyborgs, and they all can fly. I quickly had reason to thank my past self for tacking on extra ammo pouches and hard packs to my armor and weapons.
What should have been a quick jaunt to the colony's bunker turned into a hard slog as squad after squad of collectors flew in to attack us. I sent quick praise to the Lord for the fact that the collectors wings were too delicate to use while firing their weapons and the species had no grenades between them. They also hit the ground hard when shot midair and we rarely gave them time to get up from it. In all I'd say they were absolute ass as a species in combat. Weak weapons, mindless soldiers, and a leader barely capable of taking the field for longer than a few minutes before he burned out whatever body he 'assumed direct control' over. Honestly, Harbingers glowing interference did all of nothing besides give one collector at a time biotic power and a bright and shiny 'kill me' orange aura. Not that I can knock him for the look considering the warm glow of my orange holographic tech armor.
Jack destroyed the contingents of husks they tried to swarm us with a quick shockwave every time. The cyber zombies were as laughably easy to slay in real life as they'd been in the games.
Shepard bypassed the electronic lock on the bunker and the team dove in before she reactivated the blast doors. She then proceeded to have a conversation with one of the most annoying people in the galaxy. Delan the mechanic was right up there with Conrad Verner's bugged ass.
He let us know to calibrate the targeting systems for the Guardian Cannons the Alliance had set up. The fact that he mentioned Ashley Williams instead of Kaiden Alenko threw me for a loop. I didn't really like either of them in the games, but Williams was way more annoying in ME3. Why a fem-Shep would save Williams over Alenko boggles my mind.
Fortunately for Delan the mechanic, we were out the other door and back to fighting hordes of bug men before the sound of his voice drove me to kill him. As I blew a collector in half with a super heated shotgun blast I contemplated the real question of the day: are the collectors man meat or bug meat? As a lizard man, I don't believe the sun would strike me down either way should I get hungry enough to partake in a little mid fight snack.
My body kept autopiloting through the pathetic collector warriors before the bovine moans of the scions brought me back to the present. I hated scions. The fusion husks hit like a rolling Kenworth with their superpowered shockwave attacks and deliver debuffs to add insult to massive injury. It was with savage glee that I managed to close distance with one of the body horror movie monstrosities and introduce its glowing blue ezo sack to point blank shotgun destruction.
"That's what you get!" I shouted as I stabbed it a few times to vent my frustration on one of the few enemy types to kill me in the trilogy without a stupid insta-kill mechanic. I'd probably have significantly more corpse mutilation sessions once things got to ME3. Fucking sync-kills ruining my nova guard fun.
We fought our way to the controls for the gun emplacements easily enough, and EDI got to work bringing them online while we fought off the never ending supply of bug men and their Junji Ito inspired pets. The team hunkered down in all the ready made cover the colonists had been kind enough to leave behind for us as we settled into a box formation around the control system. It held with ease right until the collectors backed off and dropped a praetorian on us.
The twisted construct of steel and flesh wasn't trying to stop the guns from going online, instead it doggedly floated towards Commander Shepard as it fired its powerful particle beams at her. This singular focus allowed the rest of us to freely move around it, firing into it until Jacob got too close and the thing dropped out of the air causing a shockwave that dropped the Cerberus operative's shields and staggered him.
"Pull him out!" I shouted at Jack who just barely yanked the fool out of harm's way with her mind before the praetorian released a blast of biotic power that would have left us breathing the man in as a red mist.
The real life team proved far smarter than the AI companions of the games as they all learned to stay far away from the thing. After that it was just a matter of time as the giant cyborg monster didn't have enough intelligence to fight an elite team like ours. Not even the thunderous report of the colony's cannons opening fire on the slow to take off collector vessel caused anyone to break stride as we unleashed a hellstorm of ammo, tech, and biotics on the hapless enemy.
As far as boss fights go, I could only thank God Bioware didn't outsource their big ticket battles to FromSoftware. A slow moving enemy with only two straight forward attacks wasn't going to stop someone who played through the janky glory of Dark Souls 2. I didn't even want to contemplate fighting a thresher maw made by FromSoftware. Or Capcom come to think of it.
A good portion of the team got knocked on their asses when the collector cruiser finally finished powering its engines for take off. The enormous vessel took an even greater amount of lift to rocket itself back into space, and the blast back was felt for miles around.
Didn't stop that jackass Delan from showing up so fast I assumed he teleported.
"No! Don't let them get away!" he cried out in that annoying voice of his.
"There's nothing we can do." the commander politely told him, "They're gone."
