Hexaflexagon

Mass Effect: Omega Serenade

Boom look at that another post. And Nik's name for the team? Well Nik so far hasn't given them a name and that is for a good reason. Giving something a name gives it reason, a emotional purpose. Doing that only makes it harder when things fall apart. So just "you idiots" will continue to work just fine with him.

Mass Effect: Omega Serenade

Nikusiil made an audible tsk noise almost for a moment sounding like your standard disapproving parent as he listened to them speak. He activated his omni-tool with a swipe of his hand and started to read the attachment that Haze had sent him as they continued to walk. He knew the source well enough The Omega Observer, the premier source of news on the little floating hell hole since bigger stations like ANN would never dare set foot in the Terminus systems let alone visit Omega. The Observer's one employee tried doing a story on Nik awhile back almost four years ago now, Nik put an end to that nice and quickly when he broke into the reporter's small apartment/workspace and shoved a gun in his face. The Drell didn't need any unnecessary publicity about him. It was already getting harder for him to operate as smoothly as he wanted to on the station with the whispers of a demon in a Drell body going around and executing gangbangers with a righteous fury. Nik read the article his face illuminated by the pale backlight glow of the omnitool as the words scrolled by him, he took in the information.

Blue Suns eh? Don't know if these humans are stupid or just ambitious? Nikusill wondered to himself. They stylized themselves as a private security organization, a fancy name for a group of mercenaries that want to look respectable on their wealthier clients account books. Mostly humans with a smattering of Salarians in their wake. Seemed most of them were left overs from First Contact, soldiers who after the war ended needed something new to do. Though like most soldier types something new usually meant more killing since it is all your really good at. Killers of all types fall in pretty naturally in the mercenary business. It was one of the reasons Nik made the transition from undercover Officer to hired gun so easily, he was used to the violence. But these Blue Suns worried him on a grander scale, they seemed to just be a normal protection racket working out of the Verge to protect Humans from their Batarian neighbors. But if they were here it meant a change in direction for the group something more expansionist. Nik didn't have time for another group of lowlifes to deal with.

Haze implied the idea of maybe using them but already in his own mind Nik had already shot down that avenue of approach. He didn't need a damn criminal to do his job talking to Jek was already going to be stretching the lines of how far he was willing to go. As Ardam and Raya put it they were already helping some jackoff deal with the competition. But that was because in the long run whether the others could see it or not Jek was the lesser of two evils. He may be called the Butcher of Omega but unlike Qiyrloc he wasn't concerned with expansion or galactic dominance, no he just wanted the territory that his former partner tried to kill him over. He wanted his chunk of scum back that he could rule over as he saw fit. He was a little leech sucking off the big fat dying cow that was Omega but he was just that a Leech and a Leech don't cause too many problems. Nik wasn't out to kill all the gangs in the Terminus System just the ones that grabbed his attention if a few others rose up in their place? Well as long as they owed the Drell a favor and know what he does to those that cross the boundary from businessmen to monster and didn't cross that line they could do as they pleased.

The Drell listened as his Turian companions tried their best to hide their own xenophobic sentiments towards the newest shining stars in Citadel Space. He couldn't help but chuckle to himself barely audible when Raya decided to voice her own opinions on the Humans. He sometimes forgot that not everybody in the entire galaxy had such a deep seated hatred towards the monkeys from Sol as the Turians did. Nik couldn't care either way as the people he dealt with got a bullet in their head no matter what planet they came from, though he understood why the Turians could get all grumpy after the Second Fleet completely wiped the floor with the Turian Hierarchy during the retaking of Shanxi. It was a big old kick in their inflated ego that was. Though as the team leader he figured at this point that he may as well interject to stop something from boiling over though watching Raya kick the new guy's ass would be fun for fun's sake.

"You know what I think?" He spoke immediately breaking the tension as the squad turned to listen to what their leader had to say as the Drell had remained quiet in the discussion so far.

"Firstly I think that you all talk too much. For a group of mercenaries, and killers you talk more than the Council when they are deciding tax rates. Secondly I think that everything breaks down into three simple things that every sentient being must fall back on Food, Fucking, and Shelter: Food because you want to be the top of the foodchain and able to eat whoever you want, Fucking because you want your species to continue, and Shelter because you want somewhere where you can Fuck and Eat without having to always look over your back. And every Sentient race has their own gripes and problems because in the end they are scared of losing one of those three things. The Turians are scared because their position as big dog has been challenged by the savage primitive humans that managed to rip the stick out of their asses and beat them with it. The Quarians are scared because of the Geth, the Geth that took away their home, that took away their shelter. Now on their ships floating through space their sense of shelter of safety has all been demolished. The Asari are scared to, they are so concerned about remaining the top dogs, the most desirable. They are scared that someone or something is going to happen and they won't be the most fuckable anymore. A fear that is crystallized in the Ardat-Yakshi, literally unfucakble no matter what you try. And my own people are scared because we have already lost all of it we lost our planet and over ninety percent of all of us. We fear that we will lose our culture and our sense of self. We fear that we have become too adaptable to new cultures and surroundings that the old ways will be lost.

