Bab 31: Christmas Time is Once a Year
"Come on. Let's move!" Jack urged after she put up a shimmering shield around us to keep out the fist sized seeker drones swarming constantly through this darkened area of the collector station. It wouldn't stop anything small as bullets out or slow moving as a person, but for the constantly moving bug shaped robots it was just right.
We moved through an area that must be used for storing materials, because I honestly can't imagine why the collectors would purposefully set up their station for perfect cover shooting gameplay. Either way a flight of bug men flew in front of us to stall our progress, one foolishly stopping to erupt into the Harbinger 'Assuming Direct Control' glow. I tore him to pieces with superheated machine gun fire for his trouble, having switched to incendiary ammunition after Jack could no longer broadcast her warp mutation.
After tearing through the weakly manned collector squad we hit a small wave of husks, followed by another team of collectors and would you color me surprised, another wave of husks. The fact that the collectors weren't hammering our smaller team with all they had to stop us just goes to show the collectors inability to think tactically and the reapers general disregard for lesser beings. Instead they had proportioned their forces to match ours, likely falling for the false logic that we would place more people on the more pressing objective. They showed a distinct inability to think and learn considering the most important objective in our last assault was carried out by an individual.
"Fuck it was a good thing we bought this armor that helps power my barriers." Jack commented as she jogged along, still strong despite close to five minutes of non-stop under assault barrier usage.
We quickly joged down the last stretch to the literal light at the end of the tunnel exit to this depressing and kinda wet looking section of the station. As a final fuck you Jack pulled her barrier into an attack that sent all the bug men and their drones flying up the ramp we just descended.
Closing a blast door behind us I couldn't help but wonder if my memory of this section of the mission was faulty or if it really was such a quick jaunt. Either way we got the second blast door in the room open and allowed the rest of the squad into the chamber before closing it again to buy us some breathing room.
EDI let us know that we needed to take a nearby mobile platform to get to where we needed to go to plant the big ass bomb strapped to my back. The only problem being the massing of collectors hacking through the blast wall hoping to pincer us between them and whatever defense forces awaited us at the center of the station.
"Jack," Shepard asked our fellow Spectre, "are you up for finishing this off with us?"
"Miss my man's first genocide?" Jack rhetorically asked, "Not for anything."
"Alright." The Commander confirmed while we climbed up onto the hexagonal mobile platform the collectors seemed to have such a hard on for.
Zhaeed handed a multi-rocket launcher up to Jack.
"Just in case you need something extra dead." he chuckled.
"Good call." I told him as Jack and I stood next to Shepard.
"The collector, the reapers -- they aren't a threat to us. They are a threat to everything -- everyone. Those are the lives we are fighting for. That's the scale." Shepard began her rally speech, "It's been a long journey, and no one is coming out without scars. But it all comes down to this moment. We win or lose it all in the next few minutes. Make me proud. Make yourselves proud."
"We'll do our best." Miranda answered the call to arms, "Good luck, Shepard."
I activated our lift and chuckled, "Just three Spectres off saving the galaxy."
"Please stop reminding me that you two are Spectres." Space Momma pouted.
"Don't like the idea that we are the law?" Jack teased.
"You two wouldn't know the law if it came down from the heaven's on stone tablets." Shepard disparaged our status as members of the highest law enforcement agency in the galaxy, "Or respect it."
"We are known to violate the statutes of the Council, and not a few of the laws of the Almighty." I laughed at our blatant outlaw ways.
"It's what makes us such perfect crime fighters." Jack assured the moody Commander, "We can smell guns and drugs a mile away."
Our playful ribbing of the uptight do gooder came to an end when the collectors locked our platform down with another, the hexagonal edges locking up. It really showed just how many collectors we had killed considering the lack of personnel arriving on the inbound platforms to combat us. A few brief firefights later and we disconnected the last platform to arrive and continued on our way.
We arrived at the womb of the reaper, the malformed bio-synthetic construct in the shape of a skeletal human upper body.
Shepard and Edi had a fascinating conversation about the possible how's and why's of this thing while I charged the Cain - the sound system I placed on it began playing a song, 'Christmas time is once a year, every critter hold it dear' - and shot the damn thing in the eye, blowing the internals of its head to bits and shattering the four feeder tubes holding it up and it fell into the cavernous chamber floor.
