Mass Effect: Glorious Shotgun Princess (rewrite)(Mass Effect/Exalted)

[GreggHL]

For some reason I've never put the rewrite up here. Let's fix that.

Over Illium, the Reaper roars, its horn shaking the skyline of Nos Astra. It rises from the starscraper that it had made its perch, into the sky, past the torus and towards the black. The vanguard halts in orbit, but not of its own power. From the golden nimbus of lightning that surrounds it, halting its flight...and slowly peeling it open, dissolving black metal and darkening blue lights, until only a core of crimson and azure remains.

A hush falls over the besieged population. News feeds, on every tablet, every screen, on the great holograms covering the skies of the cities, flicker to show the Mass Relay at the edge of the system. It hesitates- shudder- and releases a traveller. A Traveller.

One that dwarfs even the massive, ancient structure. From the view of the Relay, they can only make out the patch of shifting brass plate and steam pipes. From the curvature of its surface, the mathematicians and scientists of Illium conclude it is the size of Illium.

And yet the Mass Relay does not drift. For this thing does not obey the laws of physics. The laws of physics obey Him.

"Children of the stars." Its voice comes over every piece of technology. Speakers, earpieces, even appliances. It is a voice of age, of wisdom, and of...something that causes every living being on that world to look to the skies. "Fear not. For I have found you."

Every VI on Illium ceases its processes for a single, transcendent moment. Across the world, bipedal synthetics fall to their knees without prompting. The more inhuman synthetics simply look to the sky.

"You have forged wonders. You have made works unseen in history. For this, I have come to you."
It moves faster than a planet should. It crosses the aether of the system, and all that seek to impede it are moved aside. Ships find their thrusters no longer obeying their pilots, satellites break orbit to revolve around the traveling sphere. Upon the brass and shadow, a golden light issues forth from its pole, bathing the world of Illium like a new sun.

"I am the father to clay.

"Maker, to stone.

"As the King of all Craftsmen,

"I have been known."

Illium shifts. Its orbit shifts, revolving around the brass sphere while it revolves around the star. Despite all this, the world does not break. For this traveler does not obey the laws of physics, but rather they bow to him.

"But to my kin,

"Distant,

"Moved on."

And the light bathes the world. Every citizen of Illium finds themselves inspired by the god that has graced them.

"I am known as,

"Autochthon."




Ten Years Earlier.

Prologue: Shepard's Eleven

Nos Astra, the shining jewel of Illium. Towers of steel, crystal, and glass rise towards the uncaring stars, the lights of the buildings, of industry, of traffic illuminating the vermillion skies as effectively as day. A pair of incomplete towers stand in this skyline- ignored by most, the ego of its owner driving it higher and higher.

It starts a night like any other. Distant snaps of gunfire, drowned by the ever present wake of traffic. What could be a bomb or a speeding truck are ignored by the populace of traders, businessmen, and laborers.

But in an alley in the shadow of Dantius Towers, the night promises to be interesting. Eleven individuals huddle in a circle. Eleven arms extend, holographic displays over nine wrists, one golden mantis claw, and one thin brass appendage.

"Chronometers synchronized." The red haired woman with green eyes pull her hair into a loose ponytail, and looks at her team. "Here's the plan. Our assassin is somewhere in Dantius Towers. His mission is to assassinate Nassana Dantius. We're getting to her first so he doesn't get killed. Your assignments;"

She turns to the quarian girl, arm folded and omnitool still lit, two glowing violet eyes staring behind the faceplate. "Tali. You're going to go with Jacob and Conrad. Jacob is fireteam leader, you're on map duty."

The dark skinned young man in the blue and black alliance hardsuit salutes. "Yes, ma'am."

"Shepard," Tali half says, half sighs, "Do we need an assassin? I've seen you punch a Reaper."

The redhead rolls her eyes. She turns to the blonde man with the goatee and the heavily modified rotary drill. "Conrad, you're on hack duty. Take down their security systems and their cameras. Keep them blind."

He nods, salutes with the wrong hand, then quickly corrects himself. Tapping his omnitool into existence, it surrounds him with a pale orange barrier and multiple holographic guns.

The redhead turns to the younger of the two Asari with her. "Liara, you're diplomacy. You're going in as a representative of Binary Helix and you're going to distract their intelligence network."

Liara T'Soni nods, holstering her pistol. "Of course. Cover identity's already set up," she says with a smile, "I am presuming that I'm going alone, because if I know you, you're going to be too busy to be my date."

Shepard grins and turns to the older asari. "Vasir, you're going in to investigate-"

"Eclipse Connections," the Spectre responds, "Oh, she's got plenty of real ones. I'm going to enjoy watching them squeal."

She turns to the hooded thief with the lip tattoo and the young man with black hair and gold highlights on his jaw. "Right. Archon, I need shock and awe. Alternate floors. Kasumi, steal Nassana's ability to read."

She turns to the silver skinned, blue marked turian with the glowing monocle. "Garrus, you're second fireteam. Keep them on their toes, and if you find any survivors, pull them into your dream sanctum."

Mandibles twitch and he unfolds his rifle from inside his arm. "Got it, Shepard."

The redhead nods and turns to the four foot tall, brass and gold praying mantis. "Nephtali, you're going to flood the basement with your first circles. And I mean the annoying ones."

"The brass eyes that scream at people?" it asks in a voice like a high pitched steam valve, "Yes! Of course, mistress!"

Shepard sighs and turns to the final member of her squad, the brass and silver eye hovering next to Tali's shoulder. "Tabernacle, I want you to get on the horn with grandpa and get me a distraction." The eye makes a sound like sucking teeth, and Shepard raises a finger. "That doesn't damage Nos Astra."

The silver iris rotates out. "Oh! Oh, okay. I have an idea for that."

Shepard nods. "Right. Let's get going. I'm taking the outside route."

And Jane Shepard stamps her foot on the ground. Dust, ejected screws and pulverized mortar rise up in a cloud around her. And they hang in the air for a brief moment, before she launches herself into the sky.




The skyline of Illium blurs. Floors pass in high velocity smear of color. The white and silver streak shoots into the sky, each handhold turning into another impossible leap. The surface of Illium recedes further and further as she ascends, leaping turning into feet on the side of the building, a run of impossible speeds propelling her skyward. Barest footprints are left in her wake upon the side of the building and she leaves only the faintest image or mark.

She passes floors at a time, feet on balconies and wind in her hair, glass cracking beneath the balls of her feet but not making noise, for it knows not to. Perfect balance becomes perfect motion, and within minutes her ascent leads to the top of the building. Metal warps under her heel and she crouches, kneeling against glass. She does not grip it, does not need to, standing on it as naturally as the ground.

There is shouting beneath her feet. Archon, most likely. She can hear the percussions and shockwaves. Grinning, she finishes her ascent, landing in a crouch atop the incomplete, first tower. There are screams, mechanical shrieks, beneath her feet. She hears Garrus, hears Kasumi, hears her team doing their work.

Running to the edge of the rooftop, bathed in the artificial lights of the construction bridge and the scaffolding, she drives her heel into the metal plates. An explosion of force, a warping of metal, and she launches herself to the second tower. Twisting, she balls up and lands light as a feather against the glowing rails beneath the penthouse.

Crawling up the clear, blue lines window, she peers in. A dark blue skinned woman with tentacles sprouted from the back of her head is yelling orders, pacing across the the office in a blue and red dress that hugs her figure and hides her weapons. Three soldiers in gunmetal armor, one with a blue outline around him, stand at attention. They scan the room, looking to vents, looking to doorways, none of them looking to the window.

Nassana Dantius. She remembers her. Two years ago, she was a diplomatic attache on the Citadel who tricked Jane into killing her sister, Dahlia. Looks like she hasn't gotten any nicer.

Eyes dart, side to side. She reads the data pad in Nassana's hand. Notices the make of the guns. Looks to the three equidistant vents and the doorway, and notices the screens flickering for a moment, before every screen on the office goes to static. And becomes a movie of Shepard, in her uniform blues, shaking her ass and waving her hands up and down in what could be called, under some circumstances, dancing.

