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.
Bab 24: The Price of Revenge
Sorya was the kind of planet you like looking at pictures of, but being here kinda sucks unless you're in a sealed suit of power armor. How the hell 148,000,000 people live on a planet damn set on covering everything with fungus I will never know. The amount the population must spend on respiratory treatments has to take a big chunk out of however much they make digging up the various resources of this rich world.
Interestingly enough the Blue Suns mercenary gang run this world. The various corporations that settled on Sorya all pay the Blue Suns for security, and they obviously run a tight enough ship that no one tries to buck the system. Too bad for them Zaeed, Jack, and I landed in the jungle outside a foundry run directly by the "Co-Executive Officer" of the Blue Suns.
I didn't miss the irony that Vido launched a coup and very nearly assassinated my pal Zaeed over the issue of hiring batarians, and later had to surrender de facto leadership of the gang to one of those batarians landing him right back where he started, just with the blood of his partner on his hands and a bunch of terrorist scumbags working for him.
Normally we would sortie with the entire ground team, but not now. Zaeed refused to let the high road be taken on this mission, and so he demanded that only Jack and I come with him. Shepard only pushed back with token resistance. It was good that the Space Momma wasn't coming with us, the foundry was built of matchsticks and gasoline and luck, and luck ran out the moment our boots hit the gross spongy jungle soil.
I sparked up my Fortification, Tech Armor, and Devastator Mode abilities, absolutely humming with lethal power and Zaeed and Jack joined me in sparking up their own Tech Armor. I finally convinced the man to shell out and up his armor to full coverage and start running with the holographic protection. It's not like they had any tech abilities that the added protection would interfere with. Hell, the technomancy actually increased Jack's biotic damage. For a steep credit investment the quarian kid and I hooked Zaeed and Jack up with a strong enough power supply and the emitters to run both tech armor and whatever ammo mutation struck their fancy.
Armed to the teeth, we started our trek through the jungle. Zaeed tapped into the Blue Sun communications, giving us the heads up that our drop off was spotted and that the mercs were sweeping the jungle for us. It wouldn't be hard to spot the glowing orange trio approaching.
We found leavings from an execution not far from our first contact with the enemy. The Suns didn't need to prove they were heartless bastards to make us feel good about killing them all, we'd have done that gratis with a grin.
Turns out that supersizing and supercharging a Revenant Machine Gun has explosive results. Every missed shot tore up dirt and foliage like a rock saw trencher and the rounds that hit tore people to pieces. Blowing people in half with my machine gun was pretty dope.
Zaeed used the opportunity of me pinning everyone with an ounce of self preservation down to find good positions to engage the enemy with his sniper rifle augmented with disruptor ammo to tear through the shielding common among the well off mercenaries.
Jack just had fun throwing people around with her mind, a woman of simple pleasures.
As we were extending a retractable bridge to cross a ravine separating us from our target, Zaeed's comm unit alerted us to the enemy amassing in the courtyard of the foundry.
"You want me to blow this Vido ass away?" I asked the veteran merc with a massive axe to grind.
"Absolutely not." Zaeed denied, "I want Vido to fucking suffer."
"I can make that happen old timer." Jack offered.
"No doubt, ya crazy bitch." Zaeed shook his head, "Just let me handle the guy myself. Every other free range asshole is open season."
We didn't encounter any resistance till we opened the gate to the courtyard and found Vido and his goons camped out on the second level pointing their guns at us.
Oh no, they have the high ground.
I couldn't help but belly laugh.
"You think something is funny, cunt?" the trumped up accountant shouted at me.
I tried to answer, but broke out in even more laughter every time I tried.
"I'll tell you what's funny you fucking dipshit!" Zaeed yelled, "It's you thinking you can stop us with so few men!"
Zaeed started the shootout by clipping the gas lines that ran along the second level, and his next volley set them off, killing the guys next to it and knocking the rest off their asses, giving Zaeed the time to easily make it over to some cover before they started shooting back at us. I signaled Jack to cool her heels behind me while Zaeed started wailing on a valve, his strikes eventually causing a chain reaction that killed all the ass hats on the second level - but not Vido as the prick started fleeing the moment he got up from the initial blast - and opened up the next gate giving us proper access to the facility, a facility completely on fire.
Remember when I said they built this place out of matchsticks and gasoline?
Some rando civie came out screaming about how they couldn't get to the shut off valves and how we needed to help or all the workers would die. Did we look like fucking firefighters? We took off in pursuit of Vido without any need for conversation while the guy screamed, 'No! No!' until an explosion took him out.
Apparently the Blue Suns have a killer life insurance policy, because they kept throwing themselves into the meat grinder in a burning building. It was honestly a little overwhelming how many of them kept coming out of every nook and cranny as we moved across the foundry.
In what some might call a moment of full retard, I popped an overload on a folded up YMIR mech place between us and our target and just started shooting it with a fresh clip from my machine gun, advancing forward into it's own machine gun fire. By the time I got into its face I'd shot its gun arm off and the whole unit was smoking and sparking something fierce.
With a grin I got behind it as it tried turning to keep me in its line of sights on its battered servos. I launched a front kick to its chassis while screaming "I AM KROGAN!" sending the big mech over the guard rail and down the thirty foot drop into the basement level below.
"That was pretty badass, kid." Zaeed told me as we exited the burning building and saw Vido limping to the off site helipad, "Now watch the master at work."
Zaeed got Vido's attention with a shot across the bow, then shot the dickhead in the thigh preventing his escape. Vido collapsed onto the pavement, his blood mixing with all the spilled fuel leaking from a poorly maintained tank. He begged for his life offering anything Zaeed wanted to spare him.
"I want you to burn." Zaeed growled while ejecting his heated up thermal clip and tossing it onto the shining fuel which lit up in a blazing ring that consumed Vido as our guy turned and walked away, not even thinking to look at the explosion.
"He is so fucking cool." I whispered to Jack.
"Fuck yeah he is." she whispered back.
My girl just fucking gets me, man.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
JManM
JManM
I got a twitch in my fingers telling me to release more chapters. The events of Mass Effect 2 are going to play out quicker than you think as Grunt will have no participation in the loyalty missions of Thane, Garrus, and Kasumi, Project Overlord, or the Arrival.
We have a three week vacation on the Citadel coming up next while Shepard handles the trio of loyalty missions in that region, then we have Pragia, the Gernsback, and Tali's trial before the Derelict Reaper, The Heratics, and the Suicide Mission. The Lair of the Shadow Broker is going to be the climax of the story, as the events of ME3 rely way to much on people being stupid and Shepard getting railroaded in cutscenes.
I find that to be such a damn shame considering how ME2 is such a truimph start to finish. At least it served as foreshadowing for how pathetic the lead of of Andromeda was going to be. I've given up on Bioware so hard that I can't even feel excited for ME4. Chances are Shepard is going to be some queer parapalegic who had a stroke so we can really feel like our protagonists are all worthless.
The next story will be Dragon Age SI: Letho of Highever. Not a single person voted for the Harry Potter and Persona 5 fics. Going to have a good time in that world.
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