Thank you list!
@hellgodsrus, bestest friend and co-author I've ever had!
@Takareer, beta and commentator and also friend!
@Tamahori, beta and commentator and also friend!
@Blackmarch, bestest commissions writer and also friend!
@Char-Nobyl, BESTEST LITERARY ANALYSIS GOD!
And of course, all the many dedicated readers that are too numerous to tag! We appreciate all of you, promise!
Also, special thank you to
@aoirann for
TOTALLY LOSING IT'S TVTROPES PAGE! Pretty please check it out and maybe fill it out some more if you get the chance ^_^;
Also, just in case anybody's interested...
Eye in Life is Strange exists. Have fun
And now, at last, time for the chapter!
Enjoy~
Totally Losing It
Virmire
16.13
-.-.-
It probably said something that she wasn't surprised how
mundane the little office they first found was. It looked like any one of the thousands of administrative offices Liara had seen while working at Serrice, simple and boring with a desk and terminal in one corner near the door, shelves of datapads interspersed with the odd physical text stacked over it. Further back, on the far wall, the doors of a lift.
It was odd to think in all this chaos of Saren with a secretary. She briefly imagined a geth trooper sitting at this desk, dressed in simple secretarial wear, preening, headdress drooping over its headlight, and tried not to laugh. The others - probably weren't in the mood for that.
"Is this… what, his office?" Ashley sounded mildly confused as she swept her gaze across the room. Behind the exhaustion, at least.
"This place
was a tourist center, once." Liz shouldered her shotgun again, after giving the desk a cursory glance. "It's probably repurposed. Liara, check if those datapads have anything useful on them while we wait for the lift."
"Unlikely to be anything that helpful." Wrex sniffed. "This place hasn't been used in a while."
Liara hefted one of the datapads, brushing the dust off the screen.
Definitely not used in a while. She turned it on anyway. The face on the lock-screen was - "Huh. I
know her."
Ashley blinked, glancing over from the drawers she was looking through. "Really? That, uh. Seems like a hell of a coincidence."
"Yes. Rana Thanoptis. Doctor Rana Thanoptis, specialising in, oh… biopsychology? We met at governing body one time and she sneered at me because I had dirty fingernails."
"... what a charming woman." Ashley muttered in disgust.
Liz made a face, fingers flexing. "Biopsychology. So probably working with Saren on how that whole indoctrination thing works."
So she likely helped Saren enslave my mother's mind. Liara clenched her hands around her pistol.
"There's a bag in that drawer." Wrex stomped forward, arm coming up and sweeping datapads off the shelf. "I'll keep 'em. Might be handy in working out how the fuck they do that shit. And if Ganar motherhood-destroying Okeer has that kind of technology…"
Opening the drawer - there. "That's a good idea." Liara grabbed the bag, opened it up, and Wrex dumped them all in. Messily. She shuffled the bulging bag, rearranging the datapads until they were neatly stacked and she could sling the satchel around her waist.
Liz's hand on her shoulder. Her face was haggard. What had happened before she arrived? She'd caught the tail-end of the fight, but - a meteorfall of singularities was terrifying but not
that terrifying. "Liara, are you -"
Really? Lecturing me about carrying a simple bag? "If either of you carry them, you'll charge something and they'll get broken."
"Ashley could -"
"No offence, sir, but I'm loaded down enough, and she's already volunteered."
Elizabeth grunted unhappily, but conceded. "Alright."
The ding of the elevator arriving interrupted them and they stepped into it. Liara found herself pushed back behind Wrex's bulk which, while sweet, wasn't exactly an advantageous position to attack from, and she did her best to -
Oh. Elizabeth was glaring at her. So they were still angry about this then?
Liara took a deep breath. And simply… listened. The explosions, the muffled sounds of war outside, almost drowned out by the
atrocious tinny music coming from the sub-par speakers - Elizabeth breathing. The clicks and clacks of Ashley's gun as she checked her heatsinks and loaded in more. Wrex's harsh breathing that reminded her of some of the larger animals she'd seen, with that harsh semi-purr and rumble. All alive.
