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After breathing a sigh of relief at making it through that first ordeal, we turn to see some of those weird ass pod things and oh god there’s a person in that one! We rush over and realize that it’s one of the colonists. I stare at the pod confused for a bit when suddenly the colonist wakes up and starts screaming at me and pounding the inside of her pod and then she melts. 

What. in the hell. 

I finally take a moment to glance at a pod besides that one and see that the rest of them are filled with the Normandy crew! Ooooh fuck! I finally figure out how to open the damn things (a button on the side?) and we get them all out, even those people that are always just sitting around at the table doing nothing. 

Dr. Chakwas is super happy that I’m there to save them from the literal melting pot that they were about to become a part of. We look at all the tubes and decide it’s time to split up again, and also get the crew back to the ship. I send Mordin with them, since I figure they might need a doctor and Chakwas might be all dehydrated and woozy and stuff. I thought about sending Jacob to get him out of my way and to give him something to do, like, here ya go lil’ buddy! But he has angered me too much.

Next I need to take a small team of like, two people through an area filled with swarms and I need a biotic to shield me. I pick Samara, as she’s major badass but not kinda freaky unstable like Jack often is. I take Thane and Grunt with me and send everyone else with Garrus again. I will miss you sweetie! 

Samara’s got her big bubble going and tells me she doesn’t know how long she can hold it as she is walking through the area with me in practically slow motion. I am at the very front edge of this bubble going “C’mooooon c’moooooooooon” and she is telling me to hurry. We stop for a moment to kill some collectors and then again to kill some husks but finally make it to another door where we meet up with the other team. 

We rush through, and Samara works to close the door while everyone else shoots back the collectors. The doors slam shut and Garrus steps back holding his side.

GARRUS!

I run over and he’s like “HA! GOTCHA!”

The fuck dude! Don’t fucking scare me like that ever a-fucking-gain! 

Everybody laughs at Garrus’s hilarious joke and I stomp to a platform to pick my team for the final fight and do some rousing speeching. 

After saying grace, EDI pulls up the schematics of the collector ship. We decide we need to send in two teams, and one tech specialist to crawl through some vents. Jacob says the vent task is practically a suicide mission and then immediately volunteers.

I take a good long look at him and I think about all the times he’s made me angry since I first met him. A suicide mission huh. Within a suicide mission, huh. Tempting as it is to send him, I decide I want people I can trust and who won’t mess things up, because what if they get someone else killed. I pick Tali. 

Miranda then volunteers to lead the second team. Will you damn Cerberus people just shut your traps for one second? Jack is all like aw hell no, I ain’t listening to that tramp. And Jack wasn’t gonna be coming with me so…hmmm

Someone I trust. Someone who will keep people in line. Someone whose steely blue eyes are stearn and commanding, yet you could lose yourself in them if given the chance.

GARRRRUUUUSSSSSS. 

He nods at me, and I grab Thane and Gar-..oh shit. Who will come with me and Thane now!? Umm…I decide finally on Grunt because I like the POP when you hit someone with a concussive shot. It’s just so satisfying. 

We climb off the Normandy ready to kick collector ass. Tali heads for the vents. Me, Grunt, and Thane head in one direction and Garrus takes Jack, Miranda, Jacob, Samara, Legion, Mordin, Zaeed, and Kasumi the other direction.

Hey! These teams are a little lopsided, ya think? Garrus is taking eight squad members and I am taking two? The hell?

We start blasting our way through the ship, fighting the collectors, and I can hear the occassional shout of “NICE SHOOTING!” from Garrus over the radio. Oh good, things are going well for them. I would hope so. There are freakin’ nine of them. 

Grunt and Thane and I are holding up pretty well too. Harbingers are dropping like glowy flies that aren’t even getting a chance to assume control of a…remote. As soon as they show up, I’m like BAM REAVE! Thane! BAM WARP! BAM HEADSHOT!

Unfortunately I also need to hit some panels so Tali can keep moving in the vents where she complains that it’s quite hot. I tell her to just, ya know, turn on one of the fans in her suit or whatever. I know that thing has fancy temperature controls! Don’t lie to me!

As we round a corner, there’s three collectors standing there having a smoke break or something. I reave one, Thane warps another, and Grunt hits the last with a concussive shot. They all fall in a heap and I honestly stood there for a moment, laughing at them.

