Chapter 37: Come Again!

Tevos considered herself a calm and rational individual, a friendship with a certain foul tempered Queen of Omega notwithstanding. Ignoring that, she looked at every situation from a calm and logical point of view with wisdom from her great age and a touch of pleasantness that let others look to her as a friend rather than an adversary. She was willing to listen to any and all plights of her people and those who were both beside and under her. She did not look down on others; it let them open up more to be pleasant company. Never in her life since becoming the holder of a council seat had she been anything but professional and well spoken.

"What the actual Fuck?!"

However there was a first time for everything.

Sparatus whose eyes were wide and mandibles flared looked at the same screen with a look of abject horror. Jobol just blankly stared not even twitching.

The screen displayed a horrific Asari cybernetic abomination that begged and pleaded to allow it to kill itself and worst of all apologized with each and every Blow. A cybernetic Turian dragged from the deepest of nightmares fought beside it and the most malformed monstrous Batarians they had ever seen.

They had seen Collectors, things none of them had ever expected to see outside of blurry holovids and tales, burn with eldritch fire as something took them over. They had seen monsters of metal and wire fight alongside Geth and Collectors as something spoke through them like they were puppets.

When the video ended, the Councilors stayed silent for what seemed like hours.

"…What. Was. THAT!"

Jobol laced his fingers as he breathed in and out as calmly as he could. Jobol had seen many things in his time as a Councilor, he never expected anything to top a sentient virus, but this came scary close.

"I think" Said Jobol unblinking. "we witnessed the robotic entities we know as Reapers, or at least their troops."

"But. We. They. We. We couldn't confirm anything. Who sent this?" asked Sparatus.

"Aria of Omega sent it to me personally." said Tevos blankly.

Jobol, for the first time in his life, shrugged. It wasn't often he didn't know something.

"I have people looking into it. Whoever sent it to Aria was very good at not revealing themselves. That said I have sent it to a very select group to confirm its authenticity. I can't be certain until the results come in, but I think we should at the very least act as if this is real. Whoever gave this to Aria went to a lot of trouble to show us this without revealing themselves; I doubt they would do it for some sick joke. Even Blacklight has limits."

Tevos swallowed some bile that threatened to leave her stomach. Sparatus on the other hand was slowly, but surly getting his bearings.

"Were those Vorcha fighting alongside Blacklight?"

"Yes," said Jobol calmly.

Sparatus nodded.

"Best Vorcha fighters I have ever seen. Better than I expected anyway."

Tevos rubbed her head.

"If this is real, then there is a race of giant cybernetic entities bent on our destruction just beyond the edge of the galaxy. I find that hard to believe, but… Those poor people. It hurt to watch that. Physically hurt. If this is a joke, it is the sickest most twisted one ever to be thought up. I can't imagine a mind that could come up with it."

Tevos spoke with a strange monotone neither councilor had ever heard before. It was quite jarring from her normal professional tone they were accustomed to.

She turned to Jobol.

"Jobol, we have never seen eye to eye, we have never gotten along in any way other than a strictly professional manner. I owe you nothing, and you owe me nothing. But. I need to know if this is true."

Jobol looked back to the now blank screen.

It wasn't hard to see Tevos was shaken. Jobol always knew that Tevos' main contribution to the council was her ability to appeal to emotion as well as logic. She herself however was also very emotional, and hated seeing suffering of any kind.

Knowing that, Jobol only nodded.

'The council should have everything they need to confirm that Reapers are real, the Geth made sure no Rachni were in any of the footage, then they pulled an 'All your Base are Belong to Us' and sent everything to Aria. She knew what to do. Shouldn't be long now until the Council is willing to get back on speaking terms with us.'

'A shame our kind must hide as we are forced to, thanks to those abominations of song and life.'

'More allies will be needed in the coming harvest, soon the Geth will find all we need to continue our goal of sabotaging the Reapers plans. It is only a matter of time.'

'Point is we turned a broken situation into one we could work with, however we are still in the dark on where the Collectors were heading and how they acquired Bloodtox, We dislike being uninformed.'

'We will get what we need. For now, let us concentrate on these Batarians. Change is coming, sooner them we wish, but the coming of the Old Machines is far too important not to push certain events forward. The four eyed ones are awash in the yellow notes of slavery, not the sour yellow note, but subjugation none the less. We wish to see them freed.'

'And you will.'