"Half the colony is in there!" He screamed, "They took Egan and Sam and… and Lillith. Do something!"
So I raise up my shotgun and shouted, "Say one more fucking word! I dare you!"
Was it cool? Was it calm? Was it collected? Hell no, but the look of fear on the dipshits face was satisfying as he fell over backwards and scurried away from us.
"Stand down, Grunt!" The Commander commanded as Ashley Williams leapt into sight, rifle drawn.
"What?" I asked like I didn't just make a full grown man shit himself, "My first instinct was to shoot him, and with the way that guys stupid voice triggers my blood rage you should all be in awe of my self restraint and stately composure. His continued survival is the first of the miracles needed for my Canonization."
I looked over at the Operations Chief and snorted, "Put the peashooter down or you're gonna have a bad time."
"I see the rumors of the company you keep these days are putting a positive spin on the reality." She snarked while keeping her gun trained on me.
"Oh, you already know who we are working with?" Garrus mused with that distinct turian flanging voice.
"I couldn't believe the reports we were getting, but I guess seeing really is believing." the woman spat, "After everything Cerberus did, how could you possibly be working with them."
"The mountains of dead bug men should mean a hell of a lot more to you than it seems too." I laughed, "Keep pointing that worthless lump of plastic at me and I might be nice enough to let you keep the pieces after I snap it in half."
"Grunt is right, Williams." Shepard intervened, "The collectors are working with the reapers and abducting entire human colonies. As things stand, Cerberus is the only organization that is chasing them down."
"And what if Cerberus is working with them, using the threat of the reapers to make you dance to their tune while they pull off whatever insane experiment they are working on right now?" Williams yelled as she pulled her muzzle away from my direction.
"Damn it, Williams!" Garrus spoke up, "You are so focused on Cerberus, you're ignoring the real threat!"
"To be fair," I interrupted, "Once we finish with the collectors Cerberus will go right back up to the top of the worst people in the galaxy list. Somewhere below the entire batarian species, but definitely top two until the reapers invade. They might even stay in the top two if they try to pull a Saren."
"Thank you, Grunt." snarked the Commander, "Thank you for not helping this situation at all."
"Fine!" I barked, "I'm gonna go crack open a bug man and see if the meat is worth the effort."
Five minutes later I discovered that collectors taste like shit. They couldn't even be competent appetizers, let alone enemies. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
"Hey." Jack called to me, "The way you made that guy shit himself was hot. Come put a baby in me."
My day is saved.
Horizon turned out to only need a slightly longer than normal chapter, not two. I spent significantly more time researching things for this chapter, so let me know if the discriptions of everything was worth the extra effort.
"Grunt, we need to talk about your actions on Horizon." The Commander declared as she barged into my nest on the Port Cargo Area of the engineering deck.
Her heated entrance would have helped her cause a lot more if she didn't immediately jerk her head back from the sight of Jack and I going at it again doggy style.
"You're right," I spoke as I dragged Jack's hips back to me again and again, "next time I'll execute any fools who annoy us. Good talk, Shepard."
Normally laughter during sex would bother me, but Jack had a pretty sexy laugh and this was a laughing with me situation. Weird cause life experience had trained me to treat bedroom matters seriously. You can dance around shouting 'I'm a pony! I'm a pony!' for laughs, but you'd better be able to turn into a thoroughbred in heart beat when you see them bedroom eyes.
Of course standard fare would see my partner panicking at the intrusion rather than pushing back. The life and times of a space lizard man continue to surprise and amuse me.
"You threatened to kill a man for annoying you." The Commander stated while averting her gaze, "That's unacceptable behavior from a member of this crew."
"Classic krogan culture would deem me mentally diseased and put me down like a rabid animal." I told the Commander while I continued putting in diligent work, "They would do the same to all living krogan. But the classic krogan all died in the nuclear wastelands of Tuchanka and only the blood rage krogan remain."
"Okeer did not see fit to spare me the psychotic derangement that infects my kind." I continued while keeping my eyes fixed on the Commander, "In fact he distilled in me the most potent cocktail he could mix. I tore the head off the warrior who's armor I now wear and I didn't even realize I was doing it till the results of his decapitation rested between my hands. That guy's voice put me in a similar state of mind. He put our perfect operation in jeopardy. I stopped him."
"If you are such a liability to the team then I need to cut you loose." Shepard spoke, "I can't have a bomb with a faulty fuse waiting to go off on this mission."