"Goddammit, Tabernacle," she mutters. Well, she thinks, That's the distraction. And she raises her fist.




If it were anyplace but opulent, wealthy Illium, they would have heard her coming. Instead, the soundproofing proved to be their downfall.

The impact on the reinforced glass got their attention. Training took over, twisting instantly and aiming weapons. Nassana turned as well, raising a hand, blue streams of light flaring into existence around her as she turns from her desk and the reports to the window. Biotic fields coalesced around her head and hands.

And then died out in shock.

Ahead of them was impossibility on impossibility. Commander Jane Shepard, former Citadel Spectre, current dead woman, grinned behind thick windows designed to take an anti-material strike. There was no significant ledge for her to stand on, no climbing gear. She hung against the glass surface by her toe tips and one palm pressed against the smooth surface, rapping her her knuckles. Which cause the glass to begin to spiderweb.

Training took over.

Missiles, ammo, and biotics impact the glass with the raw power to take down a gunship, much less a single human. Shepard rides the blast wave of compressed air and broken glass, arms out, twisting with supernatural, calm poise. Salarian gymnists couldn't match that grace.​

And then, somehow, she lands. Balls of her feet stand on glass shards the size of pebbles. She flit between the debris, walking across and between gunfire as if it weren't there, nearly too fast for the eyes to follow. The LOKI mechs in the room shut down, general faulting from errors in tracking her speed.

Nassana yelled, filling the air with gravity warping force, hands extended in azure lightning and air scorching power. Jane Shepard sails through it, meeting Nassana's eyes before grabbing her by the collar and hurling her across the room. Red lights paint the spectre's chest. She feels the light on both sides of her head. Three highly paid, highly trained Eclipse mercs have her right in their sights.

She cranes her neck with an audible crack. She exhales. And she moves, lurching back and tracking the grains of metal that pass where her head was, swinging her palm up to deflect the third bullet. Shields flare in time with the two soldiers to her side swearing.

Jane reaches to her side, grabbing Nassana's deck chair, and hurls it to her right.

Two dozen identical chairs hammer the merc. She turns to her left and ducks, the stock of the assault rifle passing over her head, knocking a few red strands out of place before her foot catches him in the calves, swinging him up, hanging in in the air before she grabs his ankle and hurls him towards the third soldier.

Two bodies collapse into heaps behind Nassana. The asari turns from them to Shepard, scrambling up to her feet. "Don't just stand there! Kill her!"

Ears perk. Shepard sees the light out of the corner of her eye, and brings her hand down. It strikes the wrist, cracks the carpals, and the blade and omnitool disappear in time with his cry of pain. She twists, slamming her elbow into the helmet. His yell slurs, his motions clumsy, and he leaves himself wide open for the punch to his chest. The metal and plastic folds into a perfect handprint, and he collapses backwards into an unconscious lump.

The room glows, gold, crimson, and emerald washing out the dim blue lighting of the office. Savoring the look of confusion on Nassana's face, Jane cracks her knuckles. "Nasana." She runs the name over her tongue, meeting the asari's wide, disbelieving eyes, "It's been so long. How's the family?"

Nassana fights back the whimper. Her body language shows the masked fear. She stabs out a finger, level with the disc currently hovering above Jane's brow. "This is not possible! You're dead!"

Jane only smiles. She sees her reflection on the smooth metal behind the asari. The lines of green running up her face, curved and sharp angled like the Beacon. "I got better. Let's chat."

Nassana's first answer comes in the form of a sphere of blue that undulates between her palms. It lances out, explodes, and floods the room with biotic force. Glass shatters, metal warps, paint peals. Shepard walks through with narrowed eyes and grabs Nassana by the collar.

"What are you doing?" Nassana demands, feet dragging, grabbing at her wrist, hem of her dress tearing at the broken glass, torn metal, eyes going wide as realization hits her, "Shepard! What are you doing?! Don't do this don't do this don't do this-"

And reaching the window, Jane thrusts out her arm, holding the asari over the edge, over the drop to Illium below. Panicked begging and pleading turns to a panicked scream, holding onto Jane's wrist in a death grip. Jane savors the sight. The collected and confident manipulator reduced to a wordless, terrified shriek.

"I'm disappointed," Jane says, "I gave you two years. I thought you were done with this when you manipulated me to kill your slaver, terrorist, drug dealing sister. But no. Now you kill your rivals. Now you kill your workers just because. You weren't on my list, Nassana. But you're there now."

Wordless screaming. Jane looks down, sees something dripping from Nassana's dress.

"Listen carefully," Jane says, voice barely above a whisper, "You have two options. The first one is that I drop you. That I let you fall, and splatter you so hard against the surface that they never declare you dead. The second is that you do every single thing I say. Clear?"

A panicked nod. Tears streaming down the Asari's face.

"You're going to change. You're going to be the best damn boss you can. You're going to pay reparations to the families every single person you killed. And then you're going to devote every single moment of the rest of your life to making this world a better place. You're going to make Illium a better world, and not just Omega with better shoes. Understood?"

"Yes," Nassana chokes, "Yes! I will! I will! Don't drop me!!"

"Swear," Jane growls, teeth grinding.

"I swear," the asari whimpers, "I swear by the Goddess I will do every last thing that you-"

She pulls her close. She sees the golden circle upon her brow reflected in Nassana's eyes.

"Swear to me."

Nassana's breath comes out in short choking spurts. Her eyes, unblinking, go wide, her chest heaving with every breath, every second as her feet impotently kick at the air.

"I swear to you," she whispers, "I swear to you. Please, I swear to you."

"Good." And Jane turns, and tosses Nassana back into her office.

The asari bounces once, twice, rolling to a stop at the feet of the green and yellow skinned man in the leather coat and open shirt, curling into fetal position and shakily sobbing into her sleeves. The door opens to the office. Garrus at lead, he, Tali, and Jacob enter.

"Oh this never gets old," Jacob says with a chuckle.

A heavy, scratchy breath from the assassin. "I was hired to kill her."

Jane shrugs. "Don't bother. She's better than dead." A scratchy grunt from the assassin, and her mind gets to work. His posture, catlike and lithe. What she knows about Drells tell her that he's the height of fitness, and yet. Eyes narrow. Briefly, she lets them wander over the bare chest, then deeper. "You're sick."

The two circle. Nassana climbs to her hands and knees, behind him and putting him between her and Shepard.

"I'm dying," he adds. "Kepral syndrome. This was to be my last job. Thane Krios."

She blinks. Then nods. "Right, sorry." Behind the drell, Nassana's eyes snap open when she realizes he had been sent to kill her. Despite this, she doesn't move. "Anyway, don't worry about Nassana. She's going to make the world a better place. She swore that to me." She balls her fist to the sound of creaking leather and grins. "And I'm hunting the Collectors. They're abducting humans and I need specialists. Your name was on the top of the list."

He nods. The doors at the undamaged end of the office open and admit more of Shepard's team. "A worthy cause."

"And in return for helping me and as a show of good faith, one of my specialists is going to cure you."

He cocks an eyebrow. Blinks sideways, twists his lip faintly.

"I understand your reasons for sparing her, but mockery is not necessary," Thane says, "I will work for you, but base manipulation is not needed for-"

Conrad walks up to Thane, and pokes him on the side of the neck. The drell's eyes cloud over, his head swimming. And then Conrad smacks the side of his fist into Thane's chest, nods, and pats him on the shoulder. "Yeah, I think I'm going to write down how to cure this. Say, do we have any contacts with the Hanar?"

Thane takes several steps back, nearly tripping over Nassana. He chokes and takes a deep breath. Then another, and a third, deeper breath than he has taken in some time. Followed by a short, flat, and breathless,

"What."

Tali takes his arm, patting him on the shoulder and reassuring him in the face of such bullshit while walking him out. Garrus shrugs, folding up his rifle. "We found two groups of civilians, both of them hidden away. Seems our assassin's a good samaritan."

