There aren't a lot of mass effect core accidents. At least not anymore. They say that you're more likely to be struck by lightning, that the core on your hoverbike is 99% safe.
Based on the explosion, Garrus figures this is the 1% of the time that you're not supposed to think about.
He picks himself up off the ground, checks the hoverbike. (Wrecked. Obviously.) Checks his guns. (Fine.) Checks his surroundings.
This... isn't Palaven.
Biotics. He dives to the side, flashing back to taking down a Geth Colossus on foot. (What he wouldn't give for a Mako right now.)
He continues harassing the beast with carefully-timed assault fire; clearly it's got some kind of armor plating, but low damage is better than none.
He dearly wishes he could disengage long enough to take out a couple of those heads with his Widow. Wishing, however, is unhelpful to survival.
The creature moves erratically. The "biotics" or whatever it's using causes whatever it hits to float away in spiraling trajectory.
The superficial damage is wearing it down, but the thing appears to have an endless supply of blood.
Yep, that's biotics alright.
If the damage is wearing it down, he'll keep ducking, weaving, and shooting. All things must eventually die.
All men things must die! Sometimes things hit him square on the chest with a glowing beam and he is sent orbiting away into the sky.
Or maybe not.
On his way up, his right arm flashes out and embeds a piton into one of the floating hills that dot the skyscape. He clings to it until the aura around him dims and his personal gravity returns to normal.
Then he pulls out his Widow-class anti-material sniper rifle, lines up a shot, and fires a near-lightspeed bullet through two of the monster's heads at once.
Well, that's one way to get a dead monster, the thing is not even twitching and all the bits of landscape it caused to float are abruptly on the ground.
Excellent.
He saws off the remaining head with his omni-blade and carries it back to town.
Some of the blood gets on his skin, it's not... quite acid, but it does irritates a bit. Despite this, he won't have much trouble finding his way back to town.
As soon as he notices the irritation, he has his omni-tool decontaminate the affected area and cauterize the head's stump. He is not fucking around with biohazards here.
Once he gets back to town, he uses his grappling hook to climb onto the mage guild's floating island and walks in through the front door, still holding the beast's head. "Hello! I slew the beast and would like my turn in the Ventari pool."
The receptionist from earlier slowly drinks from her drink. "That was fast. Where is you group?"
"My group? The guys with me were just showing me the way to the guild, I killed the monster on my own."
They look at the slain monster's head. "Wow, okay... come this way. Have you ever used a pool before?"
"Okay. We will keep all your stuff in a locked box. Including your clothes. Here we don't let people out once the process starts. It hurts like your first time shifting, of course, but it's better to just go through the process and have a new shape once it's done. If you want painkillers of any kind this is the time to take them. Questions?"
Garrus shakes his head. He strips out of his armor and underclothes without modesty, revealing a lean, scaly body with no visible genitals, just a thin slit at the crotch. "I won't be able to speak or understand you without this," he warns, pointing to his omni-tool.
The employee is apparently professional enough to not look down. "Do you think it would survive the pool? You still shouldn't wear it, sometimes it interferes with the change."
"I just wanted to make sure you understood," he nods. He takes off the wrist-strap that attaches the 'tool to his arm and bundles it with the rest of his possessions.
He chirps and clicks wryly as he offers the bundle of armor, weapons, and backpack to the attendant.
The employee puts everything in a box and makes a show of locking it closed and putting a seal on it. Then he guides Garrus towards the pool. There is a chair that can be lowered into the pool. The place is packed full with the water bubbling around fully submerged people.
He is dropped rather abruptly. He might even wonder if it's so people won't flee.
It hurts. It hurts so fucking much. The moment the liquid touches his skin the cells give a shout of pain and keep screaming without ever getting hoarse.
It hurts. It penetrates deep into his skin and through his blood and everything is cold fire and agony.
It hurts. It feels like being twisted into a thousand directions and penetrated by needles that reach inside his nerves and inject Pure Pain.
Wow, this sucks.
Stuff has hurt before. He did have half his face blown off last year; that hurt. He's been shot more times than he can count; those hurt.
He's never going to see Shepard again in his life, probably.
That hurts.
This is kind of petty in comparison.
He clenches his mandibles together and he waits.
If he had his omni-tool in here with him, he could listen to an audiobook. Exarch Alcinus' account of the invasion of Shanxi, maybe. As it is, he'll spend twelve hours in agony trying not to think too hard about anything specific.
Very, very distantly, from somewhere beyond the pain, he feels movement and a sudden chill. Then his entire body spams and it's like every muscle is turned inside out... it's painful, but remarkable in how different the pain is.
And then suddenly he is on the floor, someone is throwing water all over his body, the pain is finally over and he can move his arms, legs and wings freely...
...he has wings.
Wings!
He refrains from flapping them, because there's a lot of magical acid lying around. But wings.
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