Bab 22: Omega Return P2
Hunting Morinth was a far more nuanced affair than the game portrayed, or perhaps I lack Shepard's natural ability to pull trouble out of the aether. Rather than entering Afterlife's VIP section on a single all or nothing gamble to draw out the asari sexual predator, Samara took a whole bottle of chill pills and we worked out a strategy to push her known buttons slowly. We were pursuing a woman who spent 400 years murdering folks across the galaxy, even her addiction to the act wouldn't cause her to approach without caution, especially with a giant krogan being the one in her sights.
I'd enter the club each evening, playing the role of a mercenary healing up and resupplying after a mission gone wrong. An easy cover to be sure as it was the truth, Cerberus paid me to fight for them, Illusive Man pulled a fast one, and I needed to recover and resupply. The trick was to put on a veneer of class and channel the spirit of an edge lord, the latter considerably harder than the former. Truth be told, I lack even a single edgy bone in my body. I enjoy the present far too much to spend much time thinking about how awful everything is.
Fortunately I was able to research her interests a fair bit more than the Commander could in the game, and could learn about things similar to her specific tastes so I didn't sound like I was just name dropping things I heard about her. I'd watch a digital copy of Tombstone each evening so I could pretend to be Val Kilmer while he pretends to be Doc Holiday. That portrayal would be exactly the kind of person to draw her in and armed with everything she would want to hear, the game was afoot.
The first night at the club I bought the house a round of drinks to celebrate my surviving a client's betrayal. I spent the evening spinning stories to strangers, then spinning on the dance floor with strangers - something Samara had been more than willing to help me prepare for - and ultimately left with a light skinned and lithe asari. Not my target, but close enough to her in looks to fire up a little envy in the woman who spent the evening eyeing me up, and Jack and I got a bed mate that could enhance our night by linking our nervous systems. Two birds with one incredibly pleasurable stone.
Beta Team helped me out during the day with all the work the quarian kid and I had to get me combat ready. Fortunately the kid had become a rising star in the gunsmithing and armoring scene on the ancient mining station after our last encounter, so he had a fine selection of tools and equipment to process everything Aria's people were dropping off for us. We were forging a modular plate armor system to accommodate my still growing body and working up some weapon systems improvements with oversight from Garrus and Zaeed. Tali was helping us set up the software packages and helping push the output of our shield tech. Overall I'd be getting a significant upgrade over my scavenged equipment and was pushing some new frontiers as well.
The second evening went much the same as the first with the addition of making an obnoxious turian shit himself when he refused to let no be no within earshot of me. I offered to be his partner for the evening, and when he freaked out fed him his own bullshit lines. When he shouted, "I was just playin!" as he ran off I couldn't help but say, "I wasn't."
The asari he'd been harassing became my date for the evening, and Morinth ended up dancing with us for a bit before backing off with a smirk. The fact that her smile was generated from thoughts of murdering me should have bothered me more, but all I could say was, "What a tease." as she walked away.
Building my equipment the next day included putting together an over the shoulder multi homing grenade launching system. The retractable carrier could launch three volleys of up to six grenades that could assign targets using an eye tracking system built into my new helmet. The homing grenades themselves were capable of burning for up to six seconds under their own fuel supply hot enough to melt through substantial armor and covered a substantial radius per blast. Wiring it all up was a pain in the ass, but it would be big money with the way the collectors like to bunch up when they press in great numbers.
My third night at the club found me in Morinth's company right from the start. She approached me at the bar as I ordered my first drink.
"The one that got away." I spoke just loud enough for her to hear.
"Thought you could seduce me so easily?" She smirked, perhaps laughing internally about the inverse of her usual role in courtship or as just another subtle act to push things in that direction.
"I felt a certain chemistry between us." I commented slowly after taking a drink, "Certainly more than with dear Hallia."
"And how did dear Hallia disappoint you?" She questioned me while leaning a little closer.
"She lacked a certain confident sway." I told her.
"You like the confidence in my sway?" she coyly fished for the compliment.
"I was referring to my own." I chuckled and took another drink.
As much as the psychopath loved being worshipped, our research indicated that she loved taking down confident targets even more.
My conversation with the woman who looked so astoundingly like her scrumptious mother was interrupted by the loud and incredibly vulgar anti human diatribe that emerged from another krogan at the bar.
"Excuse me for a moment." I told her as I circled the round bar.
A quick headbutt after I got his attention stopped his ruckus and the stare down saw him beat a hasty retreat.
"A lizard was in need of some cognitive recalibration." I announced upon my return.
"You've a fondness for human's?" She asked.
"Quite a bit more than fondness." I assured her.
"Anything like your fondness for asari?" she smirked again.
"Incredibly similar in nature." I took another drink.
"How about you come back to my place and show me what that fondness is like?" she offered her hand and I took it, allowing her to lead me away from the club and to her apartment.
Show time.
I took my place far from her on the couch, the better to buy time for Samara to show up and end this bitch.