Finally we’re getting to the meeting spot with the second team. Doors need opening, doors need closing, oh god shoot them, hold them back and then finally we’re safe, for the moment. 

Well, it’s finally time to go save the universe. I tell Joker to head for the scary red relay, while I go take a shower in my weird metal space bathroom. As I step out of bathroom, back in my civvies, I find Garrus waiting for me. I wonder for a moment how long he’s been there, then I wonder what the hell that shirt is he’s got on. I’m a little disappointed, as I wanted a fun armor-removing game. Like, strip poker or something. 

He tells me he brought wine, and holds up a bottle even though we can’t drink the same wine. So is the wine just for me? If I didn’t know better, I would be concerned about this turning into some kind of date rape scenario, but we did all the paperwork for this beforehand. Still, I don’t know if I should be getting trashed right before heading into this big huge fight. 

Though I guess I’ve been pretty much trashed every chance I’ve gotten so far. 

BRING ON THE WINE, GAR-BEAR!

He turns on some music, which I promptly turn off and then go start rubbing up on his scar, because he was right…I do love scars. 

Garrus, I tell him…

I still don’t know how to get this shirt off. 

A bit later, Joker tells me we’re about to reach the other side of the relay jump, which is the first hard part of the mission because like, every other ship would just explode upon arrival or something. So uh, heh…fingers crossed!

We pop out into a huge debris field of busted up ships and space cars up on space blocks, and toys the kids haven’t bothered to pick up and various tools and such. Joker is doing a nice job navigating it, and the new armor and shields are keeping the ship from getting too banged up. 

Suddenly we are being chased by some creepy ass little orb-eye things with guns. One of them manages to blast its way into the cargo bay or somewhere like that I never go so I grab Garrus and Thane and head down there to fuck it the fuck up. 

Another one gets in and we kill it too and hope that we’re done with those things for like…I dunno, ever? 

Back up by Joker, the Collector’s ship is coming on out to try to shoot us. I hate this dumb rock sculpture bullshit ship, so I tell Joker to fire the main gun and see if Garrus’s calibrations are good as he keeps telling me. 

We fly right at the ship and BAM, our gun rips them up something fierce. I want to tell Garrus right then that his gun show is the best gun show ever, but instead we circle around shoot the ship again. 

And then we hit a patch of trouble and the Normandy crashes on the Collector base. Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. Can we fix it? I know I’ve been all like “oh we might all die” but that’s just complete bullshit, I don’t intend for that to happen at all. 

I tell EDI to work on it, and gather the squad around my table. It’s really nice, and I think we will have a big Christmas dinner in here, come December. 

Jokerrrrrrrr

Is that IFF installed yet?

No? EDI’s still working on it. Okay.

I go to my cabin where I feed my fish, check my hamster and then sit on my bed and twiddle my thumbs for a bit.

I’M BOOOORRREEED.

Joker? 

He tells me it’s gonna take a while and I should take a shuttle to our next mission. 

But I don’t haaaaaaaaave a mission to dooooooooo. 

JUST GET OFF THE DAMN SHIP SHEPARD!

Fine, we’re leaving. 

I take absolutely every squadmate and pile them all into the shuttle. It is crowded to say the least. Laps are being sat on, personal spaces are being invaded, pheremones are being inhaled. PILOT! Autopilot! Whoever is up there flying this thing! I say, set a course for WHEREVER!

This is fun, right guys? I’m having fun. This is way better than sitting around in the cabin. You guys want to play a game? Sing some road trip songs? Eh? 

The engines on the shuttle go fsssshh fssshhh fsssshhh.

No? Fine.

Suddenly we get a call from the Normandy, telling us to hurry back right away, so we do because we weren’t doing anything anyways, and no one seemed to be digging on my attempts to encourage comraderie amongst squad members. 

Back on the ship, we find the Collectors have taken…everyone. Except Joker. Everyone. 

Well. Bummer. I guess at least they didn’t just blow the ship up this time but, still, I can’t say I’m thrilled about this situation. Miranda yells at Joker for “letting them” do that and I look at her like, you are so dumb. 