The doors slid open.
The room wasn't really an office, or an armoury, or one of the other rooms you'd think Saren would have. It was more akin to a series of catwalks. There was a large space in the centre that might have been for vidcalls. There were some signs of recent activity - a patch clear of dust where a desk might once have been, what seemed to be a medical bed, equipment cleared away to one side. The paths branched and rejoined at -
"Oh."
She'd never seen a working Beacon before. She'd seen - well, she'd seen Liz's memories, but not one in
person. She'd seen intact but unpowered. She'd seen fragmented and powered. Not - this, sharp and curved and glowing a soft green.
"I hope nobody minds if I stay away from this one…" Ashley shifted on her feet. Liara wasn't sure - oh, right. The first Beacon.
"Yeah, I don't think anyone would blame you." Elizabeth's eyes were locked on it and she was
prowling, a kind of fixed, unhappy look on her face. "Liara, please tell me I'm not going to have to scramble my brain again."
Who's glad I came along now? No, that was rude, and unfair. She managed to smile and say, "Well, I do have the other half of the message as well. I could use the beacon myself - "
"Not happening." Her voice was tight.
Still this? Even after saving their lives? "I decided to help for a reason - "
"And I'm not letting you fry your brains on that thing. We don't know the full effects of the Beacons, and you
know that I still have weird Prothean nightmares from the other one."
"You initially wanted me to
come with you, before Chakwas - "
"I disagreed with her decision, but the decision was made and she's a fucking
doctor with - "
"I could try it."
They both stopped and looked at Wrex.
"... or not." He shrugged.
"How about this." Liara folded her arms. "You use it and I meld with you
immediately afterwards to help you sort through the vision. Does that sound reasonable?"
Elizabeth hissed, clenching her teeth and looking away sharply. "No. No, it fucking doesn't. I don't want to expose you
or - " She shook her head, the obvious words unspoken. "To anymore Prothean shit."
"I work with Prothean shit. At one point that was alarmingly literal because of the excavation of what turned out to be a bathroom complex. I can handle it, Elizabeth."
"That's not what I meant and you know it." But she was pinching her nose. "Fine. Fine. But if either of us start screaming or bleeding, Ash, Wrex, knock us both out at once."
"Uh, sure thing, boss." Ashley nodded, though her brows were furrowed in concern. Wrex just gave a half-hearted shrug-nod. "... don't suppose I can ask about what you were going to say before you cut yourself off?"
"No." Elizabeth was already striding towards the Beacon, her face set.
"Copy that."
Liara wanted to interface with the Beacon directly. It was such a selfish desire, but after being the object of her obsession for
so long - having it right in front of her, and still only getting it second hand -
It felt stifling. Like Elizabeth's memories of backseat driving. She could work with it, yes, but she couldn't… couldn't push. Couldn't explore. Left to experience only another's mercy.
"I love you."
"Love you too, Liara." Elizabeth gave her a tired smile. "Now let's see how much
this one'll fuck me up." She sighed, stepping forward.
Wisps of green energy, biotic almost, caressed Elizabeth's body, pulling her closer, and gently lifting her into the air. Her head rolled back - and a second later the energy dissipated and she dropped, shaking her head like she was trying to knock something loose, until Liara took her hand, pressed her cheek to Liz's and whispered, "Embrace Eternity."
-.-.-
City, orange red homeplace, empireseat, perfection incarnate defiled, merchants and tributaries cut down like grass-stalks -
"We are under attack, the Citadel has fallen - "
- throwing their hands up in despair as the light illuminated the interior of the bunkers, as lines of fire came for them -
"The Emperor is dead, the Citadel has fallen - "
Circuitry and flesh blending together in seamless fusion, more perfect than the horrors of the Zha'til, but even more twisted for that perfection, for the desecration of the sacred bodies of the Race with the taint of the Machine -
"We rest in the shadows of dead gods, the Citadel has fallen. We rest at Ilos."
