Mass Effect fic (Patreon)

This has been a LOOOOOOOONG time coming.

So, I started this project with a few friends with the greatest of intentions, and that was for the ending of the trilogy to go fuck itself with a goddamn cactus.

No other series, not Naruto, not current MHA, NOTHING crushed me quite as badly as the ending of Mass Effect 3. Was the game leading up to that moment perfect? No, absolutely not. But to end it like THAT?! Mass Effect 2 was my most replayed game ever. I never touched 3 again past that first playthrough. Not even to see that *cough* “fixes” they uploaded after all the outrage. I played the damn multiplayer more than I played the campaign. Yeah, you know, the thing we all wished they hadn’t wasted time and resources on when they revealed it. It was the only fucking saving grace.

So, in case it wasn’t already abundantly clear, and to the tune of that hilarious scene in Megas XLR:

*Flips AU switch*

*Presses AU Button*

*SLAMS FIST on the “I SAID FUCKING AU” button*

-]|[-

“Lieutenant!”

Staff Lieutenant John Shepard looked away from his PDA, looking towards the Service Chief saluting him, “At ease, Johnson.” He made a point of knowing all of those under his command.

“Sir!” Johnson relaxed, “We have orders. The ship is diverting to the new colony of Akuze.”

“Akuze?” Shepard furrowed his brows in confusion, “What in the world are we heading over there for?”

“That’s just it… we don’t know.” Johnson looked grim, “But they’re telling us it’ll likely be boots on the ground. The colony has gone dark. We’ve lost all contact with the pioneer team.”

Shepard’s gaze darkened, “Pirates? We know the Batarians are always testing the waters. Seeing if they can claw back anything they lost to us in the war. Could also be mercenaries trying to make a big name for themselves.”

Johnson pursed his lips, “Frankly sir, we’re flying in blind. I doubt it’s the Batarians. Too far from their usual haunts. It’s also not that close to the Terminus Systems either.” He displayed the location of the system on his own PDA.

Shepard considered the details for a moment, before nodding, “What’s our ETA?”

“Twelve hours, sir.”

“Good. Have the squad ready to drop at a moment’s notice.”

“Sir!” Johnson snapped off a salute, and left the room.

Shepard stood and walked to look out of his window, where the stars were whizzing by so quickly they looked more like flashes than dots. Humanity had come a long way from home. In moments like these, he couldn’t help but feel like they had spread too far, too quickly.

Of course, he couldn’t exactly blame his species for wanting to spread out and diversify as much as possible. Not after the inglorious return of the Roaring Twenties. Looking away from the window, he walked over to his personal armory and started checking his gear. It never hurt to be thorough.

-]|[-

Late in the year 2024, disaster struck humanity. Potent and nearly unstoppable, bioengineered variants of Anthrax stolen from the thought-safe ruins of Aralsk 7 were used in a series of terror attacks. After two years of war in Ukraine, COVID, worldwide natural disasters, constant pressure and ‘military exercises’ by China towards Taiwan, and rockets periodically sent from North Korea over Japan, tensions had nearly been boiling over. With the deaths of several world leaders and tens of thousands of their people, the era of prosperity ended. Like a string stretched too far, world peace snapped. In 2025, the nuclear clock struck twelve, and for the second time in human history, nuclear weapons were used in anger.

When the dust settled on the Roaring Twenties, the world was a very different place. The most powerful of the pre-Roar superpowers were shattered. Half of Russia was an irradiated wasteland, the southern USA and northern Mexico destroyed, China and India cracked into dozens of nation states…

It was a humanitarian and ecological disaster of untold proportions, and that was before the nuclear winter kicked in. Famine, extreme poverty, nuclear fallout, and disease were rampant. Areas which had once been home to tens of millions were abandoned as unlivable. What had once been a booming population of eight billion had been reduced to under one.

It was something that couldn’t continue. Something that could never happen again. They were going to end their race if something didn’t change, if they even managed to survive what they had wrought on themselves.

It took a near extinction to happen, but finally, the world was united, forming a new World Government. It was a difficult transition, with so many different cultures and peoples, but necessity won out and the Terran Federation was born. A new bill of rights was drafted, and a constitution signed by all parties in the world, with the most important condition being the complete disarmament and destruction of all nuclear weapons worldwide. The surviving countries almost unanimously voted to sign, and the few that didn’t were completely isolated from all forms of global relations until they did so.

With a new united government in place, the first priority was set: fixing the damn mess they had created. Education was given the highest priority, with heavy emphasis given to the sciences. Genetic Engineering, automation, and AI development led the way to the future. Concepts such as vertical farming, which had been in active development and in limited use even before the disaster, were almost aggressively pursued, and perfected. Concepts which had been far too heavily regulated for reasons of ‘playing god’ were once more embraced out of sheer necessity. Stem Cell research was heavily funded, and applied to what few techniques already existed for lab-grown meats, among other things.

With the food situation on the mend, the hope was that things would improve. That they could truly start to rebuild. And then they realized that the fallout had spread far more insidiously than had been projected. Birth rates declined. Stillborn rates increased. Cancer rates skyrocketed. With no other choice, Pandora’s Box was opened. The techniques which had been put to creating hardier and more nutritious crops were now put to saving their race.

Radiation Resistance was the first ‘extra’ successfully added to the human genome. The next included improvements to the immune system. Genetic diseases were completely eliminated. And as the techniques were perfected and evolved, it became clear that Pandora’s Box was one that couldn’t be shut.

By 2042, humanity started being born stronger, faster, and smarter. Immortal Telomeres kept people alive and young for longer. They needed less food for more energy. Injuries which would have been catastrophic a mere twenty years ago could now be healed completely, even in those who had been born before augmentation had been widely adopted. Graduation ages shrunk, with students capable of learning faster and retaining more information.