"My fight against Kuril proved I have talent in controlling the blood rage." I countered, "I would have attacked him entirely without defending myself otherwise. Delan the mechanic's survival is further proof, but ultimately the reason you aren't going to drop me off at the next station is that you need me."
I grinned that wide terrifying krogan grin at her, "Despite the collectors proving themselves to be pathetic foes, their numbers and mobility put the team through the ringer. You need me leading the charge and pushing them back. None of you are even a quarter as sustainable as me in a fire fight. You can't afford an emotional reaction on this mission when the survival of this crew is all based in cold hard calculus."
I barely managed to hold on as Jack climaxed under me while Shepard shook her head in disapproval at the truth or this situation. It didn't matter much to me either way as I signaled my climax to my partner who quickly took me down her throat as I fired off a pint of krogan baby making material down her gullet.
"It could always be worse." I cheerfully reminded the Commander, "We could be working with Cerberus!"
Jack and I laughed as we sat back together. Shepard did not.
"You've been completely anti-Cerberus since the start, Grunt." Shepard commented, "How did you come by such strong opinions?"
"Cause he isn't fucking stupid!" Jack shouted, "Cerberus is pulling the wool over your eyes with all the friendly people and familiar faces, trying to get you to drop your guard and start thinking they aren't the bad guys so they can start worming their agenda into you a little bit at a time till you bend over backwards for them."
"Cerberus could have just put a control chip in me if they wanted to control me." Shepard countered, "They didn't."
"If they did that they would only have a drone that looks like humanity's greatest warrior." I spoke, "They could have fooled people for a time, but eventually people would figure out that you are just a Shep-bot. At that point they would have completely wasted all the resources needed to bring you back, all the ability you bring to the table, and any good will they generated. The Illusive Man wants you to agree with him. It would bring him a huge ally and validate his views."
"Then it is a good thing I know better than to trust Cerberus." Shepard told us, obviously relieved that our sex was over for now, "No matter your views on the collector's worthiness, they need to be stopped, and Cerberus are the only people trying."
"We get it." I assured her, "A giant robo-squid attacks the Citadel and slays the council with its army of geth, and the rest of the galaxy just wants to bury their heads in the sand and hope it's all over instead of just beginning. Cerberus sees what's going on clearly, but that doesn't mean they aren't completely warped about everything else."
"I know." Shepard admitted, "That's why it is so important for me to be able to trust you. I need to know there are people on this team that I don't need to keep my eyes on all the time."
"Take me to Tuchanka." I growled out, "Maybe if I immerse myself in the violence of the Rights I'll come out the other end more in control of myself."
I nudged Jack.
"Pragia." Jack snarled, "It's where Cerberus made me who I am. I want to go to the center of the place, my cell. I want to deploy a big fucking bomb. And I want to watch from orbit when it goes."
"Okay." Shepard nodded, "I'll add Tuchanka and Pragia to our objectives after we finish up on Haestrom."
"You do that." Jack told her, "I'll be here getting stuffed with lizard dick."
Never had I ever heard a more beautiful dismissal.
I kept holding my lover to me after Shepard left.
"You think Tuchanka will help?" She asked me as she rested her head on my neck.
"No." I barked, "But we can have fun destroying shit in a wasteland no one cares about. Kill a bunch of hungry predators. Maybe even take a trip to the Hollows, the only place left on the rock that isn't fuck to hell and back."
"Sounds like a nice date." Jack moaned as I started working her up again.
"Who knows." I whispered in her ear, "We might just end up conquering the place. How's Overlord Grunt and Mistress Jack sound?"
"Sounds like a pain in the ass." Jack denied.
"You'd love krogan leadership." I laughed, "Anyone talks back to you, smack them around. Anyone doesn't listen to you, smack them around. Don't like someone's hustle, smack them around. Do that and all the dumb reptiles will love you. And my baby has some hands made for smacking fools around."
"You really were a businessman in a past life." Jack moaned, "Cause I'm sold."
"Good!" I cheered my success, "And when we are tired of calling the shots it's off to the beaches of Virmire. If we can find any uncontaminated by Shepard's dirty bomb that is."
"I hate the beach." she said as she worked me back up to full mast.
"After Tuchanka, you'll be begging for a tropical vacation." I promised.
Short sexposition chapter. I always try to have Grunt doing something new when Shepard shows up and this time it was sex. I felt like an amatuer GRRM while writing this chapter.
As opposed to the relationship that plays out with the Commander, Grunt and Jack are well within her comfort zone. She is in the arms of a violent and brash partner and everything everyone wants is out on the table with them. They are moving in a more tender direction in a way I see as more healthy than what plays out in the game.
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