Now we all fear the loss of these three basic ideas because what they translate to is power. Those that have the most food, fuck the most and have the nicest living conditions? They are the ones with all the power and in the end we are all animals. Animals driven by our need to survive and our need for power." Nik explained pausing for a moment underneath a broken sliver of light as he let his point settle in with the team. "Now Daro that is why I'm not afraid of Qiyrloc or his men. I don't fear them because they are just like us. They are all animals scraping by, trying to assert their dominance and gain power the only way they know how guns and money. But they are animals just like us, and animals my doctor friend? I know how to kill animals." Nik explained and you could almost feel the cold almost predatory sting to his voice as he spoke. A voice akin to the the playful mewel of a tiger before it went to go chase its prey.

"Now that I'm done shitting on all of our respective cultural identities, I'm going to say this once and only once. Leave the race politics at the door. I don't care if a human killed your best friend and fucked your wife. It is not my job to care. My job is to kill people. You're hired killers not sociologists. You can hate whoever the hell you want on your own damn time. Now lets move the out" Nik explained never looking back to face them knowing that his words would be enough. They progressed deeper into Jek's territory as the sound of gunshots become more distant and distant fading away swallowed by the dark. The Drell checked his omnitool, they would be approaching the position marked on the map soon. For the rest of the trip Nik did not speak whether it was because he was angry, disappointed or just had a lot on his mind at the moment no one could really tell. What they could tell was that he seemed agitated about something.

After around twenty more minutes though of Silence Nik stopped in front of a building. The large neon sign outside read in big yellow letters Imports and Exports with the P in Imports and the X in Exports having been shot out by a stray bullet some time ago. The building was surronded by a swath of carnage outside mostly Crimson Fist Guys. They all were dropped in piles outside of the door as if they were forcing their way in or trying to crawl their way out. The still smoking craters and the fresh bullet holes told them that this battle had occurred recently maybe in the last couple of hours. Though there was no sign of Jek or his boys anywhere. There was no sign of anything really just the tangible silence that could be tasted upon the mouth after a slaughter. The Import Export building was the place that Krag had marked on the map for him, this was apparently was leading the defensive. Nik could see why it was a choke point, a meeting place between the three roads that lead from Crimson Fist Territory before they met together and went deep into Jek's own territory. The building were close here and Jek's men had tightened the path evermore with makeshift barriers and watchtowers built along the intersection. Not to mention the number of bodies with rifles that could hide within the surrounding buildings before laying down a rain of bullets down upon the enemy as they tried to force their way through. A perfect little meat grinder.

"Well I suppose we go in then." Nik whispered to nobody in particular as he made some hand signs hopefully Haze would be able to translate for the new guy. Nik and Raya would take the front, Daro would stay sandwiched in the center and Ardan and Haze would cover the back. Standard five man formation that they drilled into Nik's head at C-Sec when breaching an unkown building. They entered the threshold of the lobby and found it in similar condition to the outside bodies everywhere some Crimson Fist and some wearing the markings that Krag's boys had which would make them Revenants, Jek's men. The bodies told a story it seemed at one point or another during the siege that the lines outside broke and so Jek ordered his men into the building where they could funnel them through easier fight them room to room. It seemed the Reveants did a damn well job of it judging from the number of Crimson Fist that littered the floor. The stench of death was almost overwhelming forcing Neck to question his own personal decision of never wearing a helmet. What he would kill for a filtration system at the moment as the rotting bodies festered in the industrial heat.

They moved further into the building trying to ignore the smell. They moved through what first seemed to be the officer area lots of corridors and cubicles all littered with bullet holes and the occasional body. The building was dark suggesting that the Crimson Fist had cut the power at some point to try and get the edge on the defenders. The occasional light only came from a stary window or a whole in the wall blown in from either biotics or explosives. As they progressed deeper into the building the bodies became fresher as their blood ran more easily and followed down the empty halls. Though there was still no signs of any life until they heard something. A strangled yell. Nik raised his hand signaling them to stop. They waited and heard another yell. They were coming from the direction of the factory section of the building where the imports and exports were backed up or shipped in on large heavy conveyor belts with robitct implements. As they neared the door that lead to the main shipping and receiving floor they heard more noise coming and the occasional rare gunshot. As they appoarched the door it slide suddenly with a whirr as a Turian dressed in Crimson Fist armor came stumbling out. Nik looked up at him in confusion as the drell lowered his weapon the Turian was grasping at a large piece of what seemed to be piping jutting through his chest and out the otherside seemingly unaware of their existence too shell shocked and in pain to register anything. He stumbled past them pushing by them trying to get towards the entrace making it about a foot more down the hall before falling face first to the ground dead. Nik and his team very confused raised their weapons and on Nik's signal entered the floor.