Slowly, very slowly, they had managed to save their race. The birth rates had stopped declining. The population had stopped shrinking. An estimated three hundred million people left alive was a terrifying number to comprehend. But they had done it. The population stabilized, and once it had stabilized, it started to explode once more.

Decontamination efforts exploded, with new radiation scrubbers created. Nanomachines based off of the bacteria Geobacter started cleaning up the devastated areas of the world, opening them up for cleanup and allowing people to rebuild.

And so, a generation of scholars and scientists much brighter than the ones that had come before them turned to the stars. By 2069, ground broke on the first permanent moon base, on the 100thanniversary of the first moon landing. The primitive VIs people had erroneously called AIs truly started to live up to their names, and humanity collectively held its breath for a moment. Thankfully, Skynet remained in the realm of science fiction, and the world moved on. Fusion was finally cracked, and reactors started being built worldwide, solving many of the remaining energy issues. Better methods for storing energy quickly followed, and it was clear that the Technological Revolution was here to stay.

Fusion powered spacecraft were capable of flying further, faster, and had less reliance on launch windows and could even carry more cargo, not needing to waste so much space on heavy chemical fuel. A mere year after the beginning of the construction of the first moon base, the first humans touched the surface of Mars. By 2075, the first settlement on their neighboring planet was established. The year before the turn of the century, construction of the first modern space station began around the orbit of Pluto.

In 2105, traces of an unknown element were discovered on Mars. A mere month later, those traces led humanity to a small cache of highly advanced alien technology hidden deep beneath the surface of Mars on the south polar region of Promethei Planum, and humanity suffered a collective brain freeze.

They were not alone. Finally, after centuries of imagining there was life out there, proof of it had been discovered. And not just basic life, but intelligent life, which had been in their very own backyard and had beaten them to interstellar travel and colonization by tens of thousands of years. The entire world was deadlocked for weeks after the discovery. The cache revealed wonders untold, about Element Zero, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, faster-than-light travel, and even the fact that Pluto’s moon Charon was no moon at all.

The more they learned, the more concerned and suspicious humanity became. Decades of science fiction and more importantly, millennia of a tribal mentality did not go away quickly. The fact that the united government had succeeded at all was a miracle only the threat of extinction could have brought about. Mars had been abandoned by these ‘Protheans,’ and the fact that the red planet had been chosen at all was confusing. After all, Earth was by far the most habitable world in the system. Why else would they not have found even primitive organisms anywhere else?

And then there was the matter of the technology. The ‘Mass Effect’ was truly wondrous and would readily apply to many current technologies, and yet outside of the Mass Relay hidden inside Charon, the FTL was awful. They weren’t even capable of a single lightyear in a day, and had a theoretical limit somewhere in the mid-twenties and the low thirties in lightyears per day. Any travel a significant distance from any Mass Relays would be prohibitively difficult and slow, and that was nothing compared to what was considered the fatal flaw of the technology. The buildup of electrical charge that needed to be discharged to keep from killing all of the crewmembers was frankly not something they were interested in pursuing.

In the end, displaying a caution that would have utterly confounded any human from any decade prior to the Roaring Twenties, humanity did not jump on the new technology. Oh, they certainly made use of it, opening up the Solar System for exploration, and enhancing construction techniques and material sciences by several decades, but they did not allow any travel anywhere near Charon.

No one was willing to risk finding aggressive, genocidal aliens on the other side of a Mass Relay. Not without being sure they could defend themselves and humanity. No one WANTED to believe that ET would want to destroy them, but no one was willing to bet on it. “Speak softly and carry a big stick” was the mantra adopted, and that meant they needed to develop the big stick first.

The very limited quantities of Eezo in the solar system was painful, but they were able to make use of the material. With launch into space now a sinch, shipyards were built and began to churn out gargantuan mining vessels at a slow but steady clip. These ships made their way into the asteroid belts, ending the earth’s reliance on its own natural resources. Several surviving industries were unhappy at the collapses of their profits, and no one shed a single tear for any of them. With rare minerals no longer rare, heavy experimentation began, utilizing the mass effect to create stronger and stronger materials, with the weight reduction abilities of Eezo allowing the breaking of the square-cube law.

With enough mining ships built, they then turned to using those materials to building scientific facilities that were simply ludicrous to even consider building on earth. The Large Hadron Collider was the biggest and most powerful particle accelerator ever built, with other bigger and more powerful accelerators being destroyed before completion or simply never built due to the turmoil of the 2020s. It had a radius of nearly 4.3 kilometers.

The one humanity built in orbit around Ganymede, protected by the gravity well of Jupiter, and powered by multiple very powerful fusion reactors had a radius of 500 kilometers. And with it and others, the production of usable quantities of antimatter was no longer a pipe dream. The discoveries made by the scientists living in Jupiter’s orbit on these machines finally unlocked proper FTL travel.

Compared to the theoretical limit of the Mass-Effect-based drive they had found on Mars, the 9 Lightyears per day of their Warp Drive was still slow. But for their very first effort, and compared to the absolutely awful ‘current application’ of 0.14 lights per day of the only Mass Effect Drive they were capable of building?

It was absolutely fantastic. Finally, the stars were theirs to explore. The Warp Drive began production, and everything from Exploratory Vessels to Warships and Capital Ships began being built with antimatter engines in mind, allowing them to utilize the Warp Drive. Each exploration group contained a small number of vessels, with a few lightly armed science ships protected by heavily armed warships.

With the stars now open to them, Humanity set out to find new homes.

-]|[-

Shepard had his helmet under his arm as he walked towards the ship’s drop bay. For a smaller ship like the one he was currently serving on, a Seraph Class Frigate, there weren’t many of them. Just enough for him and a squad of nine to drop.