Fortunately the camera's on my helmet have incredible low light capabilities and I was able to fire my second Cain shot at it's head again before I consumed all my heavy weapon ammo. I then fired all three volleys of my incendiary homing grenades at it before asking Jack for her rocket launcher, which I also emptied firing upon the broken and burning pieces of the reaper fetus.
"Are you fucking done, Grunt?" Shepard asked unamused by my violent interruption to her conversation with the Normandy's AI.
"Unless you want to give me your grenade launcher, I am pretty sure this abortion is done." I told her.
"Please warn me next time you want to abort a reaper." Shepard ordered petulantly.
"Can't." I denied, "It would give away the element of surprise."
"Whatever." Shepard groaned because of her adolescent lizard son's antics, "Lets just set the bomb and get out of here."
Unlike in the game -where the collector station had a convenient self destruct system in place - we had to lug our own WMD to this spot and set it up. After a few seconds working the device, a holo of the Illusive Man lit up off a projector on the bomb.
"Oh no." I groaned, "Our bomb has bomb cancer."
The smooth voice of Martin Sheen tried to convince Shepard to convert the explosive into a radiation pulse to kill the collectors and keep the base intact for research, but Shepard wasn't hearing any of that bullshit and armed the device to destroy the base.
Leaving the collector base turned out to be just as much a fight as entering it, but we convened with the delaying team and fought our way out, Shepard's speech about shooting and blowing stuff up once again on full display. We watched the collector base explode using monitors on the Normandy, wiping out the collectors without losing a single person.
"So much for this being a suicide mission." I complained while everyone celebrated, "Even Jacob survived. Couldn't the collectors even do me one fucking favor before we turned them into space dust. Fucking stingy bastards."
"Don't be so down, babe." Jack grinned, "We need you up and at'em for the post genocide four way."
Seeing her walk away to the elevator where Miranda Lawson and Tali Zorah waited pushed any thoughts besides those needed to get me into the zone far away from my mind. Fuck the collectors and the reapers. This is my Super Bowl.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
JManM
JManM So, the Long Walk was disappointing as hell. It's got its own wiki section, and when I was watching a let's play of it the whole section was six minutes start to finish. I remembered it being longer from when I played though it as a teenager.
Anyway the Collectors are finished, and I am not rezing them for a multiplayer DLC in ME3. Those fuckers are gone.
It was an incredible ego stroke that the only requests I got when I asked if anyone wanted anything more from the story was for graphic sex scenes and more Tali screen time.
Only one of those had a chance of happening and unfortunately for the guy who requested it, Tali won't be getting more screen time. She will be leaving the Normandy alongside a slew of other characters next chapter and Grunt and Jack are going to be doing their own thing for most of ME3.
On the upside, Lair of the Shadow Broker is next. I have been waiting for this yahg fight since the start of the story. In the game it fucking sucked. We have the biggest, strongest, meanest sentient species in the galaxy getting smacked around by a human. A cyborg admitadly, but a human that is at least four hundred kilos lighter than him. Fuck that.
I'm going watch Colosus vs Juggernaut from Deadpool 2 to prep for it.
Bab 32: Lair of the Shadow Broker PT 1
Watching the team leave one after another during the months following our victory over the collectors hurt me more than I wanted to admit, and I am not just saying that because each departure pressured me more and more to return to Tuchanka and meet my kids.
How was I to know that a quarter of the eggs I fertilized would survive?
That's eighty damn kids.
It's not like I could deny them either. Okeer artificially set all my traits to dominant so all the kids look like my clones.
On top of that, Wrex generously accepted every petitioner that showed up looking to join Gatatog while I was gone. I had 300 warriors when I took over after introducing Unvenk's brain to krogan concrete. Now I have over 3000. Eighty kids and 3000 warriors. That is a lot of responsibility for a guy living in his mother's basement.