Saleon smiled as he sat rested. The metallic chair he rested in held him firm as tubes and needles were inserted into his skin. Custom built machines siphoned his blood and carefully mixed outside his body with a mixture of Saleon's own design. It was a simple formula: a series of proteins, enzymes, and artificial viral vectors meant to target very specific parts of his genetic structure. Then it was pushed back into his veins. All the while his ever faithful Nel rested at his feet.

Of course this mixture wouldn't change much about Saleon's biochemistry, in fact even if you would examine his genetic makeup after the changes would take hold, you wouldn't find anything without knowing what to look for, and even if you did you wouldn't see much other than what could be written off as a genetic defect, albeit a very beneficial one. Really all this was simply Saleon laying the groundwork for more extensive changes in the future. He would still be Salarian, but he would be more receptive of certain mutations down the line.

Saleon was many things, but above all he was careful not to change too much before he was fully sure what would happen. Saleon had no intentions of rushing or doing anything half way, even this was a calculated risk.

The machines whirled to life and the needles were retracted.

Saleon stood and patted his Nel on the head with a slight smile on his face before he smothered it when he looked up.

He moved on to his work, the Salarian eggs. Moving to their containment tank, Saleon carefully took to the controls as he began to introduce a careful mixture into each of them.

Within Saleon however the modifications took effect. They were minor, mostly heading off potential health problems down the line and optimizing a few other biological processes. Enough to add a few years to his life, not very many, but enough that Saleon would be pleasantly surprised when he analyzed his own altered genetics later.

As Saleon carefully altered the controls as he stood over the eggs, his veins bulged and became visible and discolored slightly, but he felt no discomfort. Even as his eyes dilated and his muscles contracted and swelled slightly.

As the mixture was added to the first egg, Saleon took what to him would be his first real breath.

Saleon looked at the screen as the formula was added into the eggs. This test was the most important. Tissue from the multiple successful subjects was analyzed before carefully selected enzymes cut out very specific genes within the many samples. The genes he wanted were isolated, and then came the fun part. Saleon had acquired a retrovirus, not Blacklight, just a standard retroviral vector used in Salarian Gene Therapy. The isolated sequence from the many Salarian test subjects was added into this virus, and then voila. Saleon could give any Salarian traits to any other Salarian with ease. Including himself. At least he hoped so.

These were multiple genes from multiple Salarians. There really was no telling how one coded sequence would behave with what parts would remain unaltered, not to mention the other altered genes also being added.

He needed to test them on the eggs before he did anything as foolish as inject anything in himself that could quite literally do anything. If he could reliably create Salarians with only the traits he wanted, then it would mean he would have devised a way to safely alter multiple genes of his own species both drastically and simultaneously without any negative side effects.

Saleon needed to find a way to alter genes perfectly without negatively impacting other genes. Not for his subjects' sake. He didn't really care about them. No, he wanted to make sure that when he altered himself, everything would go perfectly.

The groundwork for Saleon's dreams of godhood had already been laid within him, and his transcendence was not far behind if he could figure it out. All he had to do now was wait for the eggs to hatch.

Among the Batarian council Dakira Brorcomon sat as Selin stood. Selin was still new to these halls, but had made quite a name for himself as he spoke on the usual details.

"Blacklight's recent shipment of Eezo has been moved to the R&D department, genetic samples of species from the Arklyn Hollows was sent in the previous shipment. The next samples we are preparing is fresh water species of the Straliax Continent. Nothing toxic yet, We will withhold any toxic species or apex predators for now from that area. Though we have taken samples for the next shipments."

Selin began looking to his omnitool before turning back to his senior members.

"We have effectively quintupled our Eezo assets thanks to them. Balak has mentioned Blacklight wishes for species who are bioluminescent, specifically certain deep sea species. They didn't specify why, but they have promised a 10% extra for them."

"Granted, thank you Selin, now onto more pressing matters. The song. What have we learned?"

Now it was Dakira's turn to speak. After being saved by Bardon, Dakira made quite the announcement and that made him no friends in the Batarian Council. Which is why he was the one tasked with learning as much about the incident as possible, mainly because if he failed, he could lose his seat. Dakira had no intentions of that and was VERY thorough.

"As far as we can tell, the vocal analysis of that song came from at least one Salarian and one Batarian, due to the fact that multiple voices were singing in sync it is difficult to identify them all, but we can say that there were at least two others singing."

Dakira cleared his throat as he continued.

