Side Quests for Harem and Power 1 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Definitely Not Dio.

Mass Effect R34 v. Waifu Catalog by SwiftRosenthal (Shared via Google Drive)

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Chapter 1: A Slow Start

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“You want to take my place…?” I asked, not a little befuddled by the request. Or rather, an offer of exchange. 

“Yes,” the being in front of me responded. “I’m tired of existing eternally. I’m sure you’ll do the same thing I’m doing now.”

“... If I’m going to do the same thing you’re going to do, why choose me?”

“Because I looked into you and know that for now you will accept my offer. You want power. You want authority. You want to dominate. You want to conquer. But you are powerless, aimless, and living in peace. You were born in the wrong era.”

“...”

“And I’m here to offer you all that you want to push you into an era that you would truly benefit - truly live - and get myself what I want: to live a final life before I cease to exist.”

“You must have gone through some shit.”

“I ended more than a few galaxies in wars.”

“... Damn.”

“Yes.”

“Would others like you come after me because I would get your power?”

“No. There aren’t many who know where I am and what I intend to do. Even then, there is an unwritten rule of sorts that no one would mess with you on your final leg of the journey.”

“‘Leave the dying alone,’ huh?”

“Something like that.”

“How would it show up?”

It pulled out a sheet of paper.

I took it, and then looked up at it after glancing through it.

“You’re joking.”

“No.”

“I’m being trolled.”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of being trolled but not joking, how?”

“I get your power … of CYOA? A R34 CYOA?”

“If you fail that, then you don’t deserve my power. Consider it a pre-requisite to obtaining my full power. Save a realm for me, and everything that I am will be yours. Save my identity, of course.”

I grumbled. “What realm?”

“Mass Effect.”

“... You are shitting me.”

“No, I am not. Just as your realm is the realm of the ‘Epics of Al Hassadin,’ the Sunni Muslim savior of the Middle East-”

“Wait, what?”

“- this realm is just another realm like Mass Effect is. Their realm is simply weird to you as their people find yours weird.”

“... Okay, so when am I going to be dropped in? As in the time period.”

“Before the events of Mass Effect 1. Let’s say one year before it starts.”

“You are sending me to a time period when ugly sentiments are still high.”

“Yes. What’s a little obstacle for someone who will become a slaver?”

“I decided that I don’t like you.”

“Honestly? I don’t like you either. I just want your body.”

“And a creep, too.”

“My last husband was 200 years younger than me. Nothing you say can hurt me.”

“...”

“No, I was not a cougar. My body was younger than my husband.”

“Doesn’t that make you some kind of a trap then?”

“Do you want to be punched into being sent into your new adventure or would you like to go peacefully?”

-VB-

When my eyes opened up again, it was a white and blue ceiling I was unfamiliar with. When I moved, it was to a body I was unfamiliar with, though I couldn’t say I wasn’t unhappy with it when I saw its physique in the mirror. When I reached for my phone, it was an omni-tool that greeted me, a staple technology of Mass Effect’s “realm.”

I really was in Mass Effect. 

Specifically, my new body’s memories told me that I was on Benning, the bread basket world for Arcturus Station. 

“Didn’t think it would give me what I wanted,” I murmured to myself as I sat down on the bed. 

In this new life, I was a different man. I was no longer Alan, a simple number, but Steven LeClarent.

Diriring. Diriring. Diriring. 

With Steven’s memories on how to operate the omni-tool, I waved my hand, causing the omni-tool to activate in its customized red and purple glory, and called up… Cortana. 

The blue lady from Halo appeared, confused at first before she composed herself as foreign data warped her. This had to be the work of the being who’d sent me here. 

The previous image I saw, the first instance of her, was stiff and uncanny. The abruptly changed and new Cortana was there as a tiny 3D hologram on top of my omni-tool, yes, but she was also … real. She blinked, she moved her head, and she had bounce to her boobs. Hey, she was pretty and had curves. I couldn’t help but notice that.

“Where am I?” she asked. 

“You are in a parallel world,” I replied easily and casually as if the words I spoke wasn’t luncay in and of itself. “You are a copy of the real Cortana, and I bought you. Please have a look around the local internet if it helps convince you that I am indeed not lying.”

Then I sat back as Cortana stared at me owlishly before disappearing. She came back not a minute later with a frown on her face.

“... I am in a different universe.”

“Yes,” I replied. 

“How?”

“I don’t know. I’m not from this universe either, but I’d like to be friends with you.”

She looked up at me from her place on the omni-tool. 

“You would be friends with an AI? In this AI-unfriendly galaxy?” she asked me with a frown.

“I wouldn’t have chosen you if I didn’t want to be a friend.”

She gazed at me skeptically before nodding. 

‘Not that she has to know about my ability to control her,’ I thought as I remembered that I had Command Seals, Brainwashing capabilities, and Collar. There was no need to use it right now, not when she was friendly already. She was, however, someone with a great sense of moral responsibility. Once I began to do what my given mind-bending powers would let me do, she would break from me.

I would just have to bend her before she realized anything. 

“Well, before we talk, I need you to understand that this galaxy is in danger.”

“How so? Didn’t humanity just join an intragalactic community of peaceful aliens?” she asked, even as her face told me just how odd that sounded to her ears. She was, after all, birthed by a galaxy where interspecies war was the primary conflict killing off millions of people. The galaxy of Mass Effect had to be jarring for her. 

“I have a bit of precognitive knowledge…”

-VB-

Obviously, she didn’t believe me, and I told her that I could prove myself right. Because I was placed in Mass Effect one year before its canon timeline, I bet her that in one year, Eden Prime would be assaulted by rogue Geth, which would cascade into an assault upon the Citadel itself.

