Mass Effect: Glorious Shotgun Princess (ME/Exalted)

...They can kill Exalted?

...Let's just leave off the discussion of how. We already know.

Maybe Persistent Righteous Protector after forever being in close proximity to the mad inventor thinks Liara's geeking out is ground for real concern?

maybe the mind-meld-kill stuff was designed as exalt assassination function?

Persistent Righteous Protector is an Exalt.

We may be seeing his Limit Break.

“This.” They appear in a flicker of white butterflies. “This.” Her gloved hands ball into fists, blue eyes wide with something they hadn't seen before- terror. “This is bad. This is fucking bad.”

Hannah grabs Kasumi by the shoulder, whipping her around. Miranda leans against the wall and Jacob already has his sidearm out, scanning the lit dome they find themselves in. “What's bad?” The captain grabs Kasumi's head with both hands, forcing her to meet her eyes. “What just happened? Why did he just attack us?”

The blue eyes waver. The lower lip trembles, and Kasumi pulls herself away, pulling her hood tighter over her face.

“Protector has systems set up to warn against greater threats to Deus Machina. Doctor T'Soni has set one of them off, but I'm not sure why. Until the system is reset, Protector will spare no effort in killing her.”

“Seems to me the Commander's got that covered,” Jacob says, “I mean, it's big, but-”

“It's not big,” Kasumi snaps, “You don't get it, do you? She's not fighting a giant robot! Protector is this entire city. He's bigger than the Citadel and he's trying to kill T'Soni!”

Her hands ball into fists. She extends a hand, and the far wall disintegrates into bricks and powder, revealing a downward sloping tunnel. “This isn't big,” she continues, “This is enormous. Gigantic. We're not fighting giant robot, we're fighting a Patropolis. The only way we're walking away from this is by contacting the Core and getting it to take her off the threat list.”

Hannah nods. She pulls out her pistol, thumbing a switch and letting the mass effect core of the weapon warm up. “Taylor, go with Goto. Lawson, you're with me. We're underground?” Kasumi nods, face blank and silent. “I'm heading topside to contact the Orizaba. If you can't contact this Core, I'm having my ship open fire on the city to buy us time to get back to the Normandy.”

Hannah glances around. “Where the Prothean?”

“I sent her to another access point,” Kasumi responds, “With luck, one of us will get to the core. Soon. Hurry.” The thief turns, already running down the tunnel. “Go!” Jacob nods, salutes Hannah, and runs after the thief.

Hannah turns as the ladder drops down from the ceiling. Grabbing a rung, she hefts herself up. “Double time, Lawson!” Pushing herself off the wall and shaking her head, Miranda follows the captain up.




Another flash of blue, and Liara's feet touch the ground a kilometer away from where they last were. “Wait!” Liara braces on her knees, sucking in breath. “Wait, I-” Vasir grabs her by the collar, and they disappear again, reappearing in a flash on the outskirts of the city.

Liara smacks Vasir on the chestplate, repeatedly knocking at the armor and pushing herself away. Vasir, for her part, rolls her eyes and folds her arms, tapping her feet as the scientist begins pacing.

“Just! Give! Me! A minute!”

“Take your time, princess. We've only got a city trying to kill you.”

Liara does something with her hands. She starts by balling them into fists, then splaying out her fingers before grabbing her head ridges with a high pitched, frustrated scream. Vasir just checks her gun.

“But why?” Liara whirls on Vasir. This, among other actions over the past few days, only confirms to the Spectre that Liara's survival instinct stems from the fact that Shepard wants to bang her. “Why is it trying to kill me?”

“I'm gonna take a guess.” Vasir shrugs. “They don't like the Reapers here, and Benezia was working for the Reapers. Hence, they might be mistaking you for Benezia.”

Liara levels a finger. Her teeth grind and the air around her sparks with blue lightning. “You. You did not just indicate that my mother was working with Saren willingly.”

