Hello there,
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Her Eternal Excellency, a Genshin Impact and ASOIAF crossover, Raiden Ei Reborn as Argella Durrandon, is 15 chapters ahead
DCU:Blacklist, a Raymond Reddington inspired OC SI using his knowledge for his own advantage, as well as the rest of the world, is 15 chapters ahead,
Geek's Guide to Thriving in a Low End Fantasy World, a Robert Baratheon OC SI in an AU, is 15 chapters ahead,
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—
Noveria
Traffic control in Noveria was just like the climate: cold and irritating.
"What a fun bunch. I think I'll take my next leave here." Joker sarcastically replied after the warning they received from the traffic control, threatening to have Normandy impounded if the Spectre's ID could not be verified.
Yeah, right.
Ashley and Liara were with him this time, and he made sure to give them their new weapons right now. Ashley got a rifle, while Liara got an SMG, which could fire scatter shots in its alternate fire mode to suppress the enemy.
"Oh, yeah." Ashley grinned like the devil, holding the laser rifle in her hands like it was the greatest thing in the history of mankind.
Liara had a more subdued reaction, but she too was impressed and grateful to have a weapon that made conventional defenses of Mass Effect physics null and void.
"That's far, oh shit, Shepard! You can't be here." Captain Matsuo realized the danger they were in at seeing the legendary Commander Shepard come.
"Why is that?"
"You bring destruction wherever you go; the corporations would lose it. You have to leave." She pleaded, though if the man didn't want to, there was nothing she could do.
The whole Hegemony couldn't stop Shepard; Noveria didn't stand a chance at all.
"I heard Matriarch Benezia was here. Hand her over to me, and I'll go without a fuss." Captain Matsuo began to call her higher-ups, informing them who the Spectre was and his reason for being here, and a heated argument took place between letting Shepard in and handing over Matriarch Benezia.
Matsuo stomped her foot in anger. "We lost contact with Peak 15, the special research lab where Matriarch Benezia went. My superiors just ask that you be mindful of any collateral damage." She pleaded, as her livelihood depended on this job, and she wasn't insured for Shepard-related damages.
"Sure." He wasn't in the habit of making random people's lives harder, though corporations were another matter.
Need to eliminate the competition, after all.
Inside, they were greeted by Gianna Parasini, Administrator Anoleis' assistant, who gave them a small welcome speech and explained a bit about Noveria's inner workings.
As for Benezia, she was still at Peak 15, and he needed special permission from Anoleis to access there.
Rolling his eyes, Shepard and the team took the elevator to the upper floors to go and find the Administrator, who was watching Shepard warily after having them admitted.
His snobby and holier-than-thou attitude so far made the Spectre consider just shooting him and being done with it.
"We can't just give you information about our clients like that, nor entrance to Peak 15."
"I guess you didn't hear the news. Benezia is wanted by the Council on terrorism charges. Anyone who protects her, regardless of the reason, will be an accessory to terrorism and treated accordingly. What will your remaining clients do if the Council decides to launch an investigation because of this?"
That broke Anoleis' arrogant look, and he silently handed over the pass to Peak 15.
He got sidelined by an Asari offering him work as a corporate spy, asking Shepard to talk to a human, which he did, by tipping him off about the Asari.
Heh.
A Turian, Lorik Qui'in, approached Shepard about giving his own pass for Peak 15 in return for assisting Lorik to retrieve the evidence he collected against Anoleis.
It wasn't exactly necessary, but if he could get that annoying Salarian arrested, it would be all for the better, so he agreed to help.
Taking the elevator to Lorik's office, two ERCS guards pointed guns at them before realizing their mistake and quickly lowered them, as did the remaining ones.
"Commander Shepard, what are you doing here?" A female human guard asked with a small voice.
"Here to retrieve evidence that will get Anoleis arrested." The human and the turian looked at each other, slowly nodding.
"Good luck." The guards quickly left, because if Anoleis was gone, there would be no one left to target them for their failure, and it's not like they could hope to harm Shepard.
The rest of the ERCS guards looked around, unsure whether to abandon their work or not.
Shepard pulled his pistol and pulled the trigger, leaving a scorch mark on the ceiling.
He growled, "Leave, now," which prompted them to run with their tails between their legs.
Finding the evidence was easy; he didn't understand how those morons could have missed it, but Sergeant Stirling, whom they had met along with Captain Matsuo, stood in their way while he was heading back to find Lorik.
"I don't think you're supposed to be in here, Shepard." Stirling stood before him, trying to be intimidating.
Trying.
"And you obviously weren't meant to be the bad cop, because you're as intimidating as a kitten. Now, unless you think dying for Anoleis is a good idea, get lost." Shepard had seen kittens scarier than this dirty cop.
She must have thought it was a good idea, because Stirling and her team pulled their weapons.
Liara and Ashley responded in kind. The SMG he had given to the Asari could fire about three hundred shots per minute, and she used it to kill several of the guards in the blink of an eye.
Ashley herself put a hole between Stirling's eyes before rolling left to avoid fire and putting down more guards.
Shepard didn't even bother to draw his gun, letting the girls have their piece and get used to the weapons.
—
He was about to hand the evidence disk to Lorik and be on his way, but Parasini found him first, asking about the noise upstairs, before revealing her real purpose, which was to investigate Anoleis. She convinced him to hand over the evidence and insisted he convince Lorik to testify, which he did.
Seeing the Salarian Administrator's outrage as he got arrested was well worth the time spent.
