“I really hope you’re nearly done, doctor!” Shining shouted as rounds impacted his shield, making him grunt as he felt the impacts drain some of his magic built up in his horn. He’d severely underestimated the amount of energy he’d need to keep up his shield. The small pellets hitting it at high speed turned out to be quite a challenge to stop.
“There, it’s done! Let’s go!” the doctor shouted. Shining grunted as he led her onto an elevator platform. His shield was nearly depleted as they went up and out of reach of the batarian’s guns.
“That… was… too… close...” Shining panted, rubbing his throbbing horn. “I take it that you have found a way out as well?”
Kenson nodded. “Yes, this elevator will lead up to a hangar. I locked the surrounding doors but the outer doors have to be manually opened.”
Rolling his eyes Shining put one of his few remaining thermal clips into his rifles, “More work, great. I really hope whatever in Tartarus you’re doing out in that asteroid belt is worth all this loss of life,” he growled. Not waiting for an answer, Shining sprinted off of the elevator and into the hangar. A few batarians were in his way but were swiftly taken out as they panicked at the sight of the charging pony who viciously took them down with an omni-blade, not even wasting shots on them. “Get into the shuttle!” Shooting a couple of rounds into the hydraulic system the doors slammed open, allowing the spacecraft to take off safely. “I’m clear, GO!” The door of the shuttle slid shut and the engines roared to life and blasted the hangar with flames, incinerating everything flammable inside.
“Their defenses should still be scrambled so we won’t be followed. I plotted the autopilot to return to our base.” Kenson explained as she sat down in one of the chairs while Shining just lay on the floor to get his breath back under control. His horn fizzled slightly as the last bits of magic flowed out of it, he wouldn’t be using that any time soon for anything other than simple levitation and light spells.
“Fantastic, now I want to know what in the world you have been doing over here. Every. single. Thing.” Shining demanded, getting back onto his hooves and facing doctor Kenson.
“I guess that’s fair. A couple of months ago I went out here with a team to investigate the rumor of reaper tech out in the system’s asteroid belt. We found an artifact and deduced the reapers would use this system as a springboard to invade the galaxy,” Kenson explained to Shining who let this new information mull through his head.
“So the guards talking about slamming an asteroid into the relay… That’s true, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so, there’s no alternative if you want to stop the reapers from using the system as a springboard,” the doctor admitted.
“What kind of evidence do you have, how do you know that the reapers are really arriving? You can’t just cut off an entire system if the evidence isn’t airtight.” Doctor Kenson grimaced slightly at Shining’s statement.
“They won’t be cut off captain… the energy contained within the relay will probably make it go supernova and take out the entire system,” She told Shining, the captain silently staring at her with his mouth slightly ajar. “The project is the only way that can assure that the reapers won’t use the alpha relay.”
“That’s… no. I still don’t know how you found all this out in the first place.”
“We found a reaper artifact on an asteroid relatively near the relay that after some work showed us they were coming. It also has an unknown installation deeper in the asteroid itself which admittedly we know less about as we haven’t been able to enter it.” Kenson told Shining as she stood up to look out into the void of space, the relay visible as a speck in the distance.
“I want to see it and determine that for myself, doctor. I can’t just condone the murder of the colony on hearsay,” Shining stated. Kenson sighed in resignation.
“I guess that’s fair. I’ll explain everything in detail when we reach the base. Sit back and relax, we’ll be there in no time.”
The shuttle landed on the small asteroid base about an hour later, Kenson swiftly powering down and opening the shuttle’s doors. The first thing Shining noticed was a large digital clock hanging above the entrance into the base reading two days and three hours. “Doctor, what’s that for?”
“That’s our countdown clock, if that reaches zero the reapers will arrive.” Shining shot her a questioning look. “The artifact has been giving off pulses which have been speeding up consistently, the moment the pulses become constant the reapers will be here,” Kenson elaborated, a shiver going up Shining’s spine at the doomsday prediction.
“You also said something about a ruin deeper into the asteroid, could we go see that as well?”
“Of course, but first I’ll show you the reaper artifact that made us aware of the imminent invasion.” Kenson led Shining into the facility itself, continuing her explanation along the way as they passed various other humans that were doing tasks in the base. “The reapers will reach this system regardless of the relay being destroyed or not, it’ll only serve as a shortcut to the rest of the galaxy. If the reapers are to be kept at bay, the relay must be destroyed.”