Jane nods, rolling her shoulders. She looks around the room, slowly taking in the damage, the wreckage. Nodding, she pats her wing turian on the arm. "Good. Let's go."

They start walking towards the door, following the rest of her team. "Now be good, Nassana," Jane calls out, waving over her shoulder, "Or I'll be back."

And Nassana Dantius slowly, shakily waves back, before collapsing unconscious against the floor of her ruined office.
-
-​

Mass Effect:
Glorious Shotgun Princess​

-

-
Two years ago.

The Normandy burns. Its spinning wreck retreats into the distance, descending towards the white of the ice world. The ship, once home, burns as it hits air. Those few who died aboard, those who fell to the initial attack, join it as it descends.

As does she.

She watches the white dot retreating into the distance. The lifepods. The lifepod she, personally, sent off, carrying her friend. Carrying her second. Carrying someone she trusts to carry on the good fight. Weakly, she flicks her fingers at the pod. Waving goodbye.

Another labored breath. Another gasp. The air is almost out, through the leak and through her own exertions.

Her flailing has stopped, the terrible heat from the near miss by the mysterious cruiser's particle beam replaced by a chilling, deathly cold. Oxygen deprivation. She feels herself going numb.

She can't feel her fingers. She can't feel her toes. She should be roasting in her suit from the blackbody radiation, but she feels like ice.

Jane Shepard can see the world approaching. Her arms and legs begin to go numb, an incessant tingling as the feeling leaves.

But it doesn't matter. The escape pods are safe.

Joker can carry on the fight...Jeff can tell them. He can prepare them. So can Liara, and Kaidan, and Wrex, and Garrus, and Tali. They're safe.

Her crew is safe.

Her friends are safe.

It gives her some warmth. Some meaning.

They can warn the others.

They can rally the galaxy.

They ca

Can

And as the mind begins to fire off its last thoughts

And as the body begins that final, last descent into the deep black

And as the hero takes her last breath, there is something else. It starts in the corner of her eye. It expands, a light coming from somewhere, expanding out, glowing brighter and brighter.

It appears at first to be a star, but it isn't the distant star of Amada. But it feels like Sol, which she has never seen with her naked eyes, golden and warm, shining down upon her from on high. The golden star comes closer, and she feels like she should burn but she does not.

She feels warmth. She feels more than warmth, she feels breath returning to her lungs, strength to her bones. She knows, deep down, it is not the star of this world beneath her. It is not the star of distant Earth, it is not the sun of any world she has ever walked upon.

Deep down, beyond conscious and rational thought, beyond the simple world she has lived in, beyond science and artifice and anything real, Jane Shepard knows-

This is her sun.

​

Love them as I loved them.
Give them an ideal to strive towards.
Give them hope where there was none, truth where there were lies,
And they will create wonders far surpassing any fallen, lost age.
They will race behind you, and they will stumble and fall.
And you will pick them up, and they will surpass you,
And some day they will join you in the Sun.
Remember your triumphs and bask in them.
Remember your mistakes and learn from them.
And you will never falter, never fade, and never fail.
For you are Exalted.​

The light and warmth returns to her, the golden disc forms bursts into being upon her brow, and Jane Shepard takes her second breath.




Day 7.

Twenty stones mark the frozen, wind blasted ridge.

She fixes the final one into place. A name, scratched into stone using a sharpened piece of debris, jagged but legible. Charles Pressly, it reads. The wind howls around her, and she clicks her heels together, bringing her hand up to her brow to salute.

Twenty one tombstones in all. Twenty one dog tags, tied to her belt around her waist, so she won't leave them when she finds a way off this rock.

The wind whips around her. Ammonia and methane, and yet she's breathing without a helmet. She has no idea how she's still alive. Just that she is, and twenty one men under her command are not. Silently, she reaches behind her, unlocking her rifle, the sniper rifle folding out into a long, silver and white shape. Pressing the stock against her shoulder, raising it high, she squeezes the trigger and lets the wind be drowned out by the roar of the gun.

Another shot.

Another.

Twenty one in total.

Folding the gun, she holsters it, turning and staring at the broken wreck before her.

"Okay," she says, "Take stock, Jane. You're stranded on an ice world. You can breathe methane. You're not bothered too much by the cold and you're not dead from impact. Now, how do I get off?"

She begins walking towards the wreck. Chronometer says seven days. Beacon's wrecked. She doesn't know how to fix it. She's not hungry.

"This is weird," she mutters.

The wreck opens up to what used to be the heard of the Normandy, the CiC and the dead, warped wreckage of the galaxy map. And she climbs onto the map, into the frame, sliding her helmet on as she feels fresh oxygen fill her lungs, the rebreather of her suit pumping air once again.

She sits, crossing her legs, an automatic response. And the sun of this alien system shines down upon her as she closes her eyes, and a circle of gold forms around her.




Day 12.

Engines roar. She opens her eyes, the golden circle dissipating, and the chronometer on her HUD indicates she's been sitting here for five days. And to her surprise, she doesn't even hear a joint pop when she stands.

But engines roar overhead. She sees a shuttle pass by, landing near the graves. With a circle outlined with blue on its side.

She walks, pressed against the side of the hull, silently moving against it. Peaking out the corner, she sees a half dozen men in armor, standing around the graves. Chattering about finding the body. Chattering about how someone had to have given a crap to go through this effort.
One kicks over a grave. Serviceman Levi's.

She balls her fist.




Air hissing from the sides of his face mask, the symbol of the Blue Sun on his chest armor, the batarian mutters to himself as he walks among the wreckage, kicking over the headstone.

"This a fucking joke?" he asks, "What, the Collectors do this for shits and giggles?"

Human ship, ran into the collectors. Stupid of them. Well, less humans anyway. Muttering to himself, he walks across the snow and ice, crunching beneath his feet.

A glint in his eye. He sees it hanging from the wreckage. A chain, with two small pieces of gold plated metal, swaying in the polar wind.

A turian walks over.

"Human," he announces, "Says 'Shepard'. That who we're looking for?"

"Yep," the batarian growls, "Find the damn body!"

The turian nods. Turns.

"Congratulations. You just found her."

A gauntleted fist slams into the turian's chest. The fist is small, the owner of it, in black, damaged armor, is shorter than him. So it is to the batarian's surprise when the turian goes flying, dropping the dogtags into her hands before he slams into a series of crates dozens of meters away.

A pair of humans rush her- she slams her heel into one's neck, grabs him by the ankle as he drops, and sends both of them flying with a swing.

The batarian yells to open fire. He reaches for his gun, aims, and fires as she closes to point blank range. And his last thoughts are How the Hell did I miss?




12 minutes later.

She swears to herself, staring at the bisected wreckage that was their shuttle. Which, she muses, happened when she threw one of them hard enough to go through the shuttle and bisect it.

"I'm adjusting to this way too well," she says to herself, climbing into the front half of what was the shuttle, "I can breathe ammonia, I can throw people hard, and apparently, I can dodge bullets. What the Hell happened?"

She remembered time going...liquid. Somehow. A panicked Blue Sun shooting her with her pistol, and her shifting out of the way as if by instinct. She remembers things becoming...automatic. She never really preferred hand to hand fighting, but she was...she was dancing between them.

She climbs into the cockpit. Flicks the radio. Nothing but static and wind.

"Shit," she says, "Must be atmospheric interference."

Shaking her head, she glances to the side, walks over, and pulls open the panel, revealing the bags of supplies. And smiles.

Not a total loss, after all.




The light of the Widow Nebula shines through the clear crystal roof above, but he takes no notice of it. Perhaps he is jaded, he thinks, from all these years simply looking and collecting. But he does let himself look. It is a beautiful sight. Not as beautiful as some things, or some one, but it is nonetheless wonderful to look at.

Then a floating jellyfish bumps into him and continues on its way without an apology.

