cqbexpt

The Depths of Deception

"Paris?" Shuo said confused. He had heard the word before but he didn't know what it actually meant, though judging by Rareth's response it was a significant place. This was further confirmed by Ghirn's acedote. "Not sure how I'm to be of much use on the human homeworld....they don't exactly like us there, as you know." Shuo made sure to emphasize the us and glancing at Shiva for a second. He folded his arms and brought his spike around and rested it in his arms. Shuo then mumbled a bit about that being why most of those weapons were ballistic knowing the Sovereignty couldn't launch an investigation in human space without quite a bit of red tape. While most of the sentiment towards humans at least in terms of the Sovereign people was met not with hostility but always with suspicion, though that was true of all those not in their conglomerate. Even if most of the Masulu and Tempu still alive had lived through the war their peoples didn't hold grudges much. The humans most certainly did though.

Mass Effect: The Face of Injustice

The door to the restroom slid open as Tacticus stretched out his mandibles and inhaled sharply though his nose hole. He blinked several times in quick succession and felt that he had finally managed to shake the grogginess of being asleep recently. He took a sharp turn right and began walking down yet another corridor in this maze like station. When the intercom sprang to life and informed everyone aboard that the meeting was being moved up Tacticus was startled and even went into the nearest wall with his shoulder just incase it wasn't anything good. But what was actually happening was even weirder. The fact that the time had been moved up was worrying to him. There was no reason atleast that he could see for this sudden decision. His fears were further confirmed when their acting squad leader piped up over the comms."We arn't sure why the time is being moved up and we'll keep you posted on that. In the mean time Cactus and Numso get up to the main hall, the human delegation just walked in with a whole lot more people than I like. Don't be next to the delegate but be near by. Stay safe everyone." The ear piece stopped spewing information and Tacticus began making his way to an elevator.

When he arrived at an elevator there was a armored human wielding an omnitool. He was obviously waiting for the elevator and bobbing his head to some unknown beat. It was clear to Tacticus that this man was station security of some kind though he wondered why he was armed to the teeth.
All the delegates had agreed to certain concessions when attending this meeting, he knew the debate about numbers of security was hotly debated though. He wondered why they would need such armed neutral security, as his understanding was that the delegates were not to bring weapons with their security forces. But now that he thought about it that may have been something Sura would cook up just to make it more fun for the Cabal. Still though....

When the elevator arrived they both stepped into the elevator and apparently were both heading to the same floor. While he was easily a head taller than the human Tacticus couldn't make out what the engineer was doing on his omni-tool. He made note of all the weapons this man had as he walked off the elevator and went the opposite direction of the human. It was apparent that he was doing something not involving the actual meeting, which further fueled Cactus's paranoia. Though at this point Tacticus just hoped he wasn't late for the meeting.

Mass Effect: The Face of Injustice

Soooooooo

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

K I don't know what's happening anymore.

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

Yes but you

The Depths of Deception

Shuo felt at home when the dropship finally sealed up and took them out of the relatively low firepower frigate. He almost didn't want to leave when they all began disembarking to learn their fates.

What Ghirn said hardly surprised him considering most if not all of the fighting had been recorded in some fashion or another. He was even willing to guess that just Shuo's footage was enough to inform them of what happened. He just hoped that at some point they would go on a mission that could have no video record......those were always the fun ones after all. Still he had found that the process of a debriefing however unnecessary brought about an air of finality to a given task. Certainly this sudden end to the operation would nag at the back of his mind for the next few days. However he felt that this group they had fought was not finished either.

Shuo was content with the explanation given however and decided to stay silent. Just before he headed off to his room however he became interested in the question of how long they were going to be here. When Shiva beat him to the question he let a small smile break his usual front, seemed he wasn't the only one who would prefer to be doing something.

Mass Effect: The Face of Injustice

Tacticus felt his back and head fringes hit the inner wall of the shuttle. He let out a gasp and threw his hand behind his head to rub his back. For a moment he was dazed but he quickly heard laughing coming from various places in the hull of the shuttle. There were 8 Turians around him and across from him all in various degrees of laughter. Including the delegate they were supposed to protect. Seven of the Turians were in blue on black schemed suits of armor and the one that wasn't was wearing formal ware it was blue on a majority of white, this was the diplomat. The rest of the Turians dressed like Cactus, his Cabal. Well, they were more like Big brothers and sisters than teammates. Being the last guy to join the team even if it was one year ago, made him the rookie and little brother. Which led Tacticus to believe they were the colprets behind his sudden awakening, that and the laughing. "You are all assholes." Tacticus said suppressing a smile.