Is the IFF at least ready to go? Because I have nothing else to do right now, oh except this…uh..help Liara thing but good lord I am putting that off. Awkward!

EDI says we’re ready for the relay. 

Then let’s do it.

Back on the Normandy, I don’t think anyone really wants me to turn this Geth back on. 

Which means I’m doing it. Muahahahaha! 

I’M COMMANDER SHEPARD! YOU CAN’T STOP ME! I DO WHAT I WANT!

I head down to the AI core which is through the med bay and is also very poorly lit. Some Cerberus guy is standing there guarding the uh…let’s just inactive Geth. I take a moment to look this dude over because I’m pretty sure I don’t remember seeing him on my ship before. Suspicious! Where did you come from? Are you normally supposed to sit at one of these seats upstairs that is always empty? I dismiss you from this post! Go to your seat upstairs!

I activate the Geth and talk to him, naming him Legion with EDI’s help and finding out that the chunk of N7 armor he has is mine. Because even robots love me. We have a nice chat, and I head upstairs to check with Joker on the Reaper IFF installation. And then over to Kelly to see if there’s anything else I gotta do while we wait on that.

She says Legion would like to talk to me.

Wha-

I was just down there.

I go back down the elevator and find Legion needs help destroying some other Geth that are planning to plant a virus in his Geth friends. Geth on Geth violence. Organics keeping ’em down. What have you.

All right, I say. Get your gun, I’ll let Garrus know and go point the ship in the right direction. 

Once on board, Legion tells me that he’s found another option instead of just destroying all these Geth. We could reprogram the virus they had planned to use against Legion’s Geth and use against them instead. Apparently this is would be akin to brainwashing but I like to think of it more as releasing an update. Oh did Geth OS 7 drop? Let me check out the new features! I hope it’s less buggy than Geth WE. (Willenium). 

I ask Legion what he wants to do and he tells me that I should pick. 

No you pick Legion.

No you pick Shepard.

No. You.

No you.

GODDAMMIT. I DON’T WANNA.

We work our way through the ship to find our way to some core or something, as usual. Always working our way towards something we will program or shoot or blow up or all three or some combination of them. Legion and I are hacking geth along the way but usually all the Geth the hacked Geth might’ve shot are dead before they can kill much and then I have to stand there and shoot a couple of Geth that are just holding still. 

Finally we get to the place to either blow up the Geth or reprogram them. Legion still wants me to pick so I pick reprogramming. He pushes a few buttons and then says that there’s gonna be a nice pulse right through the ship that’ll kill any organics. In like…3 minutes.

…awesome.

I am upset, but I can feel Garrus’s eyes piercing me from behind. You see Shepard. When you rig things to explode in like 10 seconds and then make us sprint away from it with no warning?

This is how that feels. 

I’m sorrrrrryyyyy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. 

The worst part is I know we’re gonna get back to the ship and Garrus is gonna tell everyone else about this.

*sigh*

We take off running and fight off a few Geth trying to stop us and make it back to the Normandy in one piece. 

Is it time to fight the Collectors yet? Because I am taking a drinking break quick.

With everyone on my ship happy and focused, Jacob giving me bro-hugs, and me getting anxious for the sweet Turian loving, I decide to head to the derelict Reaper and find an IFF that let us go through that scary red relay. 

I take Garrus and Thane with me and we start investigating what happened to Cerberus’s science team. Unsurprisingly they all went crazy. And died. Or something. They’re all dead. I wasn’t really expecting to find a survivor. And if I did find one, I’d probably have to kill them for some reason. 

We continue through the ship when we are attacked by piles and piles of husks. Goddamn fucking husks. I would say that I wish I could kill every husk ever, but I think I fucking do. I guess I wish it wasn’t such a pain in the ass to do it. 

We work our way through the ship when a couple of husks are shot by something that was not me. Uuuh, Garrus? No? Thane? Also no? Well…that’s strange. OOOOH PALLADIUM! 

Further into the ship there’s a bunch of those spikes that turn people into husks. Garrus says something like, my people call them Dragon Teeth and I’m a little annoyed that they have a name for something on this ship that the council and a bunch of other people insist doesn’t exist. How did that name come about? 