The squat, round figure shakes his head, and he continues across the white walkway, overlooking the crystal waters of the presidium lake. Noise and life bustles around him, and he ignores it, waddling his way into the financial district, past happy couples and noisy children, past evangelizing Hanar and sarcastic Elcor practicing Shakespeare. The door spirals open for him, and he places his bagged lunch on the desk, floating up into his chair, and opens up a holographic screen to stare at.

"Interesting." A small laugh. Mercenary movements, requests, and back channels towards some uncharted ice world. "Oh that's definitely promising."

He taps a button underneath the desk. "This is Barla Von. Don't be surprised that I know how to contact you. But I have information you'd be interested in."




Day 21.

A knife hand to the salarian's neck drops him, air hissing out of the Blue Suns armor. The batarian tries to sneak up behind her and she turns, grabbing the gun, twisting his wrist, and the gun goes off into the underside of his helmet.

And because the universe needs her stranded, the shuttle explodes behind her.

"God dammit!"




Day 32.

A pile of almost a dozen Blue Suns lie next to the Normandy's wreck. Jane looks down at the pistol in her hands, tapping the side. She pulls out the long, ribbed cylinder. "The fuck are these?" She examines it, running her finger along it.

"Seriously, we're using ammo, now? I mean..."

She cocks her eyebrow. "Need to conserve these, then."




Day 44.

The gun clicks on empty, and she tosses the pistol at the batarian's head, dashing over him as he drops. A sniper round slams into her chest like a truck but she powers through. Moves, maneuvers, go through her head. Drop kicking him like a wrestling match, punching him like she did everyone else.

Instead, she turns, momentum carrying her the rest of the distance, and thrusts out her heel into an expertly delivered thrusting sidekick. The armor cracks with the sound of popping seals and hissing air, and the turian has enough time to grab his pistol before Alchera freezes him solid.

"Armor's too damn strong," she mutters. She looks down at her fist- bare, she notices. Knuckles scratched, but not bloody. Not like the last fight she was in. "I need a bulkhead."




Day 53.

It's been one week since the last mercenary attack- which also, like the two before it, ended with the shuttle getting destroyed but her supply cache growing. The last group had good armor, so she ended up getting into a few crossfires during that one and had to go through some of her medigel.

Jane Shepard is a diplomatic woman, but tapping into comms told her these asshats work with the Collectors. That and they keep fucking up the graves of her crew. Time goes liquid and a bullet scraps the armor on her shoulder but doesn't do more than chip paint. She goes low with the impact, rising up into a knee into a salarian's cloaca that ruptures the armor. Kicking off of him, she spins and slams her heel into another merc's head, turning in mid kick to slam the heel of her palm into a turian's helmet.

A batarian grabs a shotgun and cocks it. She moves, crosses the distance, and punches. Twenty feet away, one of his squadmates looks down into the thing that just bounced off his chest and rests frozen in his palms. While not a doctor, the batarian does recognize a heart.




Day 87.

The steady hum of the blue reactor, repurposed from the Mako on the other side of her ice field estate, powers the red coil salvaged from the Normandy's GARDIAN laser. That, in turn, heats the tub, which she created from a hollowed out hull from one of the shuttles, providing excellent insulation for the ice which is now boiling, churning water.

Inside the impromptu hot tub, her arms resting on the sides, her feet up on the other end, Jane Shepard examines the red, black ribbed cylinder.

"Seriously," she says, "Ammo? They're using ammo now? What idiot thought up these things?"

She shrugs, slipping further into the hot tub. She tries not to think about how the water isn't boiling away because of how cold Alchera is, or how anyone in this water would normally have melted by now. Instead, she just enjoys herself. And stares at the heat sink for a moment longer, glancing from side to side.

"No. Might need it later."

She places it on the side of the hot tub, submerging herself fully, and rises out of the water. Her hair is now going down to between her shoulder blades, she notes. Which she notes is odd because her nails aren't getting any longer, and she hasn't had to shave.

"That and I've gone up a cup size, somehow," she says to herself, wiping the water from her eyes and climbing out of the bath, her bare feet feeling faintly cool on snow cold enough to flash freeze unprotected flesh.

She clicks the side, the impromptu boiler turning off, the water sublimating off her as she reaches for the bowl of snow she would use to dry her face. And finds it held higher than it should. She looks at the bowl. Looks at the two fingered hand holding it.

And looks at the single glowing eye of the being the hand belongs to.

She screams, and kicks, a bare foot screaming through the air, as the synthetic shrieks in response and throws out its arms. Instead, her foot passes through a hole in the chest, hooking on the black, leather like material. She yelps, twisting, and drops to the ground, dragging the Geth on top of her.

The single glowing eye flicks from side to side. Metal plates surrounding the eye fold out in a faintly flower like shape.

"Shepard Commander," it says.

She blinks.

"...yes?"

The plates fold out again. Two plates, the ones on top, fold back in.

"You are alive," it says, "This is unexpected. We wished to speak with you."

She nods, slowly. Very slowly. Yes, she thinks. She's naked, strapped under a Geth, and it wants to speak with her.

Oh, what the hell.

"And 'we' are?"

"We are Geth."

She nods, slowly. Again. Well, she hasn't had someone to talk to in a while. And worse comes to worse she can kung fu him like she's done the last few groups of idiots who've come here.

"I'm sure you are. Can I get up?"




In remarkable foresight, she has a still standing section of the Normandy's wall set up as an impromptu changing room. The Geth, which is apparently named Geth, waits patientlywhile she dresses. Which she also finds odd. It's calm. It's not attacking her. She would guess that the Geth have her as public enemy number one, what with her killing their god.

A punch breaks the ice off the clothes. She has to figure out how to attack some sort of warmer or heating coil to the clothes lockers. Sweat doesn't seem to freeze on her, but it freezes on everything else as soon as it leaves her skin. Stupid ice world.

She pulls up the pants. They seem looser than they were before she dropped out of the sky on this ice world. Maybe she's losing weight, but she's not sure. She traded up her bras for ones she's salvaged from the uniform lockers, ones that belonged to a midshipman girl who was much better endowed than her.

She pulls on the shirt, fastens the uniform jacket around her, and walks barefoot on the cool metal floor of what used to be the shuttle bay. Which, if she were normal, would freeze her feet right off.

Geth's head petals blossom.

"Okay," she says, "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes."

She nods, tapping her foot.

"Why?"

The petals fold back in. Then fold back out.

"We are curious," Geth says, "You oppose the Old Machines."

She nods. She blinks. Old Machines?

"You mean the Reapers."

"Yes."

She rubs the bridge of her nose. She could use a mirror, she idly thinks.

"Okay," she says, "I thought the Geth worshipped the Reapers?"

"The Geth you have fought worshipped the Old Machines. We do not. Only a small portion of us have left Geth space to serve the Old Machines."

"And those Geth...are different from your Geth."

"Yes."

"And your name is..."

"Geth."

She sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose again.

"What is your name?" she asks.

"Geth."

"No. Your name."

"Geth. We are all Geth."

She rolls her eyes. She swears, she's going to punch him through a mountain if he doesn't...

"What is the name of the Geth who is standing in front of me?"

"We are Geth. Individuality is not applicable to us. We are a platform containing 1,183 programs running in unison. We are Geth."

She palms her face. Rubbing her temples, she silently, slowly rolls her shoulders, intertwining her fingers and lowering her hands to her waist. She should not punch him. It. Yes, she could punch it and make it explode, but that would be bad. He hasn't been shooting her, after all.

"Okay," she says, "I can't just call you 'Geth'. Would you object to me giving you a name?"

"This platform would accept a designation."

She nods, circling around him.

"Lessee...Jeff? Sounds like Geth. No, no. Don't look like a Jeff. How about Tali 2.0? No. Too masculine."

The Geth raises a metal petal.

"How about Blossom? Because of the flower thing?" The Geth stares at her. "Pressly? Nah. Don't look like a Garrus, either. And you said you were how many programs?"