Of course, quality was a quantity all of its own. “Cora, have we heard anything from the surface?”

“No, Lieutenant.” Cora Harper, his second in command and a 2ndLieutenant, snapped off a salute. Both a fellow Biotic and a fellow graduate of the N7 program, there were few he’d trust to have his back as much as her. “No contact whatsoever. Long range scanners are picking up heat emissions, but they’re of the mechanical variety. As though the equipment was left running, but the pioneers….” She let out a sigh, “It’s like they all just vanished.”

“I don’t understand.” Johnson was rubbing his chin, “Even if they were attacked, they would have gotten something off. A warning.” He looked at his PDA, “But there’s no ships anywhere. No raging fires we can detect, or even smoldering ones.”

Cora smirked, “Well, I suppose command was hoping to test these new armor platforms.” She gestured to herself, putting the new joint Human-Quarian project on full display. It was a set of armor developed with the full power of Quarian Engineering and Human Cybernetics and ingenuity.

“I’m fairly certain this isn’t the kind of test they were hoping for.” Shepard said dryly. “Not unless whoever is down there has a whole lot of bullets and a bad attitude.” She quirked a grin, shaking her head. He then raised his voice, “Attention!” The entire drop squad assembled and snapped to attention. He looked at each of them, noting Cora, and Johnson in particular. “We’re going planetside to investigate the potential disappearance of the colonists. It is my hope that this is just some sort of complete failure of the comms system. In the event it is not, keep vigilant. Watch each other’s backs. There’s going to be a lot of foliage and caves for things to hide in. Any questions?”

“No Sir!” His team belted out.

“Then get to your pods.” Shepard commanded, slipping his helmet on, and making his way to his own pod.

He rolled his eyes as he heard Cora complain that “Of course it had to be a jungle world.”

“Would you prefer a desert where the air hurts to breathe?” He called out as he stepped in the pod. He didn’t hear her answering call as the pod shut, sealing him in.

“We’re prepared and in position, Lieutenant.” The deployment officer confirmed.

“Drop.” Shepard declared, and braced himself. The pods may have had inertial dampeners, but the initial fall from the ship was always a doozy. They accelerated so fast that the G’s would have turned them to jelly if not for the centuries of technological advancement. Even still, Shepard felt that familiar drop in his stomach. The ten pods rapidly fell towards the planet, and started burning up once they started hitting the atmosphere. The turbulence was a bit rough, but he’d been through worse. Once they were a couple thousand meters above ground, the drag chutes deployed, slowing the pods down.

These things had been terrifying when he had first joined the military, but there hadn’t been a failure in over a decade. And thankfully, none of their pods malfunctioned. Fifty meters above ground, the rocket thrusters fired, slowing their descent for a relatively soft landing. Each impact was still more than enough to generate some very minor rumbling. The doors blew off, revealing where they were.

The squad had landed fairly close to each other, but still fairly spread out in the grand scheme of things. He, Cora, and Cooper had landed in the middle of the small colony. Barely anything had even been built. Johnson, Miyamoto, Chen, and Abara had landed in the outskirts, and DaSilva, Costa, and Volkov had landed in the nearby forest at the other end of the compound.

“Cooper, join with the rest of the squad and search the buildings. DaSilva, Costa, Volkov, get out of the forest. Cora, with me. Let’s get a better vantage!”

“Sir!” The squad called out in response, hurrying to their tasks.

Shepard looked up at the tallest structure, bent his knees, and then purple started to tinge his vision. He was engulfed in Biotic power and in a blink, was a hundred feet in the air. Another push with his Biotics had him flying forward and landing lightly on the roof. A purple flash to his left revealed Cora, and she also landed next to him.

“This place is a ghost town.” Cora growled, “What the hell happened here?”

He furrowed his brows, before pointing, “Look there. The dirt is disturbed.”

She frowned, “It looks… dug up? Why would they be doing that in the middle of the compound?”

“Hmm…” He pressed on his helmet, zooming in. He slowly turned his head, following the furrows of dirt, “It just stops randomly. Both directions.” He zoomed out, and paced around the roof, looking in various directions.

“There’s another trench in this direction, Lieutenant. I can see a large mound of it as well.” Cora yelled at him, doing the same.

“And another.” Shepard’s eyes narrowed, “And this one is much bigger than the others.”

“Lieutenant!” Johnson called out, “We’ve got no sightings in the entire colony. Everyone is just… gone. No signs of struggle. No gunfire. No blood.” His voice trails off, “It’s like they were never here.”

Miyamoto’s gruff voice came next, “Some of the buildings still have full cups of tea or coffee in them, cold now.”

Chen called out, “Looks like there may have been some sort of quake. The apartment I’m in has a bunch of stuff that was knocked over.”

“Impossible!” Cora replied, “We chose an area that wasn’t very geologically active to give the colony its best chances.”

“Cut the chatter and form up.” Shepard called out, before raising his hand to his helmet’s ear, “This is Shepard to the Phalanx.”

“We hear you loud and clear, Lieutenant.” The CO of the ship responded after only a few seconds.

“We’ve found no sign of the pioneers, and I don’t have enough boots on the ground to widen our search radius to the surrounding forests.” Shepard replied, “The area appears safe, with no signs of any enemy. Requesting additional manpower be brought down via shuttle. We can’t cover enough ground with only my squad.” The pods were meant for ultra-rapid surprise deployment. They were the vanguard to ensure that the slower shuttles were able to land safely.

“Granted. I’ll have a full complement of marines down within the hour.” The CO told him.

“Good.” Shepard said after disconnecting. He and Cora leapt from the roof, slowing themselves down with Biotics as they met with the rest of the squad, “We’re going to have reinforcements within the hour. Obviously, we can’t search the entire forest, so right now our goal is to determine the direction or directions with the most chances of success.”