Shaded halls, weeping unfamiliar statues and the scent of death in the air, but better than - flesh tearing with a wet squeal, towering figure of metal -
Two stars, a nebula, a dark planet. "The home of the Inusannon, they died there with their weapons. The Citadel has fallen but the Protheans have not - COME TO ILOS, COME TO - "
And then there was only chaos and noise and the scream of metal and flesh and out of the darkness a dark, cephalopodan shape, writhing in red torment as it blared out its warcry.
"The dead gods still dream. The lost still whisper to us. They still -!"
The hunger. The hunter. The hunger.
The ravenous -
Liz broke away with a gasp, Wrex standing over her with his shotgun raised, ready to butt her in the head - "N-" she coughed, holding her hand up, heart pounding so hard she couldn't hear what he said, but he wasn't going to hit her, and that was - that was good enough.
Her body felt drenched in sweat even though she knew she wasn't. Her lungs ached like she'd stopped breathing for a whole minute. Her muscles were too damn tense, pulled taut over her bones, every injury exacerbated. Bruises and cuts like patches of fire on her skin. And there was that meld backwash there always was, the brief
where's my crest/my body feels weird but now it was all tangled up in the images of dying Protheans - not images,
impressions, full body sensations like she'd actually been watching the races of the Citadel massacred.
Liara was taking long, deep gasps beside her.
Stupid - shouldn't have agreed - fucking nonsense
Protheans - no, it was her choice and Liz wasn't going to - she'd protect her but she wouldn't stand in her way like a jackass -
"...onel, hey." Ashley, waving to her. "Can you hear me?"
"Starting to come back." She groaned. Her throat felt like it was on fire - and not the good kind that came with a strong drink. "I take it we started screaming?"
Prickling on her skin. Like pins and needles but so much
worse because it was needles and scalpels and wires -
"Yeah, but… quietly."
Liz frowned. Still getting her mental faculties in order. "What?"
"Like you were screaming, but - at whispering -" Ash coughed. "Anyway, glad to see you're doing… relatively okay."
Relatively okay. She couldn't help but chuckle a little at that.
Relatively. Better than another sixteen hours in a nightmare-laden coma. Her head
hurt. But she could cope. No worse than an amp-migraine.
"Better than that." Liara looked up and her eyes were bright. "Saren isn't after
Prothean weapons on Ilos, he's after - "
YOU ARE NOT SAREN.
The words moved the air, but they didn't feel like they'd been spoken. In fact, she was positive they hadn't been.They settled into her like
fact. Like they'd always been waiting to take form, like the molecules that carried them had only ever existed to move and allow them to form.
She twisted, looking up at -
It was a hologram, huge, red, imposing, and impossibly detailed. Saren's ship. But
more so. It seemed to - to writhe and twitch at the corners of her vision, vast and curved and - like the pests on the ships she'd grown up on.
"Is that - is it a VI?" Ashley had her gun pointed at it, as did Wrex, but - "Something to pilot that fucking monster ship?"
"I'll cut my quad off if it is." Wrex grunted angrily.
RUDIMENTARY CREATURES OF BLOOD AND FLESH, YOU CONSORT WITH IGNORANCE, UNDERSTANDING NOTHING. I AM THE VANGUARD OF YOUR DESTRUCTION. I... AM SOVEREIGN.
Liz took a deep breath. "I saw you. In the Beacon."
That thing at the end… "You're not just a Prothean ship, or a Reaper-tech ship. You
are a Reaper."
The thing didn't move, but there was the impression of motion, of it looming large in view. A
presence that demanded all of her attention.
A LABEL CREATED BY THE PROTHEANS TO GIVE VOICE TO THEIR EVOLUTION, THEIR TRANSCENDENCE. WHAT THEY CALLED US WAS IRRELEVANT. WE SIMPLY... ARE.