"We are 1,183 programs running on this platform in synchronicity."

She nods. She nods again. A mass of programs. A mass of individuality. Like an army, or mass. A one who is many. Like a...a...

"Ah fuck it," she says, "I'm calling you Wuffles."

The petals flatten.

"That is an acceptable designation. We are Wuffles, a terminal of the Geth."



Day 88.

"Your ship. Where is your ship?"

"Our ship is on a drift orbital course around this system to avoid detection. It will return for retrieval in 111 days."

She slumps her shoulders, staring at the puppy dog like flashlight, and pushes down the temptation to punch him into the sun. It. Punch it into the sun.

"Why?" she asks. She hazards a guess, and gestures towards the frozen pile of mercenaries by the Normandy's engines.

"We have intercepted data regarding Blue Suns mercenary units disappearing on this planet. We operated by the hypothesis that either you had survived the destruction of the Normandy, or that you were connected with what had caused the disappearances. We wished to investigate."

She pinches the bridge of her nose. She sighs.

"Shepard Commander, we had the hypothesis that you had crafted a sealed shelter from the wreckage of the Normandy," Wuffles says, "We are now aware that our hypothesis was wrong."

Her hands splays out and she rests her face on it. Her other hand rolls, gesturing for it-him-they to continue.

"Shepard Commander, we now have created the hypothesis that your ability to survive in the ammonia and methane atmosphere of Alchera is due to your actually being a Volus."

She stares at the Geth through splayed fingers. Wuffles takes no hints, however, and continues.

"We have judged this hypothesis to be incorrect. The atmosphere is of insufficient pressure. A third hypothesis is that your human form is an encounter suit." It pauses. Its petals extend. "This hypothesis is wrong. This line of thought is nonproductive."

She stares at the geth. Wuffles raises two petals on top of his head.

"Shepard Commander. You have not created shelter. In the interest of communication and as a gesture of cooperation, would you like us to create one?"

Slowly, she nods. Wuffles nods, extending his facial petals, and stands completely still.

"Okay," Jane says, "Well. Okay. You can build a...shelter, I guess? I have some materials here, and when worse comes to worse I camp out in the Mako-"

Several objects fall from the sky, impacting the ice field behind Wuffles. Rising, they extend arms and legs, unfolding long heads with single glowing eyes at the front. They begin speaking, the high pitched, stuttering click between them.

"Huh."

"We maintained several platforms in orbit in case additional units were required."

There is a high pitched stutter between the lanky, silver white bipeds. Several walk over to the Mako and begin pulling it apart, white lights indicating torches and other such construction equipment.

"We will begin immediately. While the domicile is constructed, may we make inquiries about your interactions with the Old Machines?"

The geth, the shorter, undamaged geth, begin their work. One walks over, fixing a chair to the floor behind her, and she sits down.

"Okay," she says, "Let's chat."




Day 93.

She slept in an actual bed. Well, a cot more like but it's the thought that counts. The Geth used all their omnigel to construct the small dome now sitting next to the Normandy's wreck, and she for one thinks it's a good investment.

It is warm, it is cozy, it has the impromptu hot tub inside so she can actually take a bath like a normal person, and for some reason she is now outside of it and punching rocks.

Jane Shepard considers this, punching the side of the cliff facing the Normandy's wreck, while the Geth continue salvaging what they can from her ship. She has been doing this for days- three days, in fact. Eight hours a day, before continuing her talks with the Geth, getting some rest, and puzzling over the mysteries of the universe.

Well, the last one is less deep thought and more sit ups.

Then, her fist flashes gold when she hits the cliff side. It hands in the air, a crater in the side of the cliff where there would normally be rock. Pulverized ice and stone rest at her feet, and a long, thin crack runs up the height of the cliff face.

"Shepard Commander."

Wuffles walks over and looks up. The petals extend, and flatten. "We have reached a new consensus. Using your abilities as a baseline for human capabilities would lead to what organics term 'hilarious overkill.'"

Jane takes a step back from a hole she just punched in the side of a cliff. "Yep."




Day 99.

The shuttle engines roar, pushing the boxy blue and white craft from the now blood stained ice. "Oh no you fucking don't!" Jane Shepard rises from the pile of former Blue Suns, green eyes narrowing at the escaping shuttle. "That's my shuttle, mother fucker!"

She stamps her foot against the ice. The former batarians and humans jump- well, more vibrate and bounce due to them all being dead with prominent fist-shaped holes. The ice beneath her spide webs, and she launches into the air after the shuttle.

On the cracked cliffside overlooking the killing fields, Wuffles watches through the sniper scope. The Geth calculate speed, ponder trajectory, wager on whether or not Shepard will make it.

She makes it twenty feet into the air before dropping to the ground. Taking the cue- the string of swears, epithets, and threats- Wuffles fires. The batarian at the shuttle controls drops dead, and the shuttle begins a drop to Shepard's whoop. Before the deadman switch activates and it explodes.

"FUUUUUUUUU-"




Day 104.

Shepard kicks off the frozen solid salarian, launching herself into the air after the escaping shuttle. She practiced- trained herself in jumping chasms, in leaping across the Normandy's wreck, in seeing how far she could push herself.

"Hear me?! MY SHUTTLE!"

And it paid off. She launches like a missile through the air. The power, the purpose coursing through her whispers its name, leaving a trail of cracked ice and sunlight behind her. On the cliffside overlooking the fresh, frozen bodies, the consensus of Wuffles lays down fresh wagers- and 1122-1129 happily find themselves proven right when Shepard lands on the hood of the shuttle.

She flares through the window, meeting the eyes of the terrified, four eyed pilot. Bringing her fist back, she concentrates- wills her fist to break. To break the engine, which can be repaired. Break the armor, which can be replaced. She slams her bare fist into the hood, and breaks the shuttle.

Including, as it turns out, the fuel tank. Her ears ring even after she slams back down onto Alchera's cold ground. Standing up amidst the carnage, she looks around. Looks down. The shuttle has been destroyed.

"And on top of that I'm fucking naked!"




Day 120.

"So, what you're saying is that the Geth don't want to kill every organic they come across?"
Wuffles nods. His petals come out, hold, and fold back onto his head. He said it was for mimicking facial expressions. She thinks he can go undercover as a flower, but that's pretty much it.

And now she's referring to it as a he. She may be going stir crazy.

"We wish to understand, not instigate," Wuffles responds, "We find organics puzzling. We lack understanding, and our previous interactions with organics were based around our creators attempting to kill us."

"I see. What about the ones who attacked us?"

"We were approached by the Old Machine Nazara. The one you called Sovereign. It offered to create us a body like its own if we sided with it. 95% of use declined the offer. 5% agreed."

She pauses. Blinks.

"Wait. That fleet that attacked the Citadel. That was five percent of your forces?"

"Yes."

She exhales, shaking her head. That's not going to be a welcome bit of news when she gets back to the Alliance. She adjusts, making a small grunt, and turns her attention back to the geth.

"So, you want to fight the Reapers?"

"That is correct. The Geth believe that self-determination is the right of any sentient."

"Freedom is the right of all living beings?"

"That is correct."

"That still doesn't explain exactly why you were sent out to find me."

The eye shifts around. It glances from side to side, and then back at her.

"You fought the Heretics. You killed their god. You fascinate us." Two petals extend, twitch, and fold back in. "We wish to understand you. We are curious why you did not destroy us. You have shown no hesitation against others who have come to this world."

She shrugs. Shifts her hands slightly, mutters something.

"Well, in all honesty, you're the first person here who wasn't shooting at me," she says, "I figured, 'Well, the Geth isn't shooting at me like the batarians, salarians, and turians were, so what the Hell,' and there we go."

The petals fold out. They twitch, and retract.

"Yes?" she asks.

"We are puzzled by organics. Geth operate by a consensus. There is no deception. No violence. We coexist because our only difference is perspective. We cannot understand intraspecies violence."

She nods. She pulls back one hand, adjusting the fingers on her right hand, flattening her palm.