The room was seemingly coated from top to bottom in blood and Crimson Fist bodies With the occasional Revenant corpse mixed in. They soon found the source of the yelling in the form of a krogan dressed in the armor of a Crimson Fist Lieutenant who was currently getting his ass handed to him by a middle aged shirtless Batarian Male who currently had him pinned to the ground and had a large butcher's knife jabbed into the small space between the Krogan's head and Crest Plate and was prying it up through sheer brute strength of the Batarian. The Batarian who was not facing them and seemingly did not notice or did not care of their intrusion was shouting at the Krogan as he tore the crest plate from his face. "You think you're big? You stupid sack of lizard spawn? Well I'll tell you, you ain't big enough to deal with Fucking Jek!" He yelled as the Krogan shouted bloody murder as his own pain tolerance and resistance to being killed allowed him to be awake through all of this. Finally with a sickening popthat made even Nik squirm and his stomach twist a little bit the crest plate came off of the Krogan's head.

"Fuck You!" Jek punctuated with a large overhand swing as he grabbed the crest plate and then brought it down with the force of an angry god upon the exposed flesh of the Krogan skull. The first hit with a Splurt crack as it caved in the weak bone that lay under in support of the crest plate and he brought it down a second time splattering himself with brain matter and blood as the crest plate wielded as a bloody instrument of war punctured the Krogan's skull. The Krogan's body still twitched under the weight the backup organs trying to get the body to move again but before it could the batarian using the large butcher knife he used to pry the plate of he buried into the eye of the twitching corpse and twisted hard his muscular arms flexing with great strength as he did.

"Bastard." The Batarian said softly as he spat on the body and ripped his knife out of the now still corpses eye. He wiped the blood off of the knife on his pants as he turned to face the group that had just entered his knife primed and ready to go but he relaxed as he saw Nik. "What caught you up on the way over Turian fucking you up the ass?" The batarian asked reaching his free hand out ot Nik. The hand like the rest of the Batarians body was covered in blood and entrails of the Crimson Blood.

Nik almost chuckled as he put his own gun away in a gesture of peace and reached out to shake the Batarians hand not seemingly paying to mind the blood coating it. "I'm Nikusill and this is my team. And you must be Jek."

The Batarian looked and Nik and give him a smile that only the devil himself could give to a man. "Did the Knife give me away?"

---

Jek
The Butcher

Gods, Wizards, & Kings

I think it's time for lady vett to comment.

@RabidAnubis

Lady Vekk you mean? Yes, yes it would. Just wanted to make sure that everybody is content with their opinions before we progress. Working on that Post now.

Falling Skies: 7th Mobile Armor Suit Team

Hoi Kimi, I've started. Put the fingers to the posty thing!

@vietmyke

Do the thing!!

Mass Effect: Omega Serenade

Strange. I thought there'd be more to the post cause we were done at the outpost already.

I don't know what to post at this point. Anything I do will be short and inconsequential.

@DJAtomika

And sometimes things are short and inconsequential not everything has to be earth breaking revelations. And beside I did not want to drop a 20,000 character word wall at you guys so I figured I'd break it up and that was the place for the easiest break up of the post. If you prefer that I put it back that could be arranged.

Mass Effect: Omega Serenade

Nik would shoot him there and then saving maybe millions in the long run for the death of a few thousand.

Anyway after cutting out like half of the post deciding that could rather be two posts because meeting Jek is going to be an interesting experience. The post is up!

Mass Effect: Omega Serenade

The silence hung around the group almost oppressively after they all stated their opinions. All eyes drifted towards the Drell who was not looking at any of them. Nikusill was looking down at the Striker in his hands running nimble fingers across it making sure it was not damaged in the explosion. You could hear the pop as he fingered the release peering down at the heat sink, taking the pistol he turned it upside down and there was a plop plop plop as coolant dripped out of the gun hitting the ground the chemicals fizzled against the metal evaporating into the dark.Clunk, the metal slide was slammed back into place as he finally looked up and peered at Ardan. Analyzing, pulling apart just through eyesight as he took the entirety of the turian in before dissecting him in his mind, he listened to the others opinions all making valid points but in the end it was up to him. ”You’re in. But that does not mean I owe you anything. You fuck up you deal with it. You show bad discipline with your explosives and somebody gets hurt? I’ll be the one that puts the bullet through your skull.” The Drell explained voice automatic and cold this was business after all.

