#i was killing thresher maws outside the Mako in ME1

[bagog]

N7 Month, 2023 - Day 23: Thresher Maw

It's Grunt's rite on Tuchanka in Mass Effect 2.

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“Now all Krogan bear the genophage, our reward, our curse. It is a fight where the only goal… is survival.”

“Feel that?” Grunt rumbled, “The ground’s shaking. I’m ready.”

Out of the ground, 300 meters or more off, a blue tendril rose up, dotted with white feelers. Shepard saw it at once and paled. Before he could say anything, Grunt had taken aim and shot the tendril. It retreated below ground and the ground began shaking again. Shepard heard a tell-tale hiss and groan.

“Shepard, appraisal of situation?” Mordin was breathing heavily, standing at Shepard’s side.

“It’s a thresher-maw,” Shepard answered, listlessly.

“A thresher-maw!” Grunt turned back in glee. Just then, the maw burst up where the tendril had risen a moment ago. It wheeled back, lurched forward, and the barely subsonic glob of viscous acid hurtled into one of the columns the fire team was standing next to, causing it to immediately crumble to the ground. The thresher roared.

Grunt and Mordin scattered, trying to find cover the thresher could not immediately destroy. Shepard stood his ground, oddly impassive, though his eyebrows were sternly furrowed.

“No,” He said at last, simply, as the acidic blob burned into the ground, sputtering and hissing. “No, no, no. Fuck this. No.”

He holstered his weapon, reached behind his back, and hoisted the M-920 Cain into his arms. The weapon telescoped to its full size and Shepard took aim.

There was a flash, a wash of radiant heat against Shepard’s face, then the blast. Where the tresher maw had been, there was now a mushroom cloud. The maw’s burnt and obliterated corpse was laid out on the glassed sands.

Grunt looked back at him, looking somewhat impressed. Shepard set the overheated Cain on the ground. Walked briskly to the keystone. Before anyone could say anything, Shepard, turned over his shoulder.

“They killed my whole unit. I fucking hate thresher maws.”

He punched the keystone and they waited in awkward silence while the trucks came to retrieve them.