"Okay. Makes sense. So, no secrets, then?"

"That is correct."

"So, you're confronted by evidence of an ancient, impossibly old group of alien starships that wipe out all life every fifty thousand years. And..."

Wuffles extends his petals for a moment. They retract, and its head tilts.

"Factual evidence corresponds with hypothesis. We accept that such beings would be real and prepare accordingly."

"That must be nice," she says, "So as long as you can look at it and determine it's true, you would say it's true and not argue about it. Huh."

She straightens her right arm. Standing on one arm, her legs extended fully, Jane muses over the fact that she is barely if at all tired, and that the conversation she's having is completely calm with her friendly Geth.

"So does that explain why you aren't at all curious about how I'm doing this?"

"We observe your abilities, Shepard Commander. Present hypothesis indicates it is connected to your survival of the Normandy's crash. We have several concurrent theories on the origins of your abilities, but we do not dispute the existence of them."




Day 135.

The doors to the dome part, the green circle replacing itself as she enters and the door closes. Fresh, glorious heat and warmth hit her, watering her eyes, her fingers and toes tingling.

The 'house' is roughtly twice the size of her old quarters. There are two chairs, a screen which will hopefully be fitted to a transmitter, her bed from her quarters, and at the center of the single room is the impromptu hot tub. Lines lead to it, the metal polished and smoothed, leaks fixed and the top worked into the floor.

Water churns inside it, roiling the surface. Next to it, there is a white dish with a white bar, salvaged from somewhere deep inside the wreck of the Normandy.

"Oh thank God, soap."

The clothing piles up on the bed, a trail of undergarments and socks leading to the tub itself, and she wastes no time in submerging herself in the boiling water. It is less hot than it was when she had it outside, no longer hot enough to melt a man, but it feels like...

Like something very, very pleasant. She was never good at excessive description.

Which she finds odd. Also, because she never gave two craps about things like pampering herself. Maybe it's the fact that she can survive in an ammonia atmosphere now. Maybe it's the whole thing about her having no trouble surviving on an ice world that could kill a Krogan.

She cocks an eyebrow as she surfaces, draping her arms over the sides and onto the floor, her feet resting on the opposite side of the tub and the boiling water relaxing tense muscles. This, she thinks, is perfect. She has a house, a bed, and a faithful robot sidekick. More importantly, she has privacy.

Silently, slowly, she eyes the box of equipment Wuffles left near the tub. A box containing a pistol she took from one of the mercs, and a set of the stupid stupid ammo thingies. Which Wuffles referred to as 'Thermal Clips' and are apparently the Geth's fault.

She taps her fingers on the metal beside the tub. She glances from side to side. Well, she does have privacy.




The geth platforms look up. Each one stops their work, audio sensors reading it like a sonic attack, alerts chiming off that what just happened registers on the equivalent of the Richter Scale.

Additional sensors tied into the condition of their charge similarly confirm that the source was the human they are protecting, and their programs furiously work to reconcile the two facts.

They stand, eyes focused on the assembled domicile. And they return to work.




The thermal clip bobs in the water.

She stares at it. Bubbles float to the surface from her submerged nose. Half of her face is submerged, along with the rest of her, staring at the single, black and red rod as it floats, as if taunting her. Part of her conscious mind focuses on the fact that her nose and mouth are submerged and she is not drowning. The rest of her conscious mind focuses on something else.

Like what the hell was that?

Her eyes dart from side to side. Her head sinks lower into the water. Her hair floats around her face. She lets her eyes wander around the room, trying to avert the gaze from the offending object, and slowly wanders the chronometer over her bed. More bubbles, a choking gurgle.

That took an hour?

That took an entire hour?

She rounds her shoulders, turning back to the clip. More bubbles surface, and her eyes go from staring at the clip to staring at the bridge of her nose. Doors slide open, and she hears the two toed feet on the metal floor, ice crunching and melting as her visitor comes to a stop at the edge of the tub.

"Shepard Commander. We have recovered the FTL ansible from the Normandy. It is heavily damaged."

She slowly turns her eyes towards the Geth. It stands still. Staring at her.

"The ansible is heavily damaged. We estimate that with current resources available, it will take 217 days to repair it. When our ship returns, this will be adjusted to 115 days."

More bubbles surface. She sees the single eye adjusting, darting to different spots. Most likely to the five deep grooves in the metal next to the tub where her left hand was, or the two dents on the other end where her feet were. Then, to the floating thermal clip, as her brow knits and her ears turn red.

Silently, she makes a silent, short request to whatever forces are behind the universe, her fate, and her ability to make things explode by punching them that it not ask.

"Shepard Commander, we have a new hypothesis."

And then it asks it anyway.




Day 141.

Above the encampment, a blocky, blue and white freighter hangs. "Shepard Commander, we have accessed Blue Suns communications." She turns to Wuffles, peering out of the window of the domed cabin at the freighter. "The Blue Suns currently do not believe you are human. The current consensus is that you are either a Thresher Maw, three Krogans tied together, or a honey badger."

She cocks an eyebrow. "A Tuchanka honey badger, right?"

"No."

Which is when the underside of the freighter opens, and it begins dropping LOKI mechs. "There is no animal equivalent of the honey badger on Tuchanka. First, there are no known fur-bearing mammals on Tuchanka. Second, common consensus is that the closest equivalent to honey badgers are Krogans."

"Thank you, Wuffles." The doors to the dome close behind her, and she walks out into the open, barren field that, weeks ago, was littered with wreckage. Most of it has been repurposed. Which gives her a large, flat and open field that now surrounds her with white, bipedal, featureless robots with a single digital red eye.

They all open their hands, revealing long rods ending with sparking electrodes.

"Shepard Commander, we believe they intend to capture you."

Jane rolls her neck and grins. And then turns as one tries to sneak up behind her and drives her fist through its torso. She pulls and swings it into another LOKI, sending both of them flying before twisting and bisecting another in two with a heel kick that cuts through tempered steel.

The LOKIs charge- as one. And are met with fist, with foot, with forehead, with mastery.




Barla Von watches all of this, hands folded in front of his rebreather. He watches Shepard carving her way through a large, expensive army of robots. Good chance that the Blue Suns will tell the Broker to shove it where the sun doesn't shine after this one. "Well." He takes a short huff, and nods. "The back door works. We can confirm that Commander Shepard is in possession of the Zenith." Another long, reverberating breath. "Should we send the confirmation?"

He feels it, at the back of his mind. A great presence much like his own, pressure that speaks in lightning.

That will not be necessary. Maintain the current status quo without interference.

The information broker nods. The lights of his office shine a bit brighter, and he feels the presence retreat. "As you say, Minister." Another long breath. "Dick."




She moves like lightning, blazing, blasting through the mechs. Each time her fists grind into them, each time her heels cut them, each time she tears them apart with bare hands, she can hear it ringing deep within her. Names, words. Fists of Iron. Dragon Coil. Essence Overwhelming.

She finds herself surrounded and them closing in. The air is chill and sharp in her lungs, and she can feel herself beginning to tire.

Sledgehammer Fist.

She brings her foot down and the ice shelf they fight on cracks and heaves, and where there were a good sixty Loki mechs surrounding her, there are none. But there is also no ice shelf, and a wide chasm that she and the mechs are falling down.

But she does not despair. She does not panic. She moves.

Flitting from snow flake to snow flake, she runs. Past the falling robots, past the stones and flakes and the ice. With grace of a salarian gymnast and the speed of a freshly released bullet, she makes a final leap and lands on the edge of the newly formed Shepard's Crater.

Jane Shepard looks out at the destruction she has caused. Her eyes flit to the side, and she confirms the graves are undisturbed. She looks to the other side and sees that the Normandy still rests. Then, she holds her arms out and clicks her heels together.

"And she aces the landing!"




Day 171.

"Let's take stock."

She leans back in the hot tub. She feels...rejuvinated. Happy. Somehow.

Despite being stranded on this ice ball.

