It's not time for the big party yet, but I think I'll go back to the strip for now. Specifically, the Arena to spend some more time with Jack.
Well, of course Jack chose to fight Cerberus in here.
Here
is how the end of the fight went for me, with the only difference being the armor my Shep was wearing. I love how she can make even a plan to kill an Atlas sound hot. :D
Playing some more matches at the Arena, I finally broke the scoreboard! Those are the exact words of the Armax staff. Subject line: "Thanks for breaking the scoreboard" They never thought anybody would score more than 10 000 points, so because of my score of 10 200 and something (I don't know because it was just recorded as "9999" on the list of high scores and I only saw it by looking up at the end of the match) they're going to have to modify it to record higher scores.
Now I just need to finish a Mirror Match. Those are hard.
But sooner or later I will need to get back to the story.
I invited James up to my place, where he proceeded to take off his shirt to see what I thought, and then we went to my bedroom.
Okay okay, he was showing me his new N7 tattoo, and he was exploring my apartment afterwards and found the heavy bag in my bedroom which he couldn't resist trying out. Then I noticed "Hey, I can click on this pull-up bar here," and I clicked on it like an idiot. When I did, James told me that his record was 182 and asked if I thought I could beat it. So I thought "Okay, sure, how long can it take?"
Too long. After many mouse clicks to do pull-ups, James goes "That's twenty," and from behind my keyboard I'm like "You're shitting me." But damn it, I'd come this far, I'd wasted that much time, might as well finish it, so I kept on going. I don't know how much of my life I will never get back because of that.
I'm not a workout freak in real life. I've kind of exercised on and off over the years, and right now is one of my "off" periods where I keep telling myself I really ought to start again but so far haven't. I've exercised enough to know what it's like, though, and in my experience the monotony of repeating the same thing over and over is mitigated by being able to take a bit of pride that you're in good enough shape to do X many reps, or lift X amount of weight, and if you end up being able to do more than you did before then you can take some pride in that. (Not so proud that you brag, mind.) Even when you're exhausted, you kind of feel good as well, I guess maybe because of endorphins, and also because sometimes if you go into a workout upset about something then afterwards you just feel too tired to be upset. I think that when I exercised regularly it improved my overall mood to a degree as well. When I asked my doctor if that might be the case, he said it probably was, and that one of the things he recommends to depressed people is exercising.
Here, all I can be proud of is being able to click a mouse 183 times. Yay me.
Also, the length of my workouts in the past has always been limited by my patience. I've never spent more than an hour total working out because in addition to just not being able to go that long, I've pretty much wanted to get it all done in as little time as possible. I've never wanted to do over 150 of anything, not just because it's always been physically impossible for me but also because it'd take too damn long. This took too damn long.
After beating James' record, he asked how I felt and I did not say I felt great. Shepard said he'd probably need help putting on his armor tomorrow, and YEAH, because holy shit. Lazarus enhancements or not, that will take a lot out of you.
Then I invited EDI up, who would have bought Joker a 750k+ credit skycar if I hadn't Paragon-interrupted her. She'll rent it for a day or two and they'll enjoy it.
Haha, Traynor has a rival in the arcade! And she beat that Arrogant Kepesh-Yakshi Asari! And it was awesome!
I found a Suspicious Device in the casino, and who did it end up belonging to but Kasumi Goto! She was gonna rob the place and give the money to people who needed it. I didn't turn her in. I like her too much, and I trust her not to just spend it all on herself.
Oh good lord, I just helped Garrus hit it off with a female turian (so they did use the model more than once) and in doing so I did the impossible. The poor guy was just hopeless. He invited her back to his place to see his "big gun", and that wasn't even a double entendre, but she seemed to take it as one.
That Blasto vid was funny as hell, but were they really trying to film it all in one take, complete with inter-cast arguments?
Finally, I stop having fun on the strip and remember that Thessia's in trouble, so we go there. Reapers are really hitting it hard. On the shuttle ride down, Liara talks about signs that both her people's government and Benezia thought this temple was very important. Could this be why the Reapers are here, to keep me from getting to the Catalyst? Or is it just the asari's bad luck that their planet was one the Reapers picked at random?
On the ground I scavenge some Supplies on the ground for 4500 credits, because what do these asari soldiers desperately fighting for their lives need with supplies?
Lt. Kurin is about to pull her people out because they can't hold out much longer and have taken heavy losses, and they didn't even tell her why she was supposed to guard this place. Now that she knows I need a thing to make another thing that will kill all the Reapers, she's willing to Hold the Line a little longer.
The skies are filled with Harvesters. Damn.
Liara talks about how difficult it is to face Banshees. Tali says the Reapers enjoy turning our own kind against us, and that they must think it destroys an enemy's morale. It does, Tali.
GIANT REAPER RIGHT OVER US! Tali says she used to have nightmares about the geth attacking her in her sleep when she was a child, and until now that was the worst horror she could imagine.
Every asari I meet seems to get killed only minutes later. Possibly an exaggeration, but it sucks all the same.
Helloooo? Scientists? Where are yoooou?
Looking at various artifacts, we come across a bust of Lucen, who was a servant of the asari goddess Athame and dispensed knowledge. Tali points out that "he" looks like a Prothean. Odd that the mythology of a mono-gendered race which had never had any contact with males before they developed space travel would have a male. Liara says "not necessarily" to the Prothean thing, but I bet she's wrong, much as she might wish that people like Javik hadn't hadn't influenced her culture.
Examination of a bust of Janiri, who also looks Prothean, forces Liara to admit that there is a certain resemblance.
Athame also looks Prothean. This troubles Liara.
Oh, there you are, scientists! You picked a horrible time to take a nap! And you picked a horrible place for it, on this uncomfortable stone floor! And why did you choose to go to sleep on top of a pool of blood? That can't be comfortable! And I didn't know asari slept with their eyes open. Well fine, ignore us, we'll find this thing all by ourselves.
Hmm, the scientists had their throats slit. Not the Reapers' style, as Tali points out. The big statue of Athame is asari-like, artists making her less Prothean over time. And there's a Prothean beacon inside it!
The VI activated by the beacon tells us that the Crucible was sabotaged in Prothean times because a splinter faction wanted to control the Reapers instead of destroy them, and fought with the Protheans who wanted to kill them. Sounds familiar, and to make sure everybody playing the game follows along Liara says that it seems the Protheans had their own Illusive Man to deal with. The VI also says that they were indoctrinated.
And something other than the Reapers is steering civilization after civilization to repeat the same patterns.
Oh damn, every cycle has tried to build the Crucible but nobody's managed to complete the thing, just get a tiny little bit closer every time? Well, that's discouraging, but we don't have anything to lose by trying.
"Indoctrinated presence detected"...Kai Leng! And, via holo, the Illusive Man. Who says that destroying the Reapers gains us nothing. *sigh*
Telling him that his thinking has been twisted falls on deaf ears, at least for now, and it's time to fight Kai Leng.
Oh, Leng's verbally hitting below the belt by taunting us about Thane! Thane died like a coward, really? He wasn't the one who ran away when it was all said and done.
Cutscene Incompetence! While we were doing just fine against Kai Leng before, suddenly he's able to walk up to Liara, just grab her, and throw her into Tali, taking them both out of the fight! And the motherfucker has the gunship knock down the temple, dropping me down a hole in the process, before grabbing the data and leaving. And then all the asari I met along the way are killed by Reapers and their minions, with none of us able to do anything about it.
On the Normandy, Shepard looks crushed. Who could blame him?