Somewhere on this ship scouring adventure, I find out from Joker that the reaper’s magic effect fields are keeping us from getting back to the Normandy and we need to go blow up the ship’s generator and then get off the ship quick before it plummets into the system’s crappy sun or whatever. We’re suddenly hurrying and panicked about doing this, when I am wondering if we are still going to get that IFF? I didn’t come here just for a fun escape mission, I had a reason for it. 

We start working our way towards the ship’s mass effect generator, shooting piles of husks along the way. And the occasional giant scion with their goofy sideways heads. As we enter one room, two husks pop up behind me and are suddenly shot by our mysterious sniper again. We look up and see a Geth, with a sniper rifle in a chunk of N7 armor. He says my name and then darts off like a fucking leprechaun. The hell?

Garrus and  Thane seem equally confused but before we can have a discussion about this jesus fucking christ, there’s more goddamn husks to kill. 

We’ve almost made it to the generator when I come across the IFF just sitting on a terminal. Well that’s fucking convenient. I thought we were gonna have to find another Reaper and try this all again, but there it is just waiting for me like a little present. 

I have no reason to be suspicious!

In the next room is the Geth again and a shit load of husks. He gets uh…”knocked out?” I don’t know what the appropriate term would be. Shut down? Sleep mode? At any rate, we’re stuck shooting all the husks while also trying to shoot the generator. We finally blow it up and are ready to book it back to the Normandy, except that the issue of discussing that Geth is forced upon us. I say let’s take him, because I like anyone that’ll shoot one of these fucking husks. Garrus is, of course, wary and untrusting. It’s so adorable how he worries. 

We grab the Geth and hurry off this damn reaper.

Joker pulls the Normandy around to the platform we are sprinting off of. Garrus shoots the husks that are chasing us, while Thane and I heave the Geth towards the ship and he floats right into the airlock. 

“OOOH! DID YOU GUYS SEE THAT? PERFECT SHOT!”

No one cares though and Garrus and Thane are already leaping into the ship themselves. I guess I’ll jump in there too. 

I give the husks the finger as we speed off, and take the Geth to my magic table. 

Finally I am down to one last person that needs me to help them: Zaeed. We need to go..I don’t know something, refinery, Vido, whatever. I am so bad at listening to this guy talk. 

We head to the planet and shoot our way through some mercs, stopping at a bridge for Zaeed to talk to me some more, and I ask him about founding the Blue Suns and getting shot in the face and stuff, but really I’m staring off behind him where Garrus has leaned against a railing as a waterfall pours down behind him and he winks at me and I absent-mindedly reply everything Zaeed is saying with “uh huh. uh huh. uh huh.”

“Shepard are you looking at something behind me?”

“What? No. I was just uh…saying we should keep moving…” 

“You were making kissy faces!”

We eventually end up at the refinery door where Vido is standing on a ledge yelling down at Zaeed and having his men point guns at us. Suddenly Zaeed starts firing wildly and starts a fire and releases some valve and I’m like “UUM WHAT THE HELL?”

Okay dude. Look here’s the rule. If you’re gonna start a fire, it better to be to kill someone. And if you do decide to try that, make sure the guy you want dead actually starts on fire. And if you’re just gonna shoot like a crazy person at some magical target in the background, why don’t you just shoot Vido instead? What the fuck? Now a building is on fire and he’s not dead! If you wanted to shoot him so bad just fucking shoot him! Oh, you wanted to make sure we could get into the building? You have seen me bypass a goddamn door before right? Hack a terminal? We would get in the building. 

Now

Now there’s a fire.

I punch him and we move on with this stupid mission, stupid idiot with his stupid fire starting bullshit motherfrigginreggingfriggin…

As we head inside, we find a bunch of the workers are trapped. Zaeed is like, fuck them I need to kill that guy I had a clear shot at two minutes ago. I look at him.

WELL MAYBE WE SHOULD THINK THROUGH OUR ACTIONS A LITTLE BETTER HUH MAYBE?

We head to help the workers. Thankfully all the gas valves I need to turn off aren’t blocked by fire or a fallen beam or something. Then I find the sprinkler system to put the fires out and wonder for a second why those aren’t, ya know, like automatic or something. 

The workers saved, we have a shit ton of mercs to fight through while fire sprays down upon us. God this is shit.