“If the shoe fits. Princess.” Vasir twirls her pistol, circling the doctor. “Because as much as we believe Shepard about the giant AI spaceships, we're still iffy on the magical mind control.” She shrugs, holstering her gun. “Because, well, look. I appreciate the fact that you're still a kid and you don't want to tarnish your mom's image, but let's face it. Saren was hung like a-”

Liara's white gloved hand splashes with blue after it cracks Vasir across the jaw. The spectre stumbles back, wiping her split lip, and snarls.

“You bitch.”

“Takes one to know one,” Liara growls back, “You did not just say my mother was sleeping with Saren!”

“I didn't say that! I said your Mom was working the claw hammer like a good advisor.”

An aura of crackling blue forms around Liara's fist as she takes a sharp, deep breath. Vasir cracks her knuckles and cranes her neck, taking a step back.

And behind them, the street parts, revealing an open chasm as a sound not dissimilar to a blaring organ fills the air. The ground rumbles, and a claw bursts from the chasm, dwarfing them both, its arm longer than the Normandy by a factor of five and attached to a massive, egg shaped body.

Five more arms join the first, pulling the hulking beast out of the chasm, nearly standing two hundred meters tall and overshadowing the two Asari to bath them in the light of the golden visor on its brow.

The two turn to it, rage draining from them as suddenly as it arrived.

“I apologize for everything,” Vasir says, “Your mother was a saint.”

“Apology accepted,” Liara breathes, “Run.”

:facepalm:

They start a catfight when the entire city is trying to kill one of them? Really smart, ladies. As to the big robot coming after them...

Holy mother of the gods, that's a big robot. Wonder what Auto is going to say when the situation is explained. Or is that they're going to have to talk to Deus to get this fixed?

I like to think of it as a green and gold version of a Reaper Destroyer.

You really can see where Jane gets her approach to problem-solving from.

And Liara really does need to work on her survival reflexes. Boy oh boy though, Protector really does know how to bring the noise, and this still isn't likely to be close to what he can pull out if he really gets going.

Kasumi isn't used to the emotion of panic, she needs to work on that. It's not that she isn't keeping focused and coming up with useful things to do, but she does need to get better at not letting people see her sweat.

So Protoss teal destor-goon?

It may not be particularly relevant to what's happening now, but Gregg mentioning the colors of this mecha keeps reminding me of Shepard, and how whenever she uses peripheral essence she shines gold and green. Green isn't a solar-themed color, and it nags at me that considering all the other shenanigans in exalted canon with exaltations, there may be something...off...about Shep's zenith shard. That there's at least one Primordial and one Reclamation Yozi running around this story doesn't ease my suspicions.

It is, actually. Solar animas aren't limited to just solid gold - they're sunlight-themed colours, so you can have rose-tinted and red-hued anima that shines with the colours of the dawn, or one with blue and violet swirls in the white-gold radiance. Shepard's is primarily gold, with green as a secondary colour to (I believe) match her eyes. Perfectly valid Solar anima.

And there's no such thing as a "partially" tainted Solar Exaltation. You can't go halfway to an Infernal one and then sort of stop. Altering a Solar Exaltation into an Infernal one is a complete retrofit, totally altering the way that it works at a fundamental level, and relegating the Solar shard down to what is effectively a supermote battery powering the Primordial Emulation Engine that is the Infernal Exaltation. There's no halfway state, it's all or nothing.

Even the much more flexible Abyssal modification doesn't do half states. You are either Excellence and Perfection or Perfection of Death, and never somewhere in between.

IE, just because I'm fusing two settings together does not mean I will shirk or ignore the rules of either setting.

Because if I did, Aleph would stab me.

Tis but a flesh wound.

You coward!

Now really. You are one of the very few authors who could pull off 'changing canon' and make it 'look good' at the same time.

There, there, Gregg, I'm sure Aleph wouldn't stab you too hard.

So, there's a giant green and gold robot that's at the very least 5x as big as the Normandy... chasing two squishy asari.

If they stand perfectly still, it might not see them. Works for T-rexes so it must work for even bigger robots.

No, its arm is five times longer than the Normandy...
Gonna let my avatar speak for me on this one.

The trick is to grow a hide full of non-delicious, poisonous spikes. Works against zombies, stabbing attempts and surprise dinosaurs, but not against tax collectors (nothing works against those).