The two of them arrived at the door that lead to the reaper artifact. The moment the doors opened a throbbing buzz hit Shining’s horn, amplifying the already present headache he had from magic overuse. “You have the artifact standing out in the open?!” Shining growled, keenly aware of the indoctrination effect it would have been giving off.
“Wait for it, it’ll show you all the evidence you need.” Visions suddenly hit Shining, making him collapse to his knees. Images of reapers approaching the mass relay flashed through his mind. “The reapers are in inevitability, Hackett is a fool to oppose their salvation.” Looking up, Shining gazed straight into the barrel of a heavy pistol. “I can’t have you attempting to oppose their glorious arrival.”
BANG
The captain’s shield went down by three-quarters at the range the shot was fired at and he immediately jumped back in an attempt to find cover...
BANG
The shield went down completely and the round buried into his armor, the captain staggering as he couldn’t find anything adequate to shield him.
No! It can’t end like...
BANG
Can I make an honest statement?
10125980
of course
10125986
I never liked the 'Arrival' of Mass Effect 2.
10125989
the concept or the execution?
10125992
The fact that it was impossible for there to evacuate innocent people.
10125995
Ah, that. It's also a strength of the dlc in my opinion. In every other decision in the game there's a way to have everything be relatively flowery, but here it's the kick in the gut that makes it clear that's still a war for survival. Massive casualties will be had.
I guess it depends on the person if you like it as a dlc or not.
Hopefulyl Shining managed to get some help
That being said, I personally was never very concerned about the Batarians
10126011
Does it make me weak that I hate it because of my morals?
10126025
Nah, It's still a dlc where you have no choice but to sacrifice 300000 souls. I'd be more concerned if you didn't care, which you seeming do.
The thing with arrival is that it succeeds terrifically where ME3 only partially succeeded. In ME3 you might lose something in a mission but you always gain something else which keeps your hope up through the game, but arrival kicks the point in that you are most definitely are walking a very tight rope.
10126047
Yeah, I guess your right. Thanks, man.
I put up a good fight in this segment. It took several charging flamethrower baddies before I ran out of room and boolets.
They knew about the incoming and didnt drop ne of their spare military disruption plagues on the colony to get it evacuated, unless theyre talking days and not half a year or so?
Either way, I call stitch up.
That, and 2 shots is good enough for suprises to occur.
Glorious arrival my arse. Call themselves advanced? turning up physically? Cant even modulate the Relays to do the job for them? Anubis laughs.
"Rolling his eyes Shining put one of his few remaining thermal clips into his rifles, “More work, great."
I never played this DLC, as far as I remember. So whatever happens will be a surprise to me, though the instant indoctination of her seems a bit off to me, considering the moment before she was talking about destroying the mass relay to contain them, and as far as I know indoctrination dosen't work that way, takes at least a little bit of time. So perhaps it is a vision? Or him levitating the pistol at himself due to his horn providing an access point for the indoctrination effect that allows it to act faster. Not because of being a magic point, but because of being essentially directly connected to the unicorns brain. Although whether this extends to being an extension of their brain is debatable.
10126470
Everything before the moment of betrayal was an intentional deception. In the actual game, the scientists are all Indoctrinated before you even get there, but even though they're Indoctrinated they still know about Indoctrination, and they're not stupid. They know exactly how badly Shepard will react to discovering the truth, so they pretend to still be trying to stop the Reapers in order to lure Shepard into a trap.
They're giving Shining the same treatment here, and he just reached the point where they spring the trap.
10126962
But then why would they tell him a solution to the problem? I doubt that Shep would ever come up with punching the mass relay with a big rock on his own, and Shining definitely wouldn't.
10126974
Except that they didn't tell him. The guards mentioned it in ear shot (in this story, can't remember about the game). With the proverbial cat out of the bag, the indoctrinated scientists had to play it by ear.
10127043
Ah, good point...
But couldn't they have found a more secure, creative, and more likely to succeed way of killing him instead of simply "Put gun in face and pull trigger." At least in the game where Shep's military knowledge and skill in combat is known through the galaxy.
Bah fuck the heroic racist pony species.
HAHA! I know this was going to bite Shining in the ass!
Gut feeling never lead him wrong ignore the saying 'there is always the first time'.
Shining Armor biting the bullet before Rainbowdash?
Not cool