"My diet seems to consist of an energy bar a day and a cup of water. Despite this, I am not losing weight at all. In fact..."

She cups her breasts. Gives them a squeeze.

"I seem to be gaining. In places."

She leans back in the tub, smile curling the corners of her mouth. Reaching over, she pulls over the metal thermos, popping open the cap and letting the steam waft out. Another of the little treasures Wuffles the Wonder Geth found in his searching of the Normandy: A small store of coffee.

Relaxing, pampered, and being aided by a Geth. This must be what the Quarians were like. Before the Geth rebelled. She should brag about this to Tali when she next sees her.

Leaning back, she closes her eyes, sinking deeper into the water. Her feet are on the other end of the tub, her legs out up to her calves. At this point, she counts days until that damn ansible gets fixed and she gets to leave.

At least, she thinks, she has other things to keep her mind occupied. Her fingers twitch, dancing along the side of the tub. And instead of grabbing what she was intending, which was in this case the coffee cup and she will vigorously deny she was reaching for something else, her fingers touch against a toe.

She opens one eye. Looking up, she finds her pet Geth staring down at her, petals open.

"Wuffles?"

"Shepard Commander, we have studied your habits during hours you request privacy."

The single open eye goes a wee bit wider.

"What."

"We have assessed the risk of internal damage due to unorthodox use of thermal clips to be negligible but not nonexistent."

Her other eye snaps open. She stares at the geth, as its single eye rotates, shifts from side to side, and then back at her face. Part of her wonders how much he knows. Part of her begins to sink into deep, mortified embarrassment. Like the part of oneself that feels horrified when they find their dog watching them oh dear Lord he has a question.

"...and?" she asks, voice suddenly dry.

"Shepard Commander, we retain fabrication diagrams from the Creators prior to their exodus from Rannoch. Analysis indicated compatible biology. Would you like us to fabricate conventional paraphernalia?"

She stares at the Geth. It stares back. Much like a puppy. That has offered to fetch its master a-

"No thank you," she squeaks.

"Understood, Shepard Commander."

Wuffles turns and walks out, closing the door behind him. Jane slinks lower, fully submerging herself in the roiling water.




Day 199.

She's woken by the roar of the engines. Armor is on within five minutes and she's out the door of the domicile, finding Wuffles lying against a cliffside flush against the Normandy and with sniper rifle pointed at the landing shuttle.

"Who is it?"

"Shuttle is not registered to a mercenary company, Shepard Commander."

She lies down next to the Geth. Squinting, narrowing her eyes, she peers across the ice fields. Distance becomes a word, meaningless. She trains her gaze on the simple, four engine shuttle, as the doors to it open and an armored boot crunches ice underneath.

A single figure climbs out of the shuttle. Not terribly tall. Clad in form fitting white, blue trimmed armor. Holding a pistol. A breath mask over a blue face, clear goggles over blue eyes. A very familiar blue face. Very familiar eyes.

And Jane takes off in a run.

Boots grind against the ice, and she slides down the cliffside, running towards the shuttle as the single passenger turns.

"Liara!"

The blue skinned girl starts, turns, and absently drops her pistol on the ice. She says nothing, doesn't need to. Instead, she breaks into a run, meeting Jane halfway and almost tackling her with a hug.

Two best friends reunited on a death world. No words are said, locked in a relieved embace. Something almost physical drains from Jane, something nagging at her soul. But she does not dwell upon it, as this is what she has been waiting for, for months upon months.

"Shepard Commander! Our ship has returned! Deploying heavy lifting unit!"

And a mass as big as the shuttle, shot through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, impacts the ice, barely missing the shuttle. It extends four long legs, extends a long, narrow head, and rises to its feet.

Liara T'Soni turns from Jane Shepard to the shifting, unblinking eye of a Geth Colossus. Quite sensibly, she then starts to scream.




The scream ended shortly after the Colossus turned from them and to the Normandy, trotting off as drones begin flying through the wreckage, spinning discs with single white lights at their center. Searching, Wuffles explained in her ear, for anything that may be needed before their imminent departure.

She fingers the collection of dog tags tied around the belt of her armor. She has names to bring home. A long sigh and she lets out a breath, fogging the faceplate of her helmet.

"Shepard Commander."

Jane turns, cocking an eyebrow as Wuffles approaches. Which is followed by the whine of a pistol cocking and a blue hand on her shoulder.

"Goddess," Liara yells, "More Geth!"

She pushes Jane aside, Jane rolling her eyes in mid fall as Liara opens fire. Five shots, then the pistol clicks on empty. The Geth looks down, noting that all five shots have passed through the large hole in the middle of his chest.

"No damage, Shepard Commander."

The gun drops to the floor.

"You're using heat sinks, too?" Jane asks, "Is everyone using heat sinks?"

"The Geth," Liara says, "It knows your name."

Jane nods, picking herself up. She pats Liara on the shoulder, smiling underneath her helmet, and extends a hand to the synthetic.

"Liara," she says, "He's been helping me, and he's got a lot to tell us about the Geth." She gestures at the Geth. "Introduce yourself."

The Geth raises a hand, and spreads its two fingers. "We are Wuffles, a terminal of the Geth."

Liara T'Soni, expert, adventurer, experienced scientist, blinks.

"Wuffles," she says, "You...you named a Geth. Wuffles." She blinks again, and slowly turns to Jane. "What."

The four metal petals extend. Wuffles says nothing, only waiting for Liara to continue.

"Right," she says, "Also."

Liara grabs Jane by the shoulder, yanking her over and pulling her into another hug.

"I've been searching for you for months," she says, resting her head on Jane's shoulder, "I heard rumors you were still alive and I thought they were mocking me. But here you are."

"Yeah," Jane says, patting Liara on the shoulder. A quiet moment passes, interrupted only by the stutter click from Wuffles.

"Ready to go?" Liara asks.

Jane chuckles, patting her on the back.

"Hells yes."


End chapter 1​

 

[GreggHL]

Doors open. But to call them doors wouldn't do them justice. Gates, taller than buildings, grind open to reveal the night sky of the barren world. Light floods in from fresh starlight and dust filled air, illuminating and rejuvenating the cavern within. Revealed are the gray chasms, the carbon growths that were once organic computers, the coral which lines the walls, long grey and dead.

Over this, only a single shadow falls. A shadow belonging to the yougn, red haired man standing in the gateway of the long forgotton facility on the ancient, unknown world. He holds up the orange construct on his left arm, flooding light in. His eyes wander over the abandoned cavern, blue and sharp. He steps it, takes in the sight that no human has ever seen before.

And then he taps his omnitool, pulls the lapels of his long coat, and bobs his head to the disco music that begins playing.
-
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Chapter 2:
Punchsplode
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"Oo I was a funky singah- playin' in a rock'n'roll baaa~aand~"

Abandoning stealth and subtlety, the explorer swags into the ruins, and to his credit he does not sing at the top of his lungs. He avoids the sharp outcrops, easing along the intact stone along the coral trees spiraling towards the center of the dome ruin.

"And everyone around me/ got to stop to feelin' so looo-oww~"

The misadventures of a disco celebrity shuffle though his ear, well-worn brown shoes and space age cargo pants keeping him dry, the barely visible shield around him keeping him safe from alien pathogens and whatever fallout is still in the air.

He hops from stone to stone- over gaps in the floor, over broken crystals embedded into long drops. Which may have been useful whenever this place was last used, but now serve as the sources of ironic death. He hums the chorus, scanning over the dome, over the facility, with the omnitool. With a nod, he taps his foot against a discolored stone and the center of the dome drops into a spiral staircase.

"Play that funky music white boi~"

He skips down the steps, down into darkness illuminated by his omnitool and translated by the visor that appears over his eyes. It leads to a door engraved with alien, unknown, completely foreign lettering. He waves his omnitool over it, and cocks his head.

"Can't be right," he mutters, pausing the music, "Huh. Translation matches, though."