Soon afterwards the Krogan manning the wall sauntered up to them, his armor covered in old blood that had been plastered layer after layer atop. He was huge dwarfing both the turians and being wider than the both of them standing side by side. The large shotgun he was carrying jet black in color was as thick as Nik’s arm and just about as long and the lizard carried it in one idly between two fingers. He introduced himself to the group as Krag, he explained that the continued attacks against their fortifications had been going on solidly for the past two days as the Crimson Fist tried to break through to flank Jek’s main force. Though so far all the main fortifications had held as Sirn had only been sending his grunts forward desperate gangsters that he could pay off by the hundred to go hit into their fortifications again and again to soften them up enough for the real Crimson Fist soldiers to walk in and slaughter any that stood in their way.

”So you are pretty much just waiting to get killed.” Nik asked as his mind warped around the situation trying to figure out a plan.

”That’s about right. Unless of course Jek finds out a way to break through their lines. Which I believe is where you and your team is going to be helping.” Krag explained as he gestured towards them with no pomp. In truth Krag knew that was exactly what Jek was planning and he also knew that it was most likely a suicide mission. It was a shame to as the Drell and his companions didn't seem like too bad of people at all.

”Hmm I see. Well I guess we shouldn't keep him waiting.” Nik voiced and at that moment a screaming sphere of crimson shot into the air lazily like a drunken fireball. Another flare, another attack. Krag looked up and cursed getting to his feet and gripping his shotgun. A Salarian peered over the wall of the fortification and shouted down to them.

”Krag we got more Crimson Fist coming our way. A whole group of them maybe thirty all together. These are’nt the gangbangers either these are the real deal and they are packing!” The Salarian yelled down to his superior, looking back and forth in a worried fashion. Krag laughed a deep and hearty laugh that only a man born and raised in conflict could produce in such a situation as an almost manic grin appeared on his face as he shouted in a loud voice that echoed across the campsite.

”So it is time for the real battle? Good! Very Good! Raise Boys! Today we fight! Today we die!” Krag’s men cheered and all began rushing to their respective defensive positions. Scrambling from eating food and checking weapons to their positions. Even the men injured with missing limbs and bleeding out in the medical area rose to their feet leaning on one another as they grabbed their weapons and rushed towards the wall. They were prepping for their final glorious stand. Krag looked back at Nik and his squad and spoke. ”You should go this is not your place to die. Follow the road and it will lead to Jek. Tell him Krag will kill him when he is dead.”

Nik nodded to the Krogan grasping him by the shoulders and slamming his head against his crest plate. Nik stepped back skin torn on the hard scales and blood dripping down but he did not look in pain rather he and Krag laughed. Nik in his years working undercover for C-Sec had learned the mannerism of many a species and a lot of those being Krogan many of which he adopted into his own brutal berserker like style. ”I like you Drell. Now go!”

”Don’t need to tell us twice!” Nik nodded and motioned to his squad to follow him away from the fortification as Krag rushed towards the wall as symphony of gunfire began its opening orchestration. Explosions illuminating the darkness as they progressed further and further away from them through the empty forlorn streets and abandoned buildings. As they moved away the Drell spoke aloud to the rest of the group. ”Almost there... This job is becoming more and more complicated by the minute.”

Mass Effect: Omega Serenade

Alright I'm a terrible person who is still editing and proofreading right now but to keep you guys occupied here have another scenario.

So in a very similar idea to the other ones we have been doing: Your character has been hunting your mark for some time now this person is a pretty terrible bio terrorist wanted throughout Citadel Space. He has sat up a dirty bomb in a small city on a small planet that almost nobody cares about except for the people that live on it. The bomb is rigged to a dead man's switch so if your mark dies the bomb goes off. The two of you are in a refueling station in orbit above the planet able to view the city directly below you. Do you let him get onto his shuttle escaping you again and saving the thousands of lives below or do you shot him and end it here and now for the good of everybody?

Mass Effect: Omega Serenade

Actually @Hexaflexagon, did you want me to get a quick post up before you move things along to reply to people, or did you just want to keep things moving along/ in the rough posting order?

@Dervish

If you would like you can because I'm still typing the next story post up. I just try and keep the posting order because I think it makes it easier for people to know when to go a posting. But It isn't anything set in stone. :)

And hmmm that is an interesting question you purpose here. I guess here would be the breakdown.

• Daro: Nik couldn't do that, it would be like setting a truck full of puppies and kittens on fire.
• Haze: Haze has sort of become Nik's de facto second in command by this point so he probably would want to keep him functional if Nik has to do something crazy to save the tortured person from being killed.
• Raya: Nik knows that she could handle it when push comes to shove but he would have reservations about it because reasons.
• Ardan:Sorry bro but he does'nt know you all too well and as a result he would sell you down the river quicker than you could blink if it came to it.

Tin Soldiers: Long Mercy

Yay~
Hex~!
Go~

@Kimiyosis

Yep, yep don't worry when I get back later I'll write up the next post.