Through half a laugh one of the Turian females named Sura quickly responded through her own laughter. "Sorry about that Cactus, had to wake you up somehow! We're almost to the "station"." This lead him to believe she had pushed him into the wall with her telekinetic biotics. She always loved using that and keeping a "Final solution" grenade on her to mess with him. Rubbing the back of his head Tacticus began straining to remember the dream he was having before he was so rudely awaken. It was especially strange given that he saw his grandmother there. But the other things that didn't make sense like the "breach" and the human.......the human. Why was there a human in his dream? Then the inevitable moment when the previous nights dreams began to slip away back into the darkness from which they originated came. He started losing pieces here and there the more he thought about it until it was all but gone. But he managed to hold on to one thing, the human's face. He was atleast pretty sure he had never seen that face before so it puzzled him. The laughing began subsiding as the pilot said over the intercom that they were only about a minute out. "Alright everyone remember the core four will stay near our diplomat friend here and everyone else is to fan out and keep an eye on the whole affair. Keep your earpieces in just in case we need to switch out guards. Any questions?" Sura said quite sternly compared to her previous laughter.

"Yeah, what if Cactus goes to sleep again?" One of the other Turains at the back of the shuttle said. This garnered another set of laughter albeit more stifled this time. The shuttle slid up to the station without much fan fair. When the door popped out with a hiss and slid off to the side the Turians adopted a four man in front four man in back with the diplomat in the middle as they exited the shuttle. Tacticus ended up at the back of the formation as they began to navigate the hallways of the once freighter. The group then began breaking off into various hallways as it moved towards the room most of the delegates were already in. The idea was that no one would know exactly how many cablists were on the station for a variety of reasons and only one of which was tactical. When it was his turn he was the last to leave as the core team consisted of the team's veterans. He ducked off into a hallway just before the main room was visible. As he walked down the rather spacious corridors that was probably used to move cargo through at some point he realized that he was actually for the most part on his own for once. It had been years since he had been this alone. The suddenness of this was not lost on him as he became crippled by the fear of freedom. Everything he did day in day out was planned for the most part to the T. The only place he had any real choices had been in tactical exercises and even there one choice was usually preferred out of the infinite other possibilities.

His earpiece suddenly came to life for the first time since they did comms check back on the shuttle earlier. "Alright everyone, keep a reasonable distance from the main room our diplomat is in and pray to the spirit we don't have to do anything. Have fun kids." Tactius could almost feel the sarcasm hitting him in the head like a rifle butt in that last sentence. It was at that moment that he realized he really had to take a leak. Instilled with a sense of purpose Tacticus filled himself with determination to find a restroom.

The Depths of Deception

Yes please.

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

And Ryonara we need to collab :P

Mass Effect: The Face of Injustice

Dong & Cactus

Burning. Something was burning. Screaming. The screaming was so loud. Tacticus jumped up eyes closed tightly and jaw clenched as if a bomb had gone off. It stopped. Tacticus opened his eyes slowly. There was ash raining down all around him. He took his hands off his ears and listened for the screaming, it was gone. Infact it was quiet, so quiet it was almost deafening. the only noise was of the ash hitting the ground and his own breathing. Tacticus started panicking before he realized there was nothing around him at all. There was nothing but ash and dead trees all around him. There was also a light fog to the clearing he was in, though the fog extended well past the clearing and eventually obscured what he guessed were more dead trees. Tacticus managed to compose himself but something..... some.... feeling just made him want to fear. Once more he looked frantically around himself, nothing. He brought his hands to his face quickly and tried to rub out the nightmare. When he pulled his hands away they were black and burned, his skin peeling away to reveal charred tendons and muscles.

This inferno was like something strait out of hell. First there was just silence, almost serene. But than came the flash, and the sounds. The screeching of metal, screams that echoed in Donny's ears. He couldn't even got a chance to look around before he was knocked off his feet. All he could see was red. By the time Donny woke up, everything was white. His vision was blurry and everything was hazy. He thought it was snowing, but it wasn't cold. He smelled blood and fire, and felt ashy and sweaty. When he could see clearly, he was surrounded by ash. Crawling to his feet Donny tried to find his way around. He could only see ash, and occasionally a tree. It never occurred to him he was stuck in a obscuring fog. He never noticed how badly burned his body was; he was practically a walking skeleton at this point at this point.