“Sir.” Johnson stepped forward, “There are a few locations where the foliage isn’t as thick. They’re not quite paths, but I would say they’re our best bet.”

“Good.” Shepard nodded, “Do we have a map of the area?”

“Yes sir.” Chen stepped forward, “I collected the seismic data from the drop pods to construct it. It’s a primitive map and not very detailed, but it should do.” The pods didn’t exactly come down softly. If they were going to be striking the ground with such force, they may as well do something with the seismic data. She aimed her wrist and her OMNI-tool started projecting the map.

“Excellent.” Shepard linked his OMNI-tool with hers, and started to draw their projected search patterns, making adjustments with suggestions from his squad. Soon enough, the shuttles landed, and forty more marines of much lower rank joined them. “We’ll be in five squads. Cora and I will lead squad one, Chen and Miyamoto squad two, Cooper and Abara squad 3, Costa and Johnson squad 4, and DaSilva and Volkov squad 5. Weapons hot, and watch each other’s backs. We don’t need any nasty surprises. Anyone sees anything strange, call it in immediately.”

“Yes sir!”

Shepard was taking point, his DS-117 Shotgun ready to blast anything that moved too close… or really just anything in the general vicinity, in the event he couldn’t Charge for whatever reason.

For the next several hours, they made their way through the foliage, trying and failing to find any sign of the pioneers. All they really found were more of those strange trenches. “This is going nowhere, Lieutenant.” Cora sighed, her gun lowered. “It’s getting dark, and we’ve been searching since before night started falling. Whatever happened to the pioneers… I don’t think we’re going to find them.”

Shepard’s knuckles cracked as he squeezed his fist, “You’re right. There isn’t a sign of them.” He raised his fingers to his ear, “Report in.”

“Chen here, sir. Nothing.” Chen reported, sounding disappointed.

“DaSilva here. No sign of any life. Just animals.” DaSilva grumbled, “Had a scuffle with something that looked vaguely like a reptilian bear. Had to put it down. Definitely not the culprit.”

Shepard waited a moment, “Squads 3 and 4, report.” He commanded, and his eyebrows furrowed when he got nothing in response. “Cooper, Abara, Costa, Johnson, what’s your sitrep?”

A cold feeling started to engulf the group when they got nothing but silence. “Lieutenant-” Cora started to say, but Shepard cut her off.

“All squads, converge on the colony immediately.” He dropped his finger, “Let’s go!” He commanded, and the squad obediently followed after him. He set a fast pace, much faster than humans from before Augmentation could have sustained.

“What is that?” They all slowed to a stop as one of the rookies shouted out, training their guns where he was looking.

“What the…” Cora muttered under her breath, “Was that there on our way out?” It was a pulsing, slowly undulating, bioluminescent… tentacle?

And then, a shriek was heard over the comms, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THI-” the voice shouted, before being cut off with a disgusting squelch.

“Squad two, report!” Shepard yelled out, with most of them looking away from the oddity.

Cora didn’t though, and her eyes bulged, “WATCH OUT!” She screamed, but it was too late.

The tentacle with the two split tendrils at the tip whipped forward, grabbed the marine closest to it, and ripped him off his feet. His scream was loudly cut off with a loud crunch as the tentacle ripped itself and the marine into the dirt.

“AVERY!” Another of the rookies screamed in horror, rushing forward, and having to be grabbed by one of her fellows and prevented from following.

“GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, MARINE!” Shepard roared, his gun at the ready, “EVERYONE MOVE!”

The ground upturned from beneath, whatever was below them clearly churning the earth. The trenches and the disappearances all made sense now. Shepard dove out of the way and rolled, watching as another slower marine was knocked down from the movement of the dirt before the underground behemoth made a circular half-turn and then erupted from the ground.

Whatever this thing was, it was gigantic. Far bigger than even ten Krogan, it had a massive, thinnish body that was either snake-like or centipede-like. The centipede was more apt, seeing as it had rows of thin, clawed arms. Near its head, the arms were more like pincers found on a toe-biter. It opened its maw, revealing that it not only opened horizontally, but vertically as well. The blue, bioluminescent thing was its tongue, and the leg that was pierced onto a smaller spike made it clear what had happened to Avery, much to the horror of the one who had screamed his name.

He’d been eaten. Just as the colonists likely had been.

“OPEN FIRE!” Shepard roared, his shotgun blasting at the beast. Cora was barely a millisecond behind him, and the rest of the marines started firing as well, the muzzle flashes lighting up the dark. But Shepard could see that it wasn’t really working. Most of their fire was just bouncing off. “It’s armored!” He yelled, “Switch to-”

The beast reared back, before surging forward and spitting out a green glob of liquid at them. Shepard Blinked to the left, followed by Cora. Most of the other marines who weren’t Biotics also managed to dodge with the aid of their jump-jets.

DaCosta, who was Avery’s girlfriend and had just seen him die, was too slow to get out of the way. The green blob impacted her with a splash, and blew her off her feet. It ignored her shields, acting as if they weren’t even there. And then she started to sizzle, revealing that the liquid was acid. It took a few moments where she scrambled to get up, but then she started to scream as her undersuit started getting eaten through. She was in too much pain to get out of the way as the beast dove for her, crashing on top of her and stuffing her down its gullet.

“SWITCH TO INCENDIARIES!” Shepard roared, before switching his DS-117’s firing mode. He fired, launching red sticky bombs that stuck to the beast’s carapace before detonating. It shrieked, thrashing as he fired again, and again, and again. His other squad mates switched to incendiary rounds and started to pepper it as well, lighting it on fire. It rapidly started retreating into its burrow, with the sticky bombs audibly detonating from the hole it made, “RETREAT!” Shepard roared, getting his squad moving again. He called out on the comms as he ran, “If anyone encounters an extremely large, centipede-like beast and cannot escape, use incendiaries and explosives! It is heavily armored and can burrow! ”

“Bit late on that, Lieutenant!” DaSilva’s panic was clear, “We’re getting massacred! It’s already crushed or eaten half of the squad!”