"Additional analysis shows that the song was uploaded at the DXL Station approximately four minutes before the song actually played. No surveillance footage was found but the way the cameras were destroyed is most telling. Forensic analysis has determined that whatever destroyed the cameras left no signs of traditional Mass Accelerator weaponry, and while the projectile was removed, the damage shows that it was spike like in appearance and at least a foot long."

"And can you determine what the weapon actually was?"

"I am working on several possibilities, one theory was this was a gun that used compressed air to fire sharpened metallic rods. A clever enough slave could easily build one using common materials. I am still waiting for the full analysis."

With that Dakira took his seat, confident in the belief that his thoroughness would satisfy the others for now, but Dakira knew he was on thin ice.

"Thank you Lord Brorcomon, we expect the rest of your findings next meeting in two days."

Hunters were altered. A new breed created for the expressed purpose of fighting Husks, especially the Bloodtox based ones. A thick exoskeleton over bones of biocompatible titanium covered in a special series of hairs meant to replicate the lotus effect on the leaves of certain plants, making their exoskeleton highly repellant to certain fluids. Bloodtox would easily just slide right off.

It took a while to find a way to have this apply to Bloodtox, which under normal circumstances wouldn't fall under the Lotus Effect due to technically being an organic solvent to Blacklight biomatter, but by making the materials of the carapace very difficult for Bloodtox to dissolve rapidly would allow at least most of the fluid to slide off, greatly reducing the damage.

Blacklight never really could create a perfect method of avoiding Bloodtox damage, but they could definitely mediate the damage.

Sure Blacklight could create a metallic shell, but that would impede mobility, bones didn't need to be flexible, so metals were restricted to there for the most part.

Once the hunters acquired these traits, they were quickly adapted into the armor of all Infected and in Evolved shields and armor.

It proved to be effective.

The gas form of Bloodtox would be difficult, but a mucus lining on internal organs would help there, and would be much more effective than even the armor.

Of course there was always the possibility of being injured and Bloodtox getting into the much less protected areas. Blacklight decided to do something about this, and took inspiration from an unlikely source.

Xenomorphs, those adorable killing machines from old movies were known among any nerd worth their salt (And by extension anything within blacklight) to have acidic blood, highly pressurized at that. While Blacklight could give themselves highly corrosive blood, that would take the place of other much more vital fluids, so they improvised. A secondary layer within the shells or skin was filled with acidic substances powerful enough to melt metal if not immediately dealt with.

In addition, Blacklight was able to use this acid as a hydraulic fluid similar to insects to work in tandem with their muscles to allow for greater flexibility on top of a, in Blacklight's opinion, very cool defense mechanism.

The idea was simple: if the armor was somehow breached, it would rupture the acidic layer and spray it up to 30 feet away, showering anything too close in acidic death. Or in other words, MELTING!

In addition, there was another layer over that that would function as liquid armor. A very thick membrane over a Magnetorheological fluid, or a smart fluid in a carrier fluid. With iron particles floating freely throughout it. It would behave like a liquid under any normal circumstances, but if the carapace was breached, and it was shot by typical ammo, a magnetic field generated via a bioelectric charge would magnetize the iron together and the armor would behave as a solid.

Past the exoskeleton and you had liquid armor to deal with. Breach that and you could enjoy a spray of fluroantimonic acid.

And Blacklight did love acid. They loved it a lot.

Morinth had to wonder exactly where her life went wrong. Currently she was sitting in a bench in a park, a nice park, but a park none the less, elbow on the armrest to prop up her head as she looked around with narrowed eyes.

Young Asari children were playing in the dirt with their mothers. Must be nice for the annoying little pricks, doing typical annoying things like chasing each other with sticks or one child of questionable intelligence picking her nose without a care in the world.

Morinth hadn't seen so much as a hint of Samara since she teleported away in rapid intervals like some weird version of a teleporting house fly… Whatever that was.

She had successfully cleared over 2 thousand miles before she figured she had gotten away and now was sitting around letting the world get to her because it had been a rather frantic and depressing week full of running, teleporting, and a minor existential crisis caused by habits and character tics she never had in her life.

Morinth drummed her fingers on her leg as the sun started to fall across the horizon allowing dusk to give way to night.

She really wasn't sure how long she had been sitting here, but the stiffness from lack of movement was most telling.