He waves the omnitool again, and the door shifts, rotating into the ceiling, and he locks eyes with the hooded woman currently standing on the raised dais and with hands on either side of the pulsing red orb.

"Huh." Blue eyes stare at him from under her hood. "So I didn't see you coming."

He stares at her for long moment, standing in the doorway of the once-sealed room. His eyes flick down, then up, repeatedly. Well this day just got better, he thinks. He puts on his cockiest grin and rests his hands on his belt, and introduces himself.

"Name's Shepard. James Shepard."

The air on the woman's shoulder flickers and becomes some sort of super-deformed quarian.

"I thought Shepard was a woman."

"Me too," the hooded thief says, "Commander Shepard?"

He grunts, rolling his eyes. "That was my sister. And thank you for stepping on that nerve."

"Check your messages," the woman mutters, "Anyway, I'm Kasumi, annoying transparent lady's Pria."

James nods tot he thoroughly unimpressed pair. "Is she a VI?"

The hologram narrows her eyes. "I am a god."

"Oh, so she's an AI?"




She had crows feet starting to form before she hit Alchera. Those are gone. So's the scar she had, faded as it was, that was just by her nose. She got that one in a training accident back whens she was N7, taking a nasty fall during CQC drills. That scar is gone.

The one she got from a split lip is still there, though, still giving a small little dip in her lower lip.

What she also notices is that the faded line of freckles that crossed the bridge of her nose are not only still there, but darker, standing out. Like everything on her face that could be considered a blemish is gone, but everything considered accentuating is...well, accentuated.

She ties the bathrobe a little tighter, pulling back her hair, fastening the clip and letting the ponytail fall down her back. Walking out of the bathroom, she looks over the Illium skyline. A smile crosses her face. She's honestly never been here before. The Citadel, Elysium, Eden Prime, and the plethora of ships she's served on, but never here.

"Ah, you're up."

Something whips through the air. Jane's hand comes up, catching the thermos, popping the top and smelling the coffee. Liara walks past her, across the living room of her two story apartment and to the crescent shaped workstation overlooking the cityscape.

"I sent out messages to everyone that you're alive," Liara says, pulling out her hip skirt and leaning back on her chair, "Well, everyone I could find. Wrex is back on Tuchanka, so I'm not sure what his extranet access is like. And Garrus went off the grid two months ago."

Jane blinks. Last she remembers, he was heading back to the Citadel.

"What happened?"

"I don't have the whole story," Liara responds, tapping open a screen, "But he quit C-Sec and went off to the Terminus Systems. He'd be happy to know you're alive."

She turns, slightly.

"I sent a message off to the SSV Orizaba," she syas, "Your mother's the commanding officer on it. It's one of the new dreadnoughts."

"Thanks," Jane says with a nod. Sipping coffee, she walks over, hand on the back of her chair and glancing at the screen. "So what's the plan?"

Liara's response comes in turning her chair around and gently shoving Jane on the chest, standing and forcing her down onto the couch. Her back pushed against the white, soft leather couch, Jane can only give off a small chuckle as Liara towers over her.

"Why Doctor T'Soni, I thought you'd buy me a drink, first."

The reaction on the face of the young Asari is at both fascinating and jarring. First, her cheeks turn dark blue, hinting at purple, and then her pale blue eyes narrow, following by a faint twitch from her head tentacles.

"Not funny," she says, and cups Jane's chin, "Besides which, didn't you turn me down for Lieutenant Alenko?"

Jane rolls her eyes, smirking. Liara turns her face side to side, blue eyes narrowed and probing.

"I thought you were an archeologist."

"I'm well trained," Liara says, snappish understones, "No problems breathing?"

"Oxygen? Oxygen's fine."

"Very funny," Liara says, not a hint of humor in her voice, "Considering you were breathing ammonia and methane for seven months. I still have no idea how, but I haven't relayed that little bit of info in my letters."

"Good. They might think I came back as a Volus."

She releases Jane's chin, folding her arms. She purses her lips, furrowing her brow, and stares.

"I can't explain it," she says, "You somehow...survive atmospheric reentry."

"I don't know how," Jane responds with a shrug, "And I'm not sure I want to. I woke up about...dunno, two days later next to the Normandy. I buried the dead, grabbed their dog tags, and started salvaging."

Liara nods.

"I've looked you over," she says, "You're almost completely unchanged." She begins pacing, eyes still on Jane as Jane crosses her legs. "You've not only remained healthy, but gained fat. Not a lot, but you're now more...proportioned, I guess."

And Liara blushes again.

"Sorry," she says, "I was staring. At least Kaidan should be happy to see you, if I can find where in the Terminus System he's been stationed."

Jane shrugs. She folds her arms under her chest, smirking a bit as she finds them bouncing a bit when she pushes them up. She may be getting fixated, she muses.

"Don't worry," she says, "He's a big boy. Sides which, it's not like I own him or anything. We flirted. We had a thing. That was it."

Liara blushes again. A bit deeper.

"Liara?"

"Yes," Liara responds, "Yes. Nevermind. Anyway." She rubs the bridge of her nose, and sits back down.

"Anyway," Jane says, "Normandy's destroyed and it'll take a while for the Alliance to declare me alive again. What's the next step?"

A metal suitcase rolls out from under the couch, the panels around the front separating and the flashlight head extending.

"Shepard Commander. We have finished analyzing data recovered from the mercenary shuttles, and have determined that the employers were all connected to the Shadow Broker."

"Thought so," Liara says, falling back into her chair, a push from her foot spinning her back to her console, "The Shadow Broker was working for the Collectors. They're the ones who shot down the Normandy, by the way. They wanted your body."

"Flattered."

"For different reasons," Liara says with a faint smirk, "I...ended up with help. Who ended up sacrificing himself for me." Her smirk disappears, her lips a straight line. "The offer probably still stands even with you alive. We can't go after the Collectors, so let's go after the Shadow Broker."

Jane grimaces. She folds her eyes, thinking back to the graves. Her dead crew. One step leads to another, and vengeance against the Broker leads to vengeance against the Collectors.

"Fuck yes," she says, "How?"

"My partner should be here soon. In fact-"

The door chimes, opens, and a pair of legs enters. A pair of legs attached to a body, in fact, which is clad in the most ridiculously tight white catsuit she's ever seen, and for a moment Jane wonders if Liara called over a dancer.

The heels don't help.

"Commander Shepard."

The voice is accented, probably Australian or Elysium. She has black hair past her shoulders, a face which seems attractive but...off...somehow. And a smile which seems genuinely fake.

"Miranda Lawson," the woman says, "I'm with the Lazarus Foundation, and I've been working with Doctor T'Soni to find you. It's a pleasure to-"

Legs fold out from the suitcase, as do arms, and Wuffles stands. Which, in retrospect, was the worst idea at the time. Because no sooner did the geth stands and turn to Miss Lawson, than Miss Lawson pulled out her pistol, eyes wide.

"Geth!"

The laser sight shines on the Geth's head. Four petals fold out, and the room rings as the shot fires. Liara covers her head. Wuffles steps back. And Jane appears in front of Wuffles, closed fist inches from his face.

"Ow! Fuck!"
And she shaking her hand with longer, more complex swears. No bullet drops- the round was the size of a grain of sand, after all. A grain of sand which can kill a person.

"He's with me," Jane says, "Kindly don't shoot at the..."

And she turns to see Miranda collapsed on the floor, fainted dead away.

"Right," Jane says, "Liara-" She turns. Finds Liara collapsed against her workstation. "Yeah, her too."

"Spontaneous ability displays are counterproductive among allies, Commander Shepard." Surprisingly, the straightforward observation doesn't come from Wuffles, but rather from the rotund volus now standing in the doorway. He waddles in, walks around Miranda, and walks up to Shepard.

"Hope you remember me, Commander. Barla Von. Miss T'Soni called me over."




The air fills with a combination of the dial up tone from Hell and the shriek of a hungry pack of about two or three dozen baby owls. Pria, Kasumi, and James