“Oh fuck.” Cora cursed, “There’s two of them?!”

“Probably three, minimum!” A rookie shrieked, “TWO squads went silent, not just one!”

“Keep moving! We need immediate extraction!” Shepard said, before grunting and throwing himself to the left as the ground began to rumble behind them.

“Shit!” Cora tripped, her ankle snagged by the tendril. She zipped around, “Oh no, you ugly fucker!” She threw her arm forward, launching an explosive Biotic burst with Phase Disruptor, “LET GO OF ME!” She yelled as it jerked back from her attack, but otherwise seemed unharmed. It started reeling her in, and Shepard quickly got to his feet. He reached over his shoulder and drew his monomolecular blade, Blinked forward so close to its mouth that his helmet’s filters couldn’t keep the stench of its breath out, and sliced downwards.

He chopped clean through its tongue, and for the first time, it let out a howling shriek of agony as blue blood gushed onto him. Thankfully, it wasn’t acidic like its spit had been, and he rapidly raised a Biotic Barrierbefore one of its claws smashed into him, knocking him over ten meters back.

“Lieutenant!” Another rookie shouted, but Shepard was already on his feet. His Barrier and armor had done their job.

The beast had burrowed again, and this time it didn’t try to eat any of them when it came up. Instead, it smashed its bulk into the squad, outright crushing them against the trees. “Damn it!” Cora cursed, “OPEN WIDE!” She had equipped Incendiary Rounds and unlike Shepard’s modifications, her DS-117 had the triple-rotary-barrel modification. “DIE!” She screamed, turning her pump-action into a fully automatic, hellfire-spewing beast. She started blasting it, aiming for where Shepard had already done much of the work in cutting off its tongue, and its cries sounded audibly weakened and agonized, and Cora loved hearing it. She fired until she ran out of ammo in the drum, cursing that it still wasn’t dead. Another round of sticky bombs from Shepard had it reeling from the explosions, and it started trying to descend again.

“Oh no you don’t!” Shepard dropped his shotgun, drawing his blade, and using Charge to ram himself into its carapace so hard he swore he heard cracking. The beast was knocked back, landing upside down with its claws flailing. Shepard was on top of it, and he yelled as he swiped to the right, cutting off a claw that got too close and flipping the blade into a reverse grip. The blade was glowing purple with Biotics, extending its length. He drove it down, burying it through its thick armor plating.

Now, he didn’t need a jump-jet. He was a Biotic. But they were standard issue and not really worth not having, and so he mentally signaled them to fire. The jets launched him forward, driving the blade forward and slicing its carapace open from about five feet down right through its lower jaw.

And still, the damn thing didn’t die! It thrashed, knocking him off and spitting acid again even with its tongue missing. “What does it take to kill this thing?!” Cora yelled in frustration, dodging with a Blink as the acid passed by her and splashed on their last crew member. She grunted, powering a Barrier as a chunk of stone from its thrashing got thrown into her. “Oh, whoever designed this new armor needs three goddamn medals!” She grunted from the impact, bruised but not out of the fight. She threw the rock off of her and scrambled to her feet. “Lieutenant, I have an idea!”

“I’m all ears!” Shepard was Blinking in rapid succession around the beast, trying to get back to his shotgun. It was all out of the explosive rounds, but he still had the regular ones.

Cora dropped her shotgun, her hands glowing purple. “CUT ITS FUCKING HEAD OFF!” She whipped her arms forward, her Lashes latching onto its lower jaw. Utilizing her Augmented strength and the ZEUS Armor’s further enhancements, she howled as she dragged herself back and its head forward. Even with all that enhanced force, she was still causing herself muscle tears and other damage as she slammed its head into the dirt.

Shepard didn’t waste a moment, Charging into the air and again, empowering his monomolecular blade with Biotic power. He combined his Biotic Slash with Charge, falling towards it far faster than gravity alone could have accomplished. With a roar, he cleaved the beast’s head from its body.

Cora yelped as she fell back, the tension from the struggling beast suddenly lost. She straight up flung the head behind her before she released her Lashes and lay there, panting, “Holy shit…” She cursed, “What the fuck was that thing?”

“I have no idea.” Shepard quickly ensured she was alright, and then rushed right past her to their last rookie, “You alright, soldier?”

“Yes, Lieutenant.” He panted, grimacing, “We should add acid resistance to the armor specs though.” His voice was agonized, and Shepard quickly gave him an application of Medi-Gel. “Ahhh, thank you sir.” He sounded relieved as the pain quickly went away.

“On your feet. We’re getting the hell out of here.” Shepard grabbed his forearm and hauled him to his feet. A quick Pull had his shotgun back in his hand, “Move it!”

They raced back towards the colony, “Oh, fucking HELL!” Cora furiously yelled out as they reached their shuttles. The beasts had clearly come by, and all of them were overturned or straight up destroyed.

Shepard immediately contacted the ship, “Phalanx, this is Lieutenant Shepard! We need immediate extraction! Our shuttles are all either flipped or destroyed! There’s some sort of… creature on the planet, and probably more than one at that! It killed the majority of my squad and was so heavily armored that it survived a full auto burst from a DS-117 with incendiary fire on an already injured area. The damn beasts likely ate all of the pioneers!”

“How in the-” The operator immediately cut herself off, “How many survivors?”

“I don’t know. Just the three of us fo- Hang on. I see another group!” Shepard started to say, before watching as another of the beasts burst from the ground. It was also heavily damaged, but it just looked like scuffed armor. They definitely hadn’t had enough firepower to make it bleed. It dove for Chen, looking to swallow her like it had done to so many others.