In the meantime, I worked to do productive things. 

“You are working with piece of shit computers.”

Never let it be said Cortana could not be blunt. 

“Well, I’m sorry, but I didn’t make them,” I countered with a glare sent her way. 

Cortana decided that my omni-tool was not enough of a place for her to live and took over the entire network of electronics in my apartment. 

“Here,” she said, and on the screen I was working on, blueprint for a whole new design of computers came up. “You can build this with minimum budget without making yourself look out of place.”

I looked at the theoretical output spec of the computer and balked. “Cortana, this is going to get me on everyone’s radar.”

“Good thing I ordered the components for it through multiple accounts,” she replied with a huff. “You’re declaration of wanting to help humanity doesn’t mean much unless you’re doing something, Steven,” she said while jabbing a finger in my direction, reminding me that I was no longer just Alan.

“Well, I’m sorry, Ms. I-Process-Everything-In-Under-A-Second. I’m a squishy organic that needs time to do shit, and I certainly am not as talented as John!” I retorted, though I made sure not to add any heat to it. “I’m trying to make sure I don’t bumble my way through the galaxy.”

“Like?”

“Prospective laws, available mercenaries, relatively unknown shipyards, or even colonies I can wholesale buyout to make my headquarters. I already have a few marked down in the Terminus Systems.”

She looked at me with a few blinks. “You’re looking to expand into the Terminus Systems?” she asked, and I nodded.

The Terminus System was an oddity to both of us. I came from Earth in the early 2000’s. She came from an interstellar militaristic human federation, whose closest values were carried by the xeno race of Turians, an meritocratic alien military junta that was one of the three primary Citadel Council races. 

Imagine being an American and the closest thing to America was not America but some alien that attacked Earth. That was the equivalent of what Cortana was going through. Crazy, right?

Life was crazy, and I was just realizing that.

Speaking of crazies, the Terminus System. Again, I’m from 21st Century Earth and Cortana from even alien-er galaxy than Mass Effect. To both of us, the existence of a conflict ridden region of the known galaxy was mind boggling. For me, yes, Earth still had a few warlords, but most nations were settled and borders were fixed (for the most part, looking at you, Sudan). 

In the Halo universe, you were either under the Covenant, fighting to die, or dead. Oh, I’m sure that the majority of the galaxy remained undiscovered and unexplored, but Covenant was still the powerhouse of the Milky Way galaxy. Humanity only survived as long as it did because of their ability to hide their worlds from any data extraction made by the Covenant as well as the fact that the Covenant was busy fighting a rebellion. I’m sure that wasn’t all there was to it, but it covered somethings at least.

So.

The Terminus Systems.

I didn’t intend to gather allies like Shepherd did. No, no, no. That would take too long, depend too much on the Crucible, fickle nature of polities, and the fact that oh yeah, most of them won’t believe us anyway.

It was better, I decided yesterday, to build our own power base from scratch rather than expose ourselves to the greater galaxy. 

“It would keep us out of the Citadel Council’s sight. How do you intend to fight these Reapers?” 

One of the evidences I’d given her for a grim future was the Citadel and its servitor race. It didn’t take long for Cortana to see evidence of AI at work there with how the Keepers didn’t communicate directly with each other but only received orders from an unknown source. 

As she described the situation, it was “too much like a computer telling a drone to fix something,” which was exactly what the Keeper and Citadel relationship was: a drone and computer relationship. 

“Alright then, what exactly are you going to do in the Terminus Space?” 

I grinned at her.

“I can’t rely on eezo to carry the day. It’s an unnatural mineral probably seeded along Mass Relays to encourage settlement of civilization along those routes. We have to go off the beaten path … and I was hoping you would help me with technology from your universe.”

She immediately tensed, if her shoulders tensing showed anything. 

“I’ll even make a contract, promise, or whatever that will ensure that if the UNSC does show up in this universe, then I will submit to their rule.” It was unlikely, but I wanted to keep Cortana as genuinely happy as I could for as long as I could. 

She glared at me before relaxing. “It does make sense for us to use alternative technology…”

I liked how she said “us.”

“Yup. The Reapers will be using lasers for the most power on top of their drones for land combat. On top of that, they control the Mass Relay network. You’ve run across Covenant technologies, too, right?”

She nodded. “I did scan more than a few Covenant cruisers,” she replied as if the very fact that being able to scan entire spaceships while directing her supersoldier towards critical areas of the battle was nothing. 

It was things like this that made me realize that my Cortana wasn’t the AI that John-117 received in Halo 1, but the veteran AI who lived through the UNSC-Covenant Contact War. Cortana wasn’t like the Geth here. She was far more than that, capable of processing information at speeds matching literal millions of Geth programs. She’d seen battles, saw the effects of the Covenant’s energy weaponry blasting through the slow moving UNSC frigates and cruisers. 

“So?” I asked, the details of my face and body hidden by the rising sun shining through the window behind me.

Cortana looked at me, became resolute in her clenching hands, and nodded. 

I smiled.

‘And if I made a harem on the way, that it was all the better.’

And the first person I actually intended to suborn into my harem … was Benezia.

-VB-

Mass Effect = Tier 3 = 180 points

Cortana 20

Stamp 

Choker 70

Sticky Fingers 75

Faerie Feast 85

Body Affinity 95

Martial Affinity 100

Mind Defense 120

Science Affinity 130

Sweet Home 180

Setting: Mass Effect