Tacticus's eyes grew wide and the screaming returned. It was as if million of voices were all screaming at the top of their lungs. The sound was so intense it made Tacticus collapse to his knees and press his hands tightly over his ears. It did nothing to dampen the sound and Tacticus started yelling back at the screams, as if it would make them stop. He shut his eyes tightly again, then it stopped....again. Breathing heavily and incredibly concerned Tacticus opened his eyes again. There was a large, white, and vaguly humanoid shard in front of him. Tacticus struggled back tears at how bright it was. But, there was something that made him want to look at it. Like maybe if he reached out and touched it this would be over. Still on his knees he reached up and tried to touch it. It suddenly reached out and grabbed his forearm and the noise started again. But this time it wasn't a scream it was a high pitched whine which began jumping up and down in frequency. Tacticus tried to bring his hands to his ears but the shard would not let his arm go and grabbed his other arm. Tacticus began yelling at it aswell as fiercely as he could with tears running down his eyes from the brilliance of the being. It began leaning towards him and suddenly began to get bigger....and bigger. The noise became suddenly low pitched and large tendrils of light arched up out of it's back as the white began to engulf his vision.

And than came the screaming. It was so much worse this time, like... Like a thousand voices that were once silent, now free to unleash their eternal anguish. Donny tried to cover his ears it but was like he was trapping the voices in his head now, rebeating against his hand and skull. "Stop, shut up, SHUT UP!" Donny's own screams joined the chorus of agony in his head. He started to run as though he could flee from the screaming. That's when he saw... Him? Her? It was a white silhouette. Donny couldn't even look at it directly, as it was so bright. The screams in his head and the light from this thing was driving him mad. He swung blindly in front of him as though if he could just strike the being, this nightmare would be over. But instead it reached out and grabbed his arms. The screaming stopped, but a new noise replaced it. It was low at first, but than reached an extremely high decibel. It was like a screech, but not from any human or voice. It was so loud, and this being so bright, Donny struggled and fought to be freed, but he just couldn't manage it. He was engulfed in a white light before he could even cry for help.

Tacticus was laying down again. He blinked as the ashes began raining down into his eyes. He sat up out of the soft layer of ash he was laying it. The trees and the ash had returned, he was relieved. There was something different this time. A metal bench that seemed to be made out of one solid piece of smooth metal with no breaks was protruding from the ash. Yet none of the ash was landing on it nor was it covered in ash. Tacticus stood up and walked over to the bench. He placed his hand on it just to make sure it was real and then sat down, looking at the dead trees and ashes.

Donny was flat on the ground once more. He coughed and hacked as the ash got into his mouth. His throat was so hoarse and dry. A layer of ash had covered his body. There was no more fog, just ash and trees as far as the eye could see. But there was one new thing: a metal bench that seemed to be carved from a single slab, like a giant rock. But despite the ash raining around him, the bench had no ash on it itself, like the ash simply would not lay there. Curious Donny want over to this bench, carefully nudging it with his foot to ensure that it wasn't just a trick of his mind. Once he could feel the solid resistance Donny sat on the bench and took in the scenery around him.

Tacitcus felt a feeling of calmness wash over him as he watched the ash dance around each other and catch the air in a certain way that made them randomly change direction and speed up their never ending process of falling. He closed his eyes and leaned back over the chair which only came up to about his mid back and breathed in deeply. The air was silent and warm, it was so peaceful in fact that Tacticus wanted to stay there on that bench forever. He even heard the laugh of young Turian children over to his right, he couldn't even remember the last time he saw what he was fighting for. He looked over but did not see children. Instead there was a Turian women in full armor which looked old to him, he was also facing an Asari who looked to be in similarly advanced armor. "I don't care if you think your children are still alive! I watched them die and if you don't come with me you will join them. I refuse to allow that!" the Turian was yelling loudly at the shorter Asari.