"I love clubs -- people, movement, heat. I can still hear the bass, like the drums of a great hunt, out for your blood." she said like the creepy person she is, "But here, it's muted -- and you're safe. Is that what you want, Grunt?"
I shook my head, "I am always willing to put myself in the path of danger for the sake of a good time, and I am always eager to be the path of danger for everyone else. Too many people spend their lives running away from dangerous fun. I say take a chance, it's not like anyone makes it out of life alive anyway."
She laughed, and it was hard to tell if it was fake or genuine when dealing with someone so deeply fucked in the head.
"I noticed that about you that first night you came to the club." she chuckled, "So cavalier about death, so funny. I've never understood the fascination with safety. Some of us choose differently."
She got up to come over and sit in my lap, still needing to look up to maintain eye contact.
"Independence over submission." She spoke, "I think we share that, you and I."
She got me to laugh this time, "You'll need quite the ladder to get up my league."
"So strong," she moaned, "I need this."
I'm sure you do murder-junkie.
"Look into my eyes and tell me you want me." she commanded while trying to work her way into telepathically controlling me, "Tell me you'd kill for me. Anything I want."
I placed a big reptilian hand on her head and grinned, "My dear, you ain't a daisy."
With a light push I threw her to the floor and stood up. Samara had worked her way through the locked front door and came in radiating blue biotic power.
"Morinth." she called as she telekinetically threw her daughter into the glass wall that cracked, but held strong.
"Mother." the Ardat-Yakshi growled with considerable venom.
"Do not call me that." Samara ordered while hitting her suspended daughter with another telekinetic push.
"I can't choose to stop being your daughter. Mother." Morinth spat.
"You made your choice long ago." Samara growled back.
400 years ago to be precise, when you chose to run from a cloistered life and use your mutated sex powers to murder people.
Morinth curled up and created a biotic explosion that freed her from Samara's clutches.
"What choice!" she yelled, "My only crime was being born with the gifts you gave me!"
Morinth chucked a chair at her mother who hit the floor and flung out another push that floored her daughter as well. They got up and started some kind of swirly biotic duel like an all blue Harry vs Voldemort final clash. I didn't pay attention to what they were saying because I was already walking up to Morinth and put a hand on her shoulder and a fist in her ribs. She fell to her knees after a very satisfying snap, breathing raggedly to indicate a punctured lung.
I could have ended the woman myself at any time, but this clash was some kind of religious matter to Samara and I wasn't going to piss on that in the name of expediency. Samara strolled up to her daughter and lit up as she prepared a biotic loaded punch.
"Find peace in the embrace of the goddess." she said before driving that powerful blow into Morinth's head.
Samara straightened back up and spoke while looking down at Morinth, "I am ready to leave this place and get on with my life. Are you ready to go as well?"
She turned around to face me and I nodded my head.
As we left the scene of the crime I spotted an honest to God Popeye's down the street.
"Damn, I am hungry." I announced, "Have you ever had fried chicken?"
A quiet shake of her head let me know she was ready to have her socks blow off.
"You're going fucking love this."
With a nudge I led us to the path of spicy deep fried goodness.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
JManM
JManM Easy chapter to write and damn fun too. Up next we will be learning about the final stage of Grunt's equipment and getting up to some fun on the outlaw infested station.
For those interested, I puntuated Morinth's canon lines as they appear in the subtitles of the game.
Bab 23: Omega Return Part 3
"What have I unleashed on the galaxy?" the voice of the quarian scrapper quavered while he stared at his shaking hands.
Before him in shining glory awaited my new arsenal.
Using Cerberus's backdoors into all the top Alliance databases, we stole the research and schematics for the T5-V Battlesuit - an expensive N7 power armor initiative - scaled it up to krogan physiology, and made it using tempered titanium gold.
The suit itself was a technomancy marvel, its synergistic systems able to provide me with a passive bonus of 27.5% to weapon damage, 25% to power damage, 65% to melee damage, and 50% to my health and shields. All that existed passively while I wore the suit and just stacked onto my biological prowess (Grunt has all the powers in the Krogan Warlord & Warlord Rage ME3 Multiplayer Trees with the extra 15% base health and shields found in the standard Rage Tree)
With the massive increase in my armor capacity and the improved and integrated smokestack system from my previous build, I had achieved AFK ROFLMAO levels of durability. Someone would need to blast me with the main guns of a ship to get rid of me now, and that is the way I like it.
The Devastator Mode was another piece of technomancy genius that boosted the power of my gun's another 30%, increased their thermal capacity 20%, and their accuracy and fire rate by 25%. Toggling on devastator mode didn't even slow me down like it did in the ME3 multiplayer because of the increased energy supply from the two top of the line tank power cells I carry on my shoulders. Devastator Mode, Tech Armor, and Fortification when used in tandem pulled just enough energy to slow down my tech power cooldown time, but the combination was much too powerful for me to care about that.