“Not this time!” Shepard ignited his Biotics, Charging at the beast and ramming it like he had done to the other one. It only cracked its carapace, as this one wasn’t as weakened as the first one.

It slashed at him with its claws, and he had to Blink back immediately. “Fall back!” He roared, pumping his DS-117 and unloaded more ammunition into it and lighting it on fire after a few shots. “FALL BACK! Get to the LZ!”

The wounded, traumatized marines turned and ran as Cora landed next to him with a fresh drum and a sticky bomb reload for him. The beast spat more acid at them, “I hope this isn’t a dumb idea!” Cora yelled, using her Biotics to grab the spit out of midair and then throwing it right back at the monster. It shrieked as its carapace started to sizzle and steam, the acid finding its way through the cracks and dents in its armor from the previous fighting. “Eat shit and die!” Her shotgun started spinning and the roar of fire cut through the air.

Shepard hadn’t been idle, unloading more and more rounds of sticky bombs at it. The explosions clearly were working, and it turned and dove into the ground, burrowing once more, this time away from them. “It ran?”

“Probably regrouping and trying another angle.” Cora snarled, “These fucking things don’t seem to have any self-preservation in them.”

“Let’s go! The shuttle is almost here!” Shepard heard it coming, looking up, and the two raced to meet up with the rest of the squad.

And then the world stopped. A rumble hit them and then intensified, and then another of the beasts had ripped itself from the earth. Entire habitation modules were flung away. It was gargantuan. It dwarfed the other two by at least double. “Oh hell, were we fighting babies?!” Shepard choked out.

“That’s not possible!” Cora couldn’t help the tremble of terror that shook her at that moment. “Oh, shit!”

The beast crashed into the descending shuttle as it threw itself forward, consuming all of the terrified marines in one massive bite. The impact ripped through the compound, almost throwing Shepard and Cora off of their feet just from the impact. “Phalanx, our shuttle went down. If Cora and I can get away from them, can we form a new LZ?”

“…Negative Lieutenant. All of our shuttles are already down there.” It took a moment for the response to come in. “Even if we were to bring the ship into atmosphere, we would have nowhere to land.”

Devastation ripped through the two survivors. Shepard took a deep breath, “Fire the main gun at the colony. If we’re going down, we’re taking these fucking things with us.” He dropped his hand.

Cora had her jaw set, “It’s been an honor, John.” It seemed a waste to stand on formality at a moment like this.

“You as well, Cora.”

…

Captain Kurosaki was clenching her fists so hard it was a miracle she hadn’t broken her own fingers. “I need options. There must be something we can do that doesn’t involve glassing two of our best and brightest!”

“Even if we send down our one Titan, it would be useless in the face of that thing.” Her XO Traynor spat, glaring at the visual they’d gotten of the Big One.

“Damn.” Kurosaki growled, “Aim the guns. I want those fucking things dead. Fire when ready.”

“Belay that!” Another ship Warped in. It was a small interceptor.

A “Fury Class?!” Captain Kurosaki gasped, and as the ship appeared on screen, she saw the livery. “Cerberus?!”

…

The ship descended into atmosphere almost as fast as a drop pod could. The sonic boom drew Shepard and Cora’s attention, “Holy shit, that’s Cerberus!” Cora called out, eyes wide. The Big One erupted from the earth, drawn by the noise.

That was exactly what the ship wanted. The ship launched a salvo of missiles, which impacted the behemoth in massive explosions. Its carapace cracked and blew apart, though it was so thick that it didn’t seem to have done enough to get to flesh yet. Another missile struck the remaining small one and blew it to pieces instantly. The ship’s port side opened, unveiling a ramp. “Wait, what are the-” Shepard’s jaw unhinged.

A figure leapt from the ramp, falling on a collision trajectory with the behemoth. She was covered in Biotics so powerful they would have made most Asari weep in envy. Shepard and Cora could practically feel it from where they were. The purple-wreathed human (or at least they were assuming she was somehow human) slammed into the damaged beast exactly where the missiles had weakened its armor.

The collision was like watching a trained boxer hit a punching bag. The entire skinny body practically deformed, with its head whiplashing off to the side to follow its neck. It slammed headfirst into the ground, before screeching and getting up. The Biotic quickly ran away as it descended into the depths of the earth once more.

The interceptor circled around, and another figure jumped, this one landing softly near Cora and Shepard. Another Biotic. “No time to waste.” The very, very attractive woman said, wearing a skintight catsuit of all things, in white with black accents and hexagonal patterns. “What are their strengths and weaknesses?”

“Fire and explosives. Biotics work but don’t have as much effect as they should. I hit a smaller one with a Phase Disruptor and it only recoiled a bit.” Cora replied immediately.

“They’re also extremely resistant, and survived a full drum from an Incendiary DS-117 Burst Fire as well as dozens of sticky bombs.” Shepard informed her.

“What a blasted mess.” She growled as her partner, another woman covered in tattoos and a partially shaved head landed near them. She only had hair growing directly up top, which she had tied into a ponytail with a few strands here and there hanging loose.

“Shit, that fucker is tough.” She spat on the ground, “I’ve torn through tanks softer than that thing’s armor.”

“It destroyed our shuttle.” Cora growled, “We’re grounded unless we can kill it. Unless one of you can just jump all of us up to your Interceptor.”

“Ha!” The rougher one laughed, “I’m good, but even I’m not that good. What’s the plan, girl scout?” She shot at her partner.

“Jennifer.” The other woman rolled her eyes.

“Call me Jack, damn it.” ‘Jack’ growled out.

“Call me Miranda and I just might.” Miranda replied.

“Do we have time for this?” Shepard had many questions, but they could wait. “What’s the plan?”