It was strangely peaceful, sitting here on this mysterious bench. He watched the ash fall from the skies like snow, twisting and turning, fusing and falling. No matter which way they went or what happened to each flake they never fell on the bench or Donny. Relaxed he laid on his back, extending his hand to catch the ash that seemed to avoid his touch. Compared to the chaos and pain before, Donny liked this calm much more, and would have liked to do nothing but stay there forever. He heard the sound of children to his right, forgetting all about what just had occurred. But when he looked he saw no children, but a group of men, armed and armored, crouching in the ash. They seemed to be waiting for someone, and than one of the men shouted. "Go, stop them here before it's too late! We can't let them get the kids!" Than the rest of the men stood up and started shooting.

"If they were yours you wouldn't be so quick to leave! We arn't leaving until I go get them!" The Asari was crying and in rage began to glow with biotic energy and threw the Turian several meters and she landed and skidded on the ground into a tree. Obviously out of breath the Turian began reaching out to the Asari unable to muster words. Then fire erupted from the ground and the Asari took a run at it. The Turian began crawling back towards the fire when the screams of an Asari started.

"There are too many! We... We should go back, and protect the others!" Said one of the men. Soon, one by one, the men stopped shooting and ran, despite the protest of the one who Donny assumed was their superior officer. The man shouted at them, looking hesitantly back and forth between the enemy that Donny could not see, and the direction the men ran towards. Soon there was fire erupting around them, and the man dropped his gun. He looked scared, almost as though he was going to run himself. And than he pulled out a knife.

"Spirits damn it! Why!" The Turian yelled out clearly emotionally distressed. Then a large crashing noise and then an extremely loud fog horn sounding noise came from further in the same direction the Turian and Asari were in. The Turian looked further into the gray blackness and punched the ground in fury. She picked an assault rifle out of the ash and began running towards Tacitcus. But then he noticed something the Turian looked familiar. And as she drew closer to him time began to slowed down it finally clicked.

"I can't let them pass... I'm the only one left." The last man was obviously scared. He could barely stand his ground, let alone hold his weapon. But despite that, he gripped his knife and walked forward. A loud roar echoed in the landscape, like the last sound he heard before he had awoken moment's before. That's when the man turn towards Donny. Did he see him? Was he looking at something else? Regardless, the man ran towards Donny, holding his knife with the intent to us it. But as he came close, Donny noticed something... Familiar.

"G-grandma?" Tacitcus said as the two made eye contact. The fog horn noise kicked up again but this time so loud Tacticus felt his teeth chatter. He put his head between his legs and began yelling to try and dampen the noise but nothing came out. The noise just kept getting louder and louder but this time the noise sounded like it was omnipresent. No direction, no source just existing. Then the noise suddenly became less loud and the source of it moved in front of him. He looked up hands still covering his earholes and saw 2 pairs of 3 eye clusters made of light above the ground out in the darkness. Then the noise stopped. Then an incrediably powerful and deep voice said "Breach". Then a wave of fire began consuming the area in front of him. It was like a wave made of fire that rushed up to greet him. It hit his legs and burned them to but bone, his hands moved slower and Tacticus had time to watch the flesh and muscle burn and then rip itself from his hands. Then a shockwave knocked him up and out of the chair into the air. It sent him spinning and inbetween two trees.

He landed face first into a pile of ash and got some of it in his mouth which he then quickly spat and coughed out. He grabbed his side in pain and then craned his head to look in front of himself. He was staring face to face with a human.

"Grandpa?!" Donny looked into the eyes of his grandfather. The loud roar echoed again, so loud that Donny could feel the vibrations through his body. He grabbed his ears and pushed his head against the stone bench, as if it was somehow suppose to make the roar softer. Donny screamed in pain and thought his ears were bleeding. His head felt like it was getting crushed by a rock, or getting torn apart in a blender. Donny turned to see if he could find his grandfather, but what he saw instead was a set of glowing eyes. The moment he saw them, the noise stopped. Instead it was replaced with a deep and intimidating voice. "Breach." And once more, the world was turned into fire and ash. Donny felt his skin fry and his blood boil, like his entire body was going to become liquidifed in this inferno. The blast of fire was so intense that it caused an explosion that blew Donny off the bench and deeper into the forest.

He was thrown onto his back, causing a small pile of dust to build up on him as he slowed to a stop. Donny could hardly feel his body at this point. He wasn't sure if he even had one. But sure enough, as the pain continued to surge through his body, he was able to at least move his head and take a look around him. Then he found himself staring face-to-face with a turian.