Finally we make it out and see Vido flying away in a gunship that Zaeed angrily shoots at until his clip is empty. Then he points it at me. Uh. I JUST saw you empty that gun out, dude. Also there’s no gas valves near me, so I imagine you’re confused about how to kill me. 

And if you tried, well. Garrus. 

I tell him he’s a dick and then a giant beam falls on him. I ask him if he’s all right, even though I JUST SAW A GIANT BEAM FALL ON HIM. He says he’s okay, but is super pissed at me. I tell him if he’s gonna go fight collectors with me, he needs to chill the fuck out or I will just leave him under his stupid beam. He agrees and I LIFT THE BEAM OFF HIM HUUUUURRRRGH!

Oh wait it wasn’t that heavy. It was like that stuff they use to make cake decorations. No wonder it didn’t hurt. 

Back to the ship guys. 

Tali’s mission has me feeling appropriately rowdy so I grab Jack and say let’s go blow up that thing you want to blow up or whatever. 

We head to a planet where it is raining a lot. I stare at Garrus’s collar. 

“Is that…Garrus, is your collar filling up with water? Is there a drainage hole of some sort? JESUS JACK AREN’T YOU COLD?”

We soggily head inside before we all catch our death out there and start investigating the abandoned facility, mostly wrecked from Jack’s escape. We scan some stuff, hack some things, and listen to some logs that point towards the fact the facility was torturing and experimenting other kids, and lots of them died doing this. We press on.

Some varren charge us and we kill ’em pretty quickly and but later see some other varren that someone else killed. Garrus notes that the kill looks fresh and I sigh because this means there’s someone else here and I’ll probably have to kill them.

Sure enough a bunch of blood pack mercs try to kill us but don’t last long. We continue through the facility and find some rooms that were apparently the kids’ rooms. Garrus reacts with a bit of disgust that they made children stay in these horrible rooms. I glance in one. *shrug* Garrus, this room is almost as big as yours. Children are small! These rooms probably were huge to them. Look at how much space they got. They can sit on the bed or do prison cell pushups. A kid could get pretty ripped in a cell like this, that’s for sure. Maybe Turian babies are really big or something.

As we near Jack’s cell, we come across a room full of blood pack mercs, apparently talking to someone in the next room. I am so annoyed at this guys, that I black out and when I wake up all of the mercs are dead and Garrus and Jack are staring at me.

Look.

Her pissiness rubs off. It’s like I need Garrus along on this mission to keep me calm. 

After a few deep breaths we head into the next room, Jack’s cell. A guy who used to also be a test subject is there, saying how he’s going to start the facility up again with his no money and dirty clothes. Jack wants to kill him, but I tell her that this guy is just crazy deluded and she shouldn’t bother. She lets him go. All right then, you wanna plant the bomb? Oh you wanna look around first, okay.

She shows me her horrible bed and her horrible window and her desk she tells me was her best friend. God, a desk? Well…do you wanna take it back to ship? We could put Desky down in your room, dust him off, a happy reunion for everyone! Oh, you don’t? You wanna blow him up with all the other stuff. Okay then let’s do it already.

Jack pushes the detonator on our giant ass bomb as we fly away in the Normandy. The turbulence almost knocks Garrus into my lap.

HEY.

Easy there Handsy. Save it for the suicide mission. 

Don’t give me that look!

It was YOUR idea.

I decide that instead of just schlupping around my ship, like I’ve been doing for the past …forever, I should go finish up all this mission-y, helping people, stopping collectors business. Looking down my to-do list, I decide to head to the flotilla and help Tali. 

I grab Garrus, as usual, and the three of us board a ship with Tali. There we talk to a few other people and find that they’ve started referring to Tali as being from the Normandy instead of as being from her flotilla ship. Tali seems upset by this but I think Normandy might be a cool last name and consider having mine changed as well. 

COMMANDER NORMANDY OF THE NORMANDY

wait wait

I’ll change the ship to Shepard. 

No no, nevermind. Let’s just get this treason trial underway. 

The admiralty board tells Tali that she’s charged with sending active Geth back to the flotilla. And that they have taken over her father’s ship. And oh, by the way, he might be dead. Did we forget to mention that? Did we just totally glaze over that? God we’re sorry. I say Tali and I will go to this supposedly overrun by Geth ship and take that fucker back. And maybe find some evidence too but mostly I’m excited for the shooting that will happen. 