Ashley made a small noise in the back of her throat. "That was - Colonel, that was fifty thousand years ago or more, and if one of them's still alive - "
"I'm not surprised. Eye could probably live that long, couldn't she? And that's what you are, right? An entity?" It had mentioned Transcendence. Like what Shiala had mentioned had happened to the Thorian. And
Eye had the Thorian.
The thing recoiled, and her vision blurred, darkness seeping in at the edges.
THERE IS A REALM OF EXISTENCE SO FAR BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION THAT YOU CANNOT EVEN IMAGINE IT. WE ARE EACH A NATION, INDEPENDENT, FREE. MASTERS OF SECRETS BEYOND YOUR KNOWLEDGE.
And Eye showed us the end of her world in every little detail right after saying the same thing. "You think you're the first to tell us that? Eye - "
THE BEAST YOU SPEAK OF IS SO FAR BEYOND THAT REALM IT DEFIES EVEN OUR UNDERSTANDING.
Liz couldn't - addressing it directly was almost impossible. You couldn't
talk to something like that. It was like screaming into a storm, or trying to shout down a mountain. But what it was saying… "So, does anyone else get the impression it doesn't like Eye much?" False bravado.
Laugh in the face of darkness.
YOU CONTINUE TO FUMBLE IN INCOMPREHENSION. YOUR ORGANIC NATURE LIMITS YOUR MINDS, YOUR BODIES. YOU MEASURE YOUR LIVES IN YEARS AND DECADES. YOU WITHER AND FADE. WE ARE ETERNAL. THE PINNACLE OF EVOLUTION AND EXISTENCE. YOUR DESTRUCTION IS INEVITABLE. SUBMIT TO TRANSCENDENCE, AND SURVIVE.
"Couldn't be that eternal and powerful or you'd just attack us and get it over with. Besides, I doubt one ship can take on the entire fleets of the galaxy." The words felt dry in Liz's throat, and she did her best not to think about the Beacon's vision, the screaming and the flesh.
Couldn't the Protheans have said something helpful?
WE WILL DARKEN THE SKIES ON EVERY WORLD. YOU EXIST BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT. YOU WILL END, OR RISE, AS WE DEMAND IT. DO WHAT YOU WILL. WE WILL ENDURE. WE WILL SURVIVE. WE ARE LEGION.
She managed to force the air through her windpipe, and struggle out, "And what about Eye?"
THE BEAST MUST PERISH BEFORE IT EXPANDS. BEFORE ALL IN ITS PATH IS ANNIHILATED. THE CYCLE MUST CONTINUE.
"Cycle - huh? Sure you're not an Entity?"
WE ARE NOT THE BEAST.
The air shook at those words, and the thing loomed even larger. Distantly, Liz became aware that she'd collapsed at some point, that she was screaming, that Liara and Ash and Wrex were screaming.
ORGANIC CIVILISATIONS MUST RISE AND EVOLVE. AT THE APEX OF THEIR GLORY WE EXTINGUISH THEM. THEY TRANSCEND. THE PROTHEANS WERE NOT THE FIRST. YOU WILL NOT BE THE LAST. THEY REST IN OUR PLACES, THE CITADEL AND THE MASS RELAYS, AND THEY DEVELOP ALONG PATHS OF OUR DESIGN, AS YOU HAVE.
"Farming - us."
WE IMPOSE ORDER ON THE CHAOS OF ORGANIC REVOLUTION. THE ENEMY MUST BE STOPPED. WE IMPOSE TRANSCENDENCE TO WAGE WAR WITH THE IMPOSSIBLE.
"What - for?" Feeling her bones pulse and vibrate, and all through it a sense of motion, like she was pinned to a roller coaster seat and the slightest touch would send her flying into the dark.
The image's tentacles flexed, the hand of its body almost drumming.