Fortunately my work with Mordin gave me an excuse every time someone messaged me to come back to that barren wasteland of a home world. Turns out that everyone's favorite McGuffin/Mary Stu from ME3 Eve wasn't necessary to beat the Genophage. I had the goods in my genes already with the whole distilled Shiagur bloodline. I didn't possess the innate immunity to the Genophage that made Shiagur famous in the first place, just a solid resistance to it, but over time that resistance increased more and more and in just over a year I would be completely immune to the phage. It was more than enough for Mordin to forge a cure.
The only problem now was that Mordin was done. He completed the Genophage cure and the ovulation adjustment in two months.
Without my participation in Mordin's experiments, my stay on the Normandy was turning into more and more of a dick move, and not a big dick move - a mangy dick move.
Zaeed had left for his next pay day, Katsumi for her next heist, Thane to spend more time with his son, Samara to continue her obligations as a justicar, Tali was off to become a quarian Admiral, and we had lost Jacob somewhere or he had just fucked off when I wasn't paying him any attention. Which was always.
Technically Jack and I were staying busy doing Spectre missions with the Commander, but if this whole Shadow Broker thing doesn't tee off soon I'll have to stop putting off the other aspects of my life.
Thankfully, the author of my life delivered when the Commander informed us we were bound to Illium to deliver some information to Liara T'soni about the Shadow Broker's recent purchases. Chief Gatatog Grunt vs Nameless Yahg 2185 is on people.
For me and Jack the action started when we stepped off the taxi at Liara's apartment. The area was cordoned off by Illium's police because someone had kindly fired some sniper rounds through Liara's window. Fortunately for us our fellow Spectre Tela Vasir was here to dismiss them.
"You can't do that." The officer weakly complained.
"Spectres bitch, now take a hike." I grunted at the whiny officer.
"Tela Vasir, Special Tactics and Recon." The asari in heavy blue and white armor introduced herself.
"You too, huh?" The Commander mused, "I'm sure four Spectres walking into a bar is the start of a good joke somewhere."
"I am glad your status was reinstated." Tela smiled at Shepard, "You are one of our most famous operatives. Might even get you to sign my chest plate. I assume you had business with your friend this evening, Commander?"
"Pleasure actually." I interrupted, "Was planning to do a four way around the world, but classy. Ya know? Then some dick head decided to ruin it by shooting up the place. Life just doesn't let up sometimes."
Shepard was savvy enough to take the hint and not tell the stranger everything we had going on with our plans to murk the Broker.
"Well, one part of your four way has vanished," Tela looked unamused by my bullshit, "and I haven't found anything useful for tracking her down yet. You know T'soni better than I do. Where would she have hidden her backups?"
That right there is a slip up that we should have been able to call out in the game, but this is real life and now all of us are on the same page on Vasir. We split up to check the crime scene and Shepard quietly noticed a little clue left by T'soni to check her prothean artifacts and relics. I found the data disk left by her quickly, but couldn't access it without using Liara's system and allowing Tela to overhear the recorded call on it.
Decisions decisions. On one hand endanger a bunch of people by allowing Tela to message the Broker's forces, on the other lose the chance to choke a yahg to death without going to their home world and hunting one like a fucking scumbag poacher. The choice was graciously taken from me when the Commander took the disk from my hand and inserted it into Liara's computer.
I am sure all the people that are going to die in the bombing are going to be totally cool with it after they find out they died to bring about my dream fight.
The taxi Jack and I took to the office building Liara's contact worked at showed up slower than the car Shepard and Vasir took, meaning we both missed the bombing and Tela taking off for the roof.
"Damn it." I cursed as we caught up to Shepard at the entrance of the building before radioing Garrus back on the Normandy, "Garrus, lock the ship up tight and get ready for some action. The Broker is going scorched earth on us."
"Roger that." Garrus confirmed my order.
The three of us pressed into the building and our eyes were treated to the sight of wounded and terrified civies, now victims of the Shadow Broker and his goons.
"What tipped you off to Vasir?" Shepard asked while we moved through the lobby.
"The fact that she is a Spectre." I answered.
"I don't follow." the Commander requested clarification
"The Broker is well known for currying favor with Spectres. He sends them big tips, provides them with key information, and in return the Spectres look the other way on his operations and return the favors when he calls on them."