The admirals agree to this and dismiss us. But before leave! I gotta make the rounds and talk to all these people whose names I never remember. Just the Qwib Qwib guy and the bitch. Oh and the two that were in missions earlier, but they’re not admirals. 

Tali tells me not ask about the Qwib Qwib guy about his name. So that’s the first thing I ask about even though I don’t really pay attention to his answer. It’s just some odd compulsion to immediately do something I am told to not do and not consider what happens afterwards at all. Hell if someone had told me that whatever I do, DO NOT fight the collectors? I would be on their porch right now.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK bitches! Someone said this was a bad idea and I, oh fuck, I have no one to help me. 

Anyway, one of the other admirals was a total pain in the ass and was being super annoying. I hope I get to punch her someday…

Finally we leave and head towards the infiltrated ship. Every quarian team that went before us apparently died in the first five minutes, so when we board, I am immediately ready for a fight but there’s not Geth waiting right there for me. Oh well. We work our way through the place killing Geth and looking for clues when we come across Tali’s father.

And he’s totally dead.

This is awkward. She starts crying, and I give her a hug and then wonder if like…like if you cry when you have glasses on it makes your glasses so filthy somehow even if you’re not crying INTO the glasses,  your tears just make everything around them dirty and disgusting and is it doing something like that inside of her mask or is it fogging up or…how do you clean in there anyways and I’ve been thinking about this so long but still hugging that I think Tali is ready to stop.  

We continue through the ship and run into a huge ass Geth Prime.

AND

A MODEL SHIP! Is uh…is this anyone’s? Going once? TAKING IT.

We find information that Tali’s father was doing stuff he shouldn’t have been and the info will clear Tali’s name but she’s major weepy over her dad and doesn’t want other people finding out about this. I sigh, and we go back to the other ship were Lawyer Shepard is gonna throw down.

As we run in, Garrus takes a seat in the back and as I give a rousing speech to clear Tali’s name, i can’t help but glance back at him every few minutes and wander what the hell he’s doing. Do have video games in a HUD in your helmet? What are you…watch my speech! Look how amazing I’m being! 

The speech totally works and as we leave, I flip off the admirals and spit on the floor.

FUCK Y’ALL.

Back on the ship, I decide to go see if Garrus is up for our romp yet. I walk into his little room and ask if he has a minute to, ya know…just talk.

He shuts the door behind me.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I am halfway to naked when Garrus says, “I’ve been thinking…”

You’ve been what? No. Nooo, no. No thinking, no. Suddenly you have time to think? Go back to calibrating and no thinking and when I come down here for sexy times you just do it.

Oh…you…you’re wondering if I’m sure about this. Well yes, of course, look at me. I’m awkwardly putting my boots back on, having thrown them off in a haste a few minutes ago. Are uh…are you sure?

Okay then, let’s do this. I start taking my boots back off. Are there like latches on your armor or…

You think we should wait?

As long as possible?

Not disturb the crew?

HEAT SINKS?

Maaaaaaaaaaaan. I begrudgingly agree and tell him that I’ll be back later.

I go up to the labs and talk with Mordin instead. He’s got a dire warning for me!

Shepard! Be careful…

Be careful having sex with Garrus! Don’t ingest! Chafing! Shock! Pokey parts! 

Wh..buh…how did you? I just came from his room, how is this all over the ship already? 

I have my suspicions.

I head to CIC Deck and walk over to Kelly. Hello Kelly. Is there anything I should know? Is there anything you perhaps decided that other people needed to know and so you told them all about it? DO I HAVE ANY UNREAD MESSAGES AT MY PRIVATE TERMINAL?

Oh I do? Well. I give her one last glare and keep on with my rounds. 

Jacob? Bro hugs? No, not yet? Okay I’ll be back for those though! 

Man, I need to relax. I head to Kasumi’s room where there is, ya know, booze.

I ask Kasumi what’s up, just hoping to make some small talk when she says she hears that Garrus has got it bad for me.

goddammit can’t a woman keep a goddamn secret.

I down a shot quickly and march towards Garrus’s room.

GARRUS THE CREW IS ALREADY DISTURBED. 

RELATIONS.

NOW.