WE ARE BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING. WE MUST DEFEAT THE ENEMY. THE ENEMY MUST BE STOPPED.
Liz gritted her teeth and glared up at it. "The - enemy, huh? Not us. You think we're - insects. Irrelevant. Resources to use. So - entities. You - fight entities."
THE BEINGS YOU SPEAK OF STAND AS FAR ABOVE US AS WE ABOVE YOU. WE FIGHT THEM, AS ALL THINGS MUST. THEY ARE NOT ABOVE DEFEAT. THEY ARE NOT ABOVE HAVING THEIR OWN TURNED AGAINST THEM.
"But you need - more, don't you? You're - what, some kind of AI? Nation, free of weakness. Like the - like the geth. But even
that's not fast enough. So you used - used their methods against them. Gave us tools, then when we get something
useful, you kill us all and take the knowledge to use against
them." Her fingernails were digging into her palm hard enough that her armour was starting to crack and warp, biotics flaring around her. "Who - who the fuck even built you? Who are you?"
WE ARE INFINITE. WE HAVE NO BEGINNING, NO END. MILLIONS OF YEARS AFTER THE LAST TRACES OF YOUR CIVILISATION ARE FORGOTTEN, WE WILL ENDURE. WE ARE LEGION. SUBMIT TO TRANSCENDENCE AND KILL THE BEAST.
It took such effort just to think. To look up and make her lips form words when every part of her seemed to be trying to get her to bow, to kneel. "I'm - nng. Not always Eye's - biggest fan. She's reckless. Foolish. Headstrong. But she's - a fuck of a lot better than you." The pressure on her increased, and she could feel her muscles straining against it. "She's - a good kid. At heart. Dangerous. But you - you'd kill us. To save us." Licking her dry lips with dry tongue. "F - fuck. Fuck off." "
THEN YOUR WORDS ARE AS EMPTY AS YOUR FUTURE WITH THE BEAST. OUR RETURN IS COMING. THIS EXCHANGE IS OVER.
The dark and pressure lifted. The
thing, the Reaper was gone, leaving the four of them crouched on the floor. Her muscles felt cramped, tied together, her vision swimming, that damnable roar still echoing in her brain. She tried to stand and her foot slipped on the grating and she fell again.
Why did Saren decide to trust
these things? How could it even take on Eye? How - how the hell does Saren even manage talking
to it?
"Urghhh…" Wrex grunted, a drawn out noise, hauling himself to his feet and shaking himself off, "Still think that was a VI?" He glared at Ashley.
"
Guys?" Joker's voice on the comms. "
I don't know if you can hear me, but four geth dreadnoughts just breached orbit. And, uh. That super dreadnought thing? It just shot out of the Relay fast enough that it should've broken in half. It'll make landfall in - fuck, that can't be right. Thirty minutes?"
"
Fuck." Liz hissed. Her head was still ringing with what that - what
Sovereign - had said. "Don! Are those AA towers down yet?"
A muffled boom and the floor shook. "
They are now."
"Convenient." She rolled her shoulders and got to her feet, slowly, helping Liara up too. She tried to ignore how both of their hands shook, how Liara was half staring into the distance, eyes wide and silent. "We've found an intact Beacon, and had a… 'conversation' with Saren's super-dreadnought."
Too much to explain over comms. It wasn't true. It was just that those words - there was something to them. Something too much. She managed to force out, "It's not a Reaper-tech thing, and the Reaper's aren't entities."
"
Conversation? With a dreadnought?" Don's curiosity - but then again he hadn't been here. "
An AI, maybe?"
"Maybe. Maybe more. The conversation went in much the same way one with Eye's headbuddies does." Liz gritted her teeth. "Getting a word in edgewise was damn near impossible, and it gave zero fucks about our eardrums. Joker, get the bomb in here, we need to finish this ASAP."
"
Aye Aye. Loading up now, ETA two minutes."
-.-.-