My guns are all custom now, made using more titanium gold (a very low friction material meaning way more thermal capacity) and other top of the line materials in the krogan brutalism aesthetic while integrating the best aftermarket modifications in the terminus systems and all the research the Normandy teams had discovered and developed. They were largely inspired by their predecessors (the Carnifax, Viper, Claymore, Revenant, and Krogan Battle Hammer), but out performed them in every baseline metric. We hadn't reinvented the wheel or even pushed the technology of the Mass Effect universe forward, we just took the best of everything available to us and put it together in the smartest way possible with our absurd budget.
It felt good to wield weapons made for krogan hands, but in truth most krogan would have trouble bringing them into combat, between my own super soldier strength and the boost from my power armor the weapons felt as light as any other, but were in fact absurdly heavy. We had designed an equipment set that was effective, but in no way efficient.
Donning my gear for the first time felt like a dream come true. Watching my systems come on line sent a shiver of joy across my sack. I'd been a pretender to the title before this, but now I was Lord Death of Murder Mountain. The Mt. Everest of Murder Mountains.
Aria had scheduled us a nice stress test in a condemned apartment complex. She didn't stay long after the fireworks started, but when she left she did so as the quarian scrapper's new employer. He'd never create anything on this level again, he'd never have a team like Beta Team nor an end user as powerful as me, but the experience of working with us on this project would catapult him to new heights in the arms game.
My testing ended when the last building in the complex collapsed into a smoking ruin. I'd used my entire kit extensively and didn't have a single hiccup. If anything, seeing the devastation first hand exceeded my imagination. The numbers on a data pad didn't compare to hosing down a building in an seemingly endless stream of high velocity high caliber incendiary slugs. I tore down buildings with machine gun fire, shotgun blasts, sniper rounds, even my side arm not to mention my over the shoulder grenade launcher, but the most fun I had was when I sparked up my blazing hot omni-shield, grabbed my golden krogan battle hammer (think Halo gravity hammer, got pimped out by the Tenno), and reenacted scenes from my favorite TV show White People Renovating Houses.
As we left, I turned to look upon my work and saw that it was good.
"Remind me never to make fun of you and Ken ever again." Jack spoke with an excited light in her eyes.
I looked down on her - a sight that would make most people shit themselves - and asked, "Who the fuck is Ken?"
She looked confused right up until Zaeed and I started laughing our asses off.
The ground team met up later that day for dinner, a buffet at one of Omega's classier hotels. They charged per person on a species by species basis, but the bastards charged me twice the krogan ticket price. I got them back by eating four times what an average krogan could, it wasn't easy but I had the understanding of my limits, the knowledge to control my pace, the courage to face the unrelenting tide of food, and the diligence to persevere against the colossal challenge. Eventually the Volus owner of the hotel came to beg me to stop.
In a rare showing of grace and mercy, I put the fork down.
"I hope everyone has had enough time now to rethink their life choices." Shepard began the after dinner meeting, "Between Grunt showing everyone exactly what he can do if you give him FU money and his subsequent opening of a personal pocket dimension in his stomach, I for one know that I'd have hesitated to enlist in the Alliance Navy if I'd know I could end up fighting people like him."
"Thank the spirits he wasn't alive during the rebellions," Garrus commented, "otherwise headbutt would be the most common language used in space."
"And the reapers would have a whole lot more twam coming their way." I challenged the turian to deny me.
"Probably." he agreed.
"Whether or not the galaxy would be a better place under Grunt's rule, we need to get back to preparing for our attack on the collectors." Shepard brought the meeting into focus, "We had a close call on the cruiser, but we are all recovered and ready to go on. The Illusive Man gave us a lead to follow, but I am hesitant to jump right into another situation he has orchestrated."
"If it will keep for a bit, we should let it keep." I told her my opinion, "The team is strong, but not as strong as we could be, and a lot of people still have outstanding business to finish before we hit the Omega 4 relay."
"Damn straight!" Zaeed barked, "We still need to hit Vido on the little fiefdom he has set up on Zorya."
"Pragia." Jack growled.
"The Gernsback." Jacob added.
"The Greybox." Kasumi spoke up.
"Sedonis." Garrus kept the disgust in his voice from turning to a full on snarl when he named his betrayer.
"My son." Thane said in disappointment.
"And I have a trial waiting for me back on the Flotilla." Tali finished the list of problems we needed to deal with.
"Not to mention any other ways we need to save the galaxy before we leap from the frying pan into the fire." I noted while thinking about when we would get the message about Project Overlord and the N7 missions we'd been handling between our various team building stops.
"Alright." Shepard nodded her head, her decision made, "We'll go to Sorya next."
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
JManM
JManM
Grunt has evolved from a dungeon boss to a raid boss, I've given up trying to figured out how to explain certain tech abilities beyond throwing my hands up and shouting TECHNOMANCY, and we have some foreshadowning of were the story is going next.
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