Mass Effect (3.5): Paladins of Typhon
NB: Author's Notes at end of chapter
Chapter 1
The land was broken and shattered. Soot-covered buildings smoldered, and gray dust billowed in the wind. Three humans lay huddled against a crumbling wall, taking shelter from the blazing hell that surrounded them. From almost every side, alien, shambling figures closed distance, raining down fire on the position of the haggard soldiers.
Brushing aside the matted black hair from his eyes, former Corporal Toombs grimaced at the slate gray sky, blinking against the irregular pulsating light that emanated from the broken violet sun above.
"Damn sunlight's tearing through our shields," Toombs cursed, rising from cover to fire at the abominations bearing down on them.
"I can't believe it," spat the man beside him, "what kind of weapons can these damn Reaper leftovers have to cause something like this?!"
The woman to Toombs' left screamed in fury, as she unloaded her clip into the rushing husks, necrotic gray shells of what had once been living Humans and vorcha.
She cursed as she dropped back down, "if I'd known that Randall, maybe our squad wouldn't have died pulling this evac."
"We need to get going, before we join them," said Toombs.
The woman nodded several meters away, "may as well be a mile to that dropship, I'm empty."
Toombs shook his head, "loading platform is down, so we can make a break for it. That, or we die here."
He glanced to either side, receiving nods.
"Retreating fire," said Randall, "I'll cover you."
In unison, the three stood up, making an organized retreat for the spacecraft nearby. Shots blazed by, searing the air around Toombs. He heard the woman to his left cry out, blood escaping her shoulder as a round pierced the armor plating. Toombs cursed the sunlight that wreaked havoc on their barriers. He hefted the woman by her good arm, helping her onto the landing pad.
"Cannibal!" yelled Randall, "Grenade!"
Before Toombs could react, a blast shook him, flinging him like a rag doll. His ears were ringing, head pounding like a drum. He shook his head, helping his wounded comrade up, getting her into the open platform on the back of the ship.
"I'll fire up the engines!" she yelled, shaking off his help as she limped inside.
Toombs turned to see Randall lying unconscious. He grabbed the young soldier by the arm, pulling him securely into the ship, collapsing backwards with a grunt as the vessel's engines shuddered. Shakily, he rose, exhausting his rifle's thermal clip as the docking doors began to close.
A hail of gunfire issued from beyond the ship, blinding him. The blasts hammered against his shields, the shock of the impacts driving the breath from him, before the door finally sealed shut. Finally, Toombs felt the drop in his gut, signaling that the ship had started take-off.
All around the ship, dozens of creatures ceased their fire, as a larger monstrosity, an armored Ravager, trained its giant sights on the escaping ship…
Behind the cohort, a lone figure, wrapped in a dark shroud, took aim with a large shoulder canon. It's four eyes glowed blue, waspish wings twitching wrathfully. The tall biped took a deep breath, grunting in disdain before firing into the Ravager, the blast radius vaporizing the battalion of husks and cannibals surrounding it.
On the wrecked surface of Haestrom, a living Collector, perhaps the Galaxy's last, looked on as the craft carrying the human survivors rose into the atmosphere, before turning to find a more space worthy vessel…
- Author's Notes -
Hello there everyone. Thanks for reading my work. I hope you enjoy it! At any rate, please read my rendition of ME3's ending (ME3: Requiem) to get a feel for the background here.
If you aren't interested, basically I am playing loose with the lore. If we reference the games only, I'm doing a hybrid of the "Control" and "Destroy" endings, basically the "best/happiest" parts of each (pretty much Destroy but without synthetics dying). In reality, I am still going to be referencing my own fic.
If you do reference my earlier work, I am working off the assumption that all the "best" choices were made, mainly the "A Branches" of each chapter I wrote. I will also be assuming that Shepard managed to successfully romance either Jack, or Liara, or even both.
Why both? Mainly because I'm lazy, and don't feel like picking. Also, it's fantasy, and Bioware set up a relationship like this in a previous work, Jade Empire. Moreover, these two are characters that might actually go for a relationship like this. It's the future, I imagine all sorts of relationships exist that defy modern convention (just think...if we find alien cat people...those of us among the anime cultural subset will have found the apogee of our dating careers).
Anyway, some housecleaning to get you into the mindset of how I've crafted "Crichton Shepard" and his journey through the ME trilogy, leading up to this work…
Name: Crichton Shepard, now a Captain (Navy) /Major (Marine), ME ranks differ from standard military
Class: started off as Engineer from ME1; then Lazarus unlocked latent biotics, so his "upgrades" made him a Sentinel in ME2(in ME3, I played an Engineer with Slam for the bonus perk, so this is how I Role Play it)
Origin/Military Background: Colonist/War Hero - saved Talitha, killed Elanos Haliat
Mainly Paragon, with a Renegade streak.
ME1: Romanced Liara, saved Feros colony and Shiala, saved rachni Queen, saved Wrex, sacrificed Kaidan, let Balak go, saved Council, recommended Anderson to Council, saved Toombs
ME2: Romanced Jack, all squadmates loyal, all crew survived, chose Samara/killed Morinth, destroyed Collector Base, resolved Feros contract, kept gray-box, also having Samara be drinking buddies with Thane
ME3: Romance "unresolved," cured Genophage, Mordin died, saved rachni Queen (again), peace between the Geth/Quarians, recruited the batarian fleets, Control/Destroy hybrid ending (read ME3: Requiem).