“Did you kill any others? Besides the one we blew up?” Miranda asked.

“Yeah, once you get past the armor, it’s just as fleshy as anything else.” Shepard said, “My monomolecular blade combined with my Biotics could cut through its carapace, but something tells me we’re not managing that with this one.” He said dryly.

“Hmm…” She answered back, watching as the ground before them started to deform as it prepared to surface, “I have an idea.”

“I don’t suppose that idea involves more heavy ordinance from your Fury?” Cora asked, eyeing the interceptor staying well outside the Big One’s range.

“Sorry, we only had the four missiles. We didn’t exactly come here fresh.” Jack replied, setting her stance like a predator. “You two were lucky we even got that distress call.” Well, that explained why they were here.

“How are your ammo levels?” The brunette asked.

“Completely depleted.” Shepard grimaced. “We didn’t exactly come prepared for something that would give a Titan nightmares.”

“I can imagine.” Miranda said, softly, “EDI. Deploy the Vanguard Package and my personal Sentinel Set.” Miranda brought up her arm and typed something on her OMNI-Tool.

“At once, Miranda.” EDI replied, her synthetic voice ringing out from Miranda’s OMNI-tool.

“You have an AI on a ship that small?” Cora sounded shocked, “I thought they were only fitting them on Cruisers and above?”

Miranda smirked, “Well, being Cerberus does have its advantages.” Two small pods landed before them, much smaller than the human drop pods, but when they opened, they revealed themselves to be stuffed full of weapons and ammo. Miranda stepped into the larger pod, and some small bits of armor and equipment attached themselves to her. It was still clear she was in a catsuit, but now it looked like an actual military outfit instead of just something that belonged in a nightclub.

She smirked, “We get all the toys.” And then she grabbed a D12 Chaingun with one hand, hefting its weight as easily as if she had grabbed a submachine gun. In this day and age, there were absolutely no humans born without some augmentation, but this was beyond that. It was clear that she was at the top end of Augments from the display of strength. “Let’s kill this damn thing, shall we?” She swapped it to her other hand and typed on her OMNI-tool, “Switching all of us to Cryo Ammo. I assume you both have appropriate skills?” She raised her eyebrow, smirking at them.

“You got it.” Shepard smirked back, having loaded up on extra ammo from the vanguard pod.

“Let’s bag this damn worm!” Jack roared, engulfing herself in that insane Biotic field. “Try eating this, bitch!” She threw her arm forward as the beast finally erupted from the ground, roaring at them. A blackish-purple ball shot forward, struck the beast, and erupted, turning into something that had Cora’s jaw unhinging.

“Is that a Singularity?!” She almost shrieked.

“Worship me later!” Jack yelled, before she opened fire with her submachine gun.

Shepard Charged, ramming into the armored behemoth, and unleashing a devastating Biotic Explosion. The entire creature rocked back, screeching as the explosion ripped more of its heavy armor plating off of its front. Shepard kicked it, flinging himself back and unloading with more sticky bombs. The explosions rocked the beast now that its armor had been slightly busted through.

It tried to retreat for a better position, but Jack was having none of it, “Oh no you don’t!” She yelled, grabbing it with her Biotics and tugging, “What the fuck?! How heavy is this thing?!” She fought with it, straining to keep it from receding. It roared and struggled, trying, and failing to dive back down into its burrow.

Miranda opened her palm and shot a continuous Cryo Beam at it. The beam did its work, slowly starting to freeze it from the outside in. Its carapace slowly started becoming frosted white, as Cora fired a Phase Disruptor, detonating the ice in a Tech Explosion. Even more of the behemoth frosted over, and it visibly started getting slower and more sluggish.

It had enough of the Cryo Beam however, and turned to Miranda. The acid it shot at them looked way bigger than the one they had been dealing with earlier. Miranda stopped her attack and held her arm out, and a yellow Sentinel Shield blazed in front of her. It was big enough to shield her entire body.

The acid blob hit her shield with some heavy force, driving Miranda back and nearly off the roof they were all on. Cora Blinked away to avoid getting splashed, and Jack created a barrier to shield herself. It did mean she had to let go of the creature though, and it sluggishly started to dive down. Cora Charged at its descending body, and let out a scream as she used Lash to whip it directly in one of the glowing blue sections on its face that she assumed were its eyes. The creature thrashed as it continued descending, widening the hole it was in. Cora continued forward with her momentum, landing on the opposite side of the compound.

It burrowed forward towards Jack and Miranda. Jack reached beneath them and ripped the apartment module they were standing on from the ground, moving the entire thing away. A few seconds later, the beast erupted where they had been trying to bite through what was no longer there.

Jack and Miranda leaped back, using jump jets and Biotics to levitate in the air. Jack then threw the entire housing module at it. The metal structure ripped apart as it hit the beast, and it clearly hurt it. Miranda spooled up her Chaingun, and the sheer sound it generated as it fired and peppered the beast was hard to describe. The roar filled the air, almost drowning out the pained screeching of the beast. The rounds fired had Cryo Ammo applied, and so it was not only blowing chunks and craters into the beast’s carapace, but also freezing it.

Jack took advantage of it, throwing a Warp to detonate the ice once more, and then using a Dark Channel to start eating away at its armor. The creature was now covered in ice. It was slow, sluggish, and also being continuously damaged by Jack’s Biotics, Miranda’s Chaingun, and fire from Shepard and Cora as well, from opposite ends of the compound. Their sticky bombs and Burst Fire were concentrated perfectly to align with where Miranda was peppering it, and they finally broke through the armor completely. Blood burst from it and flash froze, raining down as little blue crystals of ice.