Things were going well enough before they had a surprise in the garage, in the form of several concealed Geth units revealing themselves in an ambush.
A stalker jumped from behind a crate, only to be shot in mid-air by Shepard. Destroyers, armed with rocket launchers, began to charge and were put down by Ashley and Liara.
Which was just in time, as Captain Matsuo arrived due to the weapons fire. "What the—What are these things? Fan out and secure the area. No one gets in or out!" She ordered, and the guards scrambled to obey.
"What did you do here, Commander?"
"The Geth ambushed us, quite ineffectively, might I add; we fought back; that's it."
"Geth? You expect me to—" Matsuo stopped halfway through her sentence, deciding to focus on what actually mattered. "Where did they come from?"
"Safe money says Benezia had them in those shipping containers she arrived with."
"I don't believe that. We did thorough scans of those. There were no power sources, no element zero masses. If Benezia-sama's containers are packed with these things, there are many more out there."
"Don't worry, Captain. You secure this place; I'll deal with the Geth."
"For three centuries, everyone has said, 'The Geth do not come out of the Veil.' What is happening out there?" She sighed, tired from all the shit that comes with being in the corporate world, "I must report to the Executive Board. If word gets out about loose Geth, there may be an investor panic." Matsuo left after that, while the guards secured the area to ensure no more Geth activity.
There was a Mako at the garage, but since it didn't have Shepard's upgrades, he chose to call for Joker to come down and drop the vehicle near them.
Two minutes later, it was parked right outside the exit.
—
Geth had naturally set checkpoints to stop anyone from approaching Peak 15, but before the Mako's superior firepower, they were inadequate.
A bridge ahead was filled with infantry units, but two sweeps of the laser beam turned them to scrap, and Shepard didn't even have to slow down.
Armatures, turrets, infantry units—none of them could do anything when their primary defense mechanism was rendered useless.
—
Peak 15
Shepard disembarked, followed by Ashley and Liara, and moved inside the garage of the complex, greeted by Geth and Krogan.
He responded first, shooting a drone before it could even fire, while Ashley targeted the Krogan at the back, burning a hole through its armor and head, killing one of the toughest creatures in the galaxy in a single shot.
Liara was keeping a Geth Juggernaut under control with the scatter shot, stopping the synthetic from using its rocket launcher. Another Krogan came out and met the same fate as the previous one, while Shepard dealt with the Geth that was shooting at them from higher ground, leaving only the Juggernaut, which Liara pulled out of cover with her biotics and pulled the trigger, the laser beams burning holes through it.
The sound of a VI came through the intercoms as it blared out warnings about the state of Peak 15 at regular intervals.
"We need to get the reactors back online." Liara's heart was pounding with anticipation as they got closer to finding her mother.
She didn't know what to do but was actually grateful to have the chance to confront her.
They came across two turrets, which were pointing the other way, prompting Liara to ask, "Why are the turrets facing the wrong way?" And Ashley explained, "They want to keep their people in as much as they want to keep others out."
Emergency power was still on, so the elevator was working, and Shepard pressed the button to head up to the higher levels.
Exiting the elevator, Shepard opened the door, only to meet weapons fire from Geth, which slammed into his shield harmlessly.
He shot the Geth responsible for it with his pistols, moving ahead to take out the remaining Geth before the girls even had the chance to.
The sound of metal groaning had them stand ready. "What was that?" Liara asked, trying to decipher the source of the sound.
"Wind? Animals? This place is in bad shape." Ashley said, though knowing their luck, it was definitely something harmful.
A giant brown bug, with four legs, two small arms, and two long tendrils with sharp claws at the end, came out of the door at the end of the higher platform, screeching with an ugly sound, followed by another of its kind, and rushed towards the team to attack.
Smaller, green bugs, much faster than their bigger counterparts, attempted to swarm them, but Liara's scatter shot and Shepard's microwave were effective in destroying them.
Liara launched a singularity to pull the bugs together before Shepard's biotics sent them flying to the wall. They fired, but the bugs had thick carapaces and took two shots each before going down.
"What the hell were those things?" Ashley asked, as none of her lessons in training mentioned any life form like these bugs.
Shepard kneeled down to inspect the bugs, but one of the bugs, still not quite dead, lashed its tendril with its sharp claw capable of killing any man on the spot.
Shepard caught the tendril, rolled his eyes, and shot both bugs until he was satisfied.
Ashley and Liara didn't even realize what happened until it was done, as the bug's tendril was too quick, to be just caught like that, and Shepard's reaction time was even faster.
"They are Rachni." He had a small wiki on his omni-tool, containing knowledge on every known species, extinct or not, and the scan was a hundred percent match for them.
"How? They were, or at least should have been, extinct after the Rachni Wars." Liara's studies on the Protheans showed a possible connection between the two, but since the Krogan had killed the last known Rachni Queen along with its nest, and the planets they lived on were toxic, she was unable to conduct any research.
"This must be the biological hazard the VI was talking about. What the hell is Benezia doing here?" Ashley knew the barebones about the Rachni Wars, just as many other sapients in the galaxy did, and while it was old history, the threat they possessed was great enough to affect the Citadel space fundamentally.
"Either they cloned the Rachni, or there is a queen somewhere in this complex." If they were clones, dealing with them would be simple; if there was a queen on the loose, then this would become a much bigger problem.
He was already hunting one vermin, and going after the Rachni, which could thrive in environments like Noveria quite easily, would take too much time.