Set Up
It wasn't supposed to end like this.
She'd been so close. Two months until she was legally an adult and could join the marines and get out of this shithole. Be something more then just another street rat that ran with the Reds.
Sure, becoming Private Shepard probably wouldn't have been all sunshine and roses, but the Alliance paid it's grunts, and it wasn't like there was much in the way of other opportunities in this city. She'd spend a few years in the service, maybe blast a few aliens, and then she'd be free.
There'd been complications, of course. Mikey had been pissed when he found out. But she'd made him see reason. She was good at what she did. He knew it, she knew it. All she'd had to do was agree to one last job, a salvage run on the east side, where she'd put her considerable skill with
[]Electronics (bonus to all electronic and hacking rolls)
[]Words (bonus to all social rolls)
[]Stealth (bonus to all sneaking rolls)
to use.
She peaked around the corner of the tunnel, looking for pursuers.
Yeah, that hadn't worked out very well.
On the surface, it'd been a chance at a big score. Nobody had known what had happened to the MCBs, and when one of their Lieutenants came in looking for a place, offering a stash as payment, well, Mikey had jumped at the chance.
She should have been more suspicious. Hell, she had been suspicious. She'd packed three extra mags for her trusty ten millimeter. Not as fancy as those mass accelerators the army used, but a hell of a lot more affordable for someone like her.
She'd run out of ammo an hour ago.
He'd lead them to some old museum, dinky little thing that had looked like it'd been boarded up for decades. It's big claim to fame had apparently been some sort of burial mound that it'd been built around. They'd gone inside the ruin, listened to him as he told them stories of riches inside.
But there'd been nothing. Just that big, stone, seal. Mikey had gotten upset about that, demanded answers.
He hadn't gotten them. The MCB had just grinned like a loon before slashing his palm and pressing it to the seal, and then they'd all gone straight to hell.
Literally.
Fire and brimstone and monsters and demons, all waiting for them. They would have gotten them too if Jesse hadn't been such a crazy little shit- Shepard had no idea why he'd been carrying a half dozen grenades, but they'd blown a hole in the monster's lines, and they'd barreled through, shooting all the way.
That had been three hours ago. She'd been separated from the rest two hours ago, pushed down a shaft by a something big and green with fangs. She'd been playing cat and mouse with the monsters ever since, but now she was out of ammo, and rapidly running out of options. She could hear the pitter patter of little monster feet just around the corner, and all she had was a goddamn pocketknife.
So she kept moving. She tore through tunnels and corridors, racing to stay ahead of the monsters, the demons, looking for something, anything, that could save her.
And then she found it.
The chamber was large, easily a hundred meters across and nearly as high, arcane carvings sharing space with green burning torches on the walls.
But it was the body that was the centerpiece of the room. A pale figure cloaked in white and covered in heavy chains, she was very clearly dead, run through by over a dozen spears embedded in the floor, yet she somehow managed to look majestic.
And dangling from her hand was a amulet. A glowing amulet.
She should have left it alone. There were monsters on her tail, she was literally in hell, and experience growing up had taught her she really shouldn't poke strange, unfamiliar glowing things.
She could feel it, calling to her. There was a warmth to it, a promise of protection, of power to defend all she loved. To save herself and her friends.
She reached out and touched it.
Then she immediately leaped back when it spoke. "Untainted soul detected. Compatibility within acceptable bounds. Please register new user."
"What the actual fuck?"
"New user registered as What the actual fuck. Please proceed to-"
"Wait, no, what, that isn't my name."
The gem pulsed for a second before responding. "Inaccurate registration purged. Please state your name."
What is Shepard's first name?
[]Write-In
"New User registration accepted. Alert: Incoming Daemonic entities detected. Warning: Device is not properly configured for combat. Please specify desired configuration."
"What does that even mean?"
"Subconscious selection accepted. Beginning configuration."
"Wait, what-"
She was cut off as the gem jumped into her hand, before glowing and shifting into the shape of a:
[]Blade (Versatile)
[]Staff (Implement)
[]Bow (Bolt)
[]Write-In
"Seriously, what the-" Any further comment was cut off as an invisible force lifted her up, pulling her arms away from her body, allowing streamers of glowing light to coalesce around her before solidifying into armor. Or at least something that might very charitably be called armor.
What type is it?
[]Light
[]Medium
[]Heavy
Appearance?
-[]Write in. Can be written description or picture.
"Stop! Just stop. What the hell is going on."
"Device has been configured for combat. Lesser daemons approaching from the rear."
Shepard turned just in time to see the pair of imps enter the cavern behind her, flying straight towards her on batlike wings, crying battlecries in some guttural tongue.
She froze for a brief moment before she felt it. A nigh bottomless well of energy within her, just begging to be used. It's something not quite conscious, and not quite instinct that calls it to her hand, gathers it, readies it to be used.
Then a bright beam of destruction erupts from her hand and vaporizes the onrushing demons.
She stares for a long moment, at her hand, at the rapidly expanding ash cloud that had been the monsters, at the weapon in her hand, before finally allowing. "Ok. I can work with this."
She walked back the way she had come. She had demons to kill.