"And right when an enemy of his gets her hands on crucial information about him a Spectre shows up on her doorstep." the Commander connected the dots, "She is responsible for all this."
Any further conversation cut off as a flash grenade landed by our feet.
The biggest difference between the Shadow Broker's forces and the more common mercs were their high tech flash grenades that blinded targets and pop shields. I have a helmet that uses high tech cameras that filter out high intensity light and shields far to massive to pop using such low power methods, so when the Broker's agents came out shooting they were greeted with automatic shotgun fire in response, tearing the cutthroats to pieces.
My capacity to no sell their biggest weapon added to our vast general superiority saw us clearing our way up the building quickly despite the shocking numbers arrayed against us. I'd give them the individual basis edge over the collectors, but after the stress testing we underwent on the Suicide Mission, these guys just didn't have enough fire power to stop us.
We got to the third floor in time to see Tela drop an agent from behind by pressing her gun against his neck, thus bypassing his personal shielding.
"Damn it, if I had been a few seconds faster, I could have stopped them." Tela acted her disappointment out poorly.
"Yeah, who could have seen this coming." I deadpanned, "We are at a rare moment, Tela."
"Is that so?" She asked while backing away from us.
"It is." I confirmed, "It's a rare moment where you can gracefully change horses midstream."
"I don't think I know that expression." Tela shook her head.
"Means hand over the fucking data and we won't kill you." I growled and leveled my gun at her.
"I might still kill her." Liara spoke up from her hidden position as she pointed her automatic pistol at the asari Spectre.
"You'd like that wouldn't you." Tela said before she screamed and used her biotic power to break the window nearby and fling it at us, "You pureblood bitch!"
Liara and Jack had a barrier over us in a heartbeat and after the glass all fell Shepard tackled Vasir off the third floor down to the lobby.
Tela used her biotics to glide down safely and the Commander broke her fall with her neck.
"Head first?" I shook my head, "Why?"
Liara glided down to pursue the fleeing Spectre and I looked at Jack.
"Can you do that for us?" I asked the wife.
"Hell yeah!" She shouted while she jumped into my arms for a princess carry.
"Krogan Airdrop!" I yelled as I jumped off the ledge.
Jack used the blue glowing powers of her mind to land us safely and we took off with the Commander who gamely shook off the fatal fall like it was nothing.
A few agents tried to slow our pursuit with their bodies but failed miserably. It didn't stop Tela from hauling ass and taking off in her hover car. Liara and Shepard pursued in taxi they hijacked while Jack and I hotwired one of the parked cars and took off after them with my lovely wife doing her best Vin Diesel impersonation as she put the pedal to the metal.
"Babe," I got her barest attention, "what's most important in life?"
"Family." she answered in a deep voice and we both laughed our asses off in hot pursuit of Vasir.
"Damn, this pursuit is so hot." Jack commented when we saw a huge freighter wipe out in front of Shepard's taxi, the Commander pulling some jedi bullshit to evade where as we easily scooted over it.
"Get her Space Momma!" I shouted when they began clashing the sides of their vehicles against each other and cheered when Vasir's car ate shit into a building.
When we all landed we followed the purple trail of blood from her car to the nearby restaurant. The asari Spectre took a hostage we all totally cared about not killing.
While Space Momma tried talking Vasir down, Jack caught my attention.
"Doesn't this place look familiar?" She told me and I realized we were down the street from Pedro's.
"Live for the beef!" Nakmor Draug shouted as he came down the walkway faster than an NFL linebacker, tackling Vasir to the ground.
"Die for the beef!" I yelled as I joined him in raining punches on the downed asari.
She tried to throw us back with a biotic explosion, but it slid over our shields and we kept on wailing on her till her frankly absurd barrier dropped and we beat her a bit more for good measure.
"You picked the wrong team bitch." I shouted as I kicked her over to the nearby planter box.
Liara got the data she was looking for and I got to beat ass with my best friend. Wins all around.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
JManM
JManM
Next chapter is the end of ME2 and the end of me following cannon. Fuck the events of ME3 and fuck the writers who were so hamfisted in trying to give Shepard PTSD. That kid was more annoying than Anakin in the first prequel.
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