It howled and tried to retreat, finally finding something resembling self-preservation instinct. “Like HELL!” Jack yelled, once more grabbing it with her Biotics just as Miranda ran out of ammo for her D-12. She slung it behind her back, attaching it to the magnetic holster, and cut the jump jets. She landed on the ground and grabbed it just like Jack was. Together, the two started wrenching the creature out of the ground, its struggles to retreat now too weak to fight the insanely powerful Biotics. “What the fuck?! How big IS IT?!” She yelled as more and more started being ripped from the hole.

Miranda’s teeth were grit. Even with all her Augmentations, she wasn’t as powerful a Biotic as Jack was. “I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface. It’s like an iceberg!”

“Cora!” Shepard roared, drawing his blade. “Biotic Slashes! Aim for where its armor is weak!”

“You got it!” Cora drew her blade as well, “This is for all of the deaths you caused!” She yelled, before she and Shepard both Charged one last time.

They both came out of the time dilation at the same time, swinging their blades with angry roars. Their glowing purple blades erupted, creating an extremely sharp blade of Biotic power that flew forward, slicing into the frozen flesh wall in front of them and cutting straight through. An ‘X’ carved into the beast, ripping through its neck, and erupting from the other side. The beast separated into four chunks, the head, two small cutouts of the neck, and then the neck itself.

The neck whipped downward, and the head flew into the forest, knocking down trees as it impacted. What few housing modules still somewhat intact no longer were, as the neck crushed them under its bulk.

Cora and Shepard landed almost roughly, and let out groans as they lay there. “Oh Lieutenant, you take me to the nicest places.” Cora moaned, cracking her neck.

“That better be the last fucking one.” Shepard let out an uncharacteristic curse. “Phalanx, this is Shepard. Threat appears neutralized.”

“Excellent work, Lieutenant.” Captain Kurosaki was heard amidst cheering, “Though I don’t believe it will be Lieutenant for much longer, after today.”

Miranda and Jack sauntered up, Jack whooping, “Fuck yeah! You guys see that shit?!”

“We lived it, you damned battle junkie.” Miranda laughed a little as she sat near them. She looked at Shepard and Cora, “My condolences about your men.” She said softly, “It can’t have been a nice way to go…”

“They knew what they signed up for.” Shepard said, a little robotically. It was clear to everyone that there was some compartmentalization happening there, “Thanks for saving our asses.” He held his hand out, “Staff Lieutenant John Shepard.”

She shook it, “Miranda Lawson.” She smiled softly at him, “This is Jennifer Nought.” She inclined her head to Jack, who never gave her name out for whatever reason.

“Tch. I told you all to call me Jack.” Jack sat with them. She held out a fist, “Sup?”

Cora smirked as she bumped her fist against Jack’s, “Cora Harper.” She gave her hand to Miranda to shake, “And before I freak out, care to tell me how the hell a human just used a Singularity.”

“Jennifer is by far the most powerful human Biotic on record.” Miranda replied, ignoring Jack’s irritation as she did so, “When we first met, she had no amps or even any implants and I barely managed to defeat her. And keep in mind, I had all of the most modern equipment, implants, and training.”

“That sounds like a story.” Cora laughed, starting to tremble a bit as the adrenaline started to leave her.

“One for another time, I’m sure.” Miranda shook her head. She straightened up, “Lieutenant, please connect me to the ship.”

“What can I do for you, ma’am?” Captain Kurosaki asked as Shepard lifted his arm and connected the comms once more.

“I am ordering you to stay in orbit until relieved. We need to study these damn things.” Miranda commanded, “You will guard the area until science vessels arrive and are able to extract them. I will be putting in a call to HQ to have them launch immediately. We’ll also see if the Quarians have any knowledge about them, though I doubt it.” She took a breath, “Lieutenants Shepard and Harper will be coming with us, both for debriefing and some mandatory shore leave. This was… not pleasant in the slightest. We’ll make sure they’re taken care of.”

“Yes ma’am!” Captain Kurosaki responded, before the line went dead.

“EDI, LZ is clear. Come pick us up.” Miranda switched to the AI, who immediately set to landing the ship. They all got up, and several cracks rang through the air from all of them. “My word, I’m exhausted. Come on.” Miranda groused, remembering that she and Jack had barely gotten a couple hours of shuteye after dealing with the barely averted clusterfuck on Terra Nova.

“I’d kill for an actual shower.” Cora agreed, as they all moved to the Fury.

“Lucky you.” Jack grinned, all teeth, “Like the Girl Scout said, Cerberus has all the toys.”

-]|[-

And that’s a wrap. How’s that for a prologue? :D

That IS what this is, after all. Just a taste of what’s to come, while also showing off some of the changes made, as well as hinting at others. Also, I should note that we’ve taken various things from various other Sci-Fi series, from Star Trek to Halo and even from DOOM.

Quite obviously, I’ve only scratched the surface of the changes made. For instance, I’m sure everyone is wondering wtf is going on with soldiers deferring to Cerberus, for instance. Quite clearly, they aren’t the same terrorist organization they were in canon, hmm?

Also, yes, Cora is a bit “Cora In Name Only,” here, I’m aware. Quite frankly, for reasons that will become apparent sooner rather than later, its impossible for her to have quite the same backstory she had in Andromeda, so no Asari Weebing for her. LMAO

Pairing? Well, you know me. LOL I’m sure you could make some educated guesses.

We’ll be jumping either directly or closer to the events of Mass Effect 1 next. One thing I’ve seen from a lot of other fics which unfortunately usually end up losing my interest is dozens of chapters filled with OCs. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing the First Contact War and stuff like that. Love to read it usually, actually. But they just kind of never actually get to Shepard and the crew, if you know what I mean. So I’ll be sprinkling in bits of lore here and there, and I believe my friend Orichacos will be wanting to do some companion pieces that don’t fit into the story proper. Not sure how we’re going to handle that atm, but we’ll figure it out lol.