“Okay yes. I see. Shields! Wonderful. Slightly different configuration from what the protheans arrived with but if I tweak here here here and here and oh yes here! Here too! Let's see what happens!”

Tali squeaks, her feet leaving the ground. The barriers around her shifts, sparkle, and turn solid, and she finds herself standing in a sphere of solid blue energy.

“Oh keelah what the fuck.” She leans forward. Realizing too late what exactly has happened, she screams as the ball begins rolling down the inclined hallway. “Not funny! Not funny! Not funny at all!”

The ball begins bouncing off the suddenly flexible and rubber like walls, Wuffles running in pursuit. “Wuffles,” Tali screams, “Get your metal ass in gear and help me!”

The ball rolls down the incline, the young quarian suspended in it like a fly in amber, screaming the entire way. “Ah,” Autochthon says, “I always wondered why I positioned those lightning-sparked nerve axions there.” Tali's eyes go wide as she processes that nugget, screams louder.

The ball drops down the incline and hits the exposed, sparking spring. It compresses and shoots out, sending the ball rolling and Tali spinning end over end, bouncing across the dome shaped enclosure and into a second spring.

The ball bounces off the spring and spins across the room, slamming into another at an angle that sends it into the spring right across it. It bounces back and forth, sparks ringing chimes overhead loud enough to drown out Tali's swears and protests, before sending it across the room and towards the chute leading outside.

Which, as it turns out, is positioned above a tub filled with volatile oils.

“Oh ancestors I hate you so much-”

The oils explode. Hardened as they are, the shields are unaffected by the flames.

The force, on the other hand, sends the ball up and through the chute, Tali screaming the entire way as she shoots out to the surface.

“Oh look.” Autochthon's sphere appears over Tali's omnitool. Two holographic hands appear, and they clap. “Mass effect systems! On an encounter suit! Wondrous!”

A faint blue glow surrounds the ball. Tali accelerates, rising higher into the air as she screams. Then the glow shifts, and she slams into the ground, bouncing upward when the glow shifts again. Another shift in the blue and she slams into the ground again, bouncing high into the sky as she screams and coughs. “Oh keelah I threw up in my helmet...”

A green netting catches the ball, the string attached to it going taut and yanking it out of the sky to the tune of Tali's scream. It hits the copper and silver plane, bouncing once, twice, before rolling to a stop in front of the gold skinned, four eyed woman.

The bubble pops, and Tali stands, swaying back and forth and staring at the woman. She looks her over, stopping at the four horizontal eyes.

“What're you?”

“Prothean,” Vessae responds.

Tali claps her hands together and gives her a thumbs up. “I know this asari who'd so be humping your leg right now.”

With that, the young quarian flops backwards in a dead faint. The omnitool lights up, and Autochthon's image floats above the unconscious Tali. “Yes, Vessae?”

“Maker.” Vessae bows. “We have a situation. We need to contact Deus.”

Metal footsteps echo on the silver soil, and Vessae looks up as Wuffles skids to a stop in front of the unconscious Tali. “Creator Tali'Zorah. You are unharmed. We are here to render assistance.”

Vessae pauses, watching as the Geth lifts up Tali and cradles her. A small smirk appears on her lips and she shifts her hips, raising a double eyebrow. “Well. Who're you?”

In this case, if you wanted to justify it, I'm pretty sure it's possible to see a flash of emerald as the Daystar passes through the Elemental Pole of Wood at dawn, and the same happens when it passes through the Elemental Pole of Water at dusk.

If I remember right, anyway, which I might not.

So the bulding that they are in is also a pinball machine? Excellent.
Also, I cannot wait to see what happens when Autochthon meets Mordian.

Auto-kun: the galaxy's most immersive Pinball experience™! Only 0.25 Credits a game!

One, this snip is hilarious. I'm getting Sonic the Hedgehog/pinball vibes from the 'launched between springs' bit.

Two, is Vessae fliritng with Wuffles?!?

Want to see more Liara vs Vasir......and demand popcorn.