It didn't help that she hadn't slept yet due to sheer paranoia that was slowly dying down as time went on. Morinth couldn't leave either, not without Samara figuring out where she was going, plus she still had a job to do. She really didn't want to do anything right now, but Blacklight wouldn't be all too pleased if she came back empty handed. Not to mention the whole Giant Robotic Squid Gods, chances are that if Blacklight was right, and there was a Prothean data cache here it would help against those squiddy bastards.

Morinth imagined that it would be quite the shock for Samara to follow her and find her daughter talking casually to something from Blacklight. Might give her a heart attack, definitely something to look into.

Morinth didn't know what happened next after that thought, only that she was suddenly face down in the ground and being dragged across the dirt.

All in all, not something that happens every day.

Opening her eyes, Morinth found herself floating in the air surrounded in a blue biotic glow with Samara standing not five feet in front of her with a look on her face that could sour milk or a look that says she drank sour milk.

"Talk," said Samara.

Well, it was more of a demand.

"Okay, umm… So nothing happened, then nothing happened to nothing which leads to a whole lot of nothing which really meant nothing in the first place, but I guess that none of this had nothing to do with what you want to talk about. Oh, that was a double negative."

"No games! What are Reapers?"

"Giant Robotic Squid Gods."

Morinth wondered why she seemed to refer to Reapers as that from time to time, something else to Blame Backlight for in the future. Assuming she actually had a future considering the circumstances. Idly she also wondered why she was taking this so well.

"I saw. No! I felt the suffering of beings whose species I can't even name being slaughtered by things! What did you see, I need to know. NOW!"

"No offense mother, but seeing how I am probably going to die soon, I really don't see a reason to tell you something to satisfy your curiosity considering that once your curiosity is satisfied you no longer really need to keep me alive, and I kinda like living. It's very nice."

For a brief moment, Morinth felt the biotic aura holding her waver just a bit as Samara's expression changed ever so slightly. Anyone else would have written it off as a trick of the light, but Morinth knew her mother well enough to see that she was confused.

"Your behavior is… Odd."

"Tell me about it." said Morinth mostly to herself.

Samara didn't react.

"Something has happened. You've changed, Morinth."

Morinth shrugged, or at least attempted to, considering the firm hold the biotic corona had on her.

"It happens."

Samara continued to stare blankly before her gaze broke.

"I am conflicted. More so than I thought I would be when this time came. The code is clear, yet at the same time, I feel you have learned something far more dangerous than yourself."

"I really hate that damn code of yours, and not just because of how absolute it is. Only Sith deal in absolutes mother."

"Sith?"

"Evil space wizard."

"You aren't making any sense."

"I know, half the shit that pops in my head these days make that all very difficult. On a related note, it's making it very hard to concentrate on escaping, so if you could stop asking questions even I don't know the answer to that would be great."

"I'm not letting you escape." said Samara as her grip tightened uncomfortably around Morinth.

"Noted." said Morinth struggling for breath.

Thankfully, the grip loosened, but was still tighter than before.

"Enough nonsense, Tell me what I want to know."

"Why?"

"Because it's the only thing that might just keep you alive for a significantly longer period of time."

"…Come again?"

Heretic Geth had done all they could to halt their majority Geth brethren, but in the end, they had been purged from the systems by their own self destructive fanaticism to the Reapers. Much of the data was taken with them, but Geth were nothing if not thorough and persistent.

The attack on the Collector vessel had failed long before the first shot was fired. Blacklight had no intentions of revealing themselves until they could figure out the destination of the ship, but they were discovered prematurely and the IFF had been destroyed. All they had to show for it was a fancy new ship that while impressive, still had its roots in Reaper design, meaning that no weaponry upon it would surprise any Reaper, save any improvements that could be designed in the time it took for the reapers to fully awaken, still at the moment it was inefficient, not to mention that it was significantly smaller than a Reaper with even less shielding, but that could be remedied.

The main cannon would prove useful, and Geth were already attempting to build a new one with considerable improvements to efficiency at the cost for a negligible amount of reduced power.

Geth continued to dig into various data caches that remained, and discovered a few interesting bits of information that would be a useful lead for Blacklight to pursue.

While much of the data had been corrupted in an attempt to destroy it, Geth were able to get some important information that would bear fruit.

Namely minute information on strange genetic experiments involving Krogan taking place on an unknown planet. Apparently the Heretics were able to erase that information, but there was enough for the Geth to draw the conclusion that this planet was the destination of the Collector Cruiser. The exact details on the experiments weren't listed, but there was the name of one of the scientists working on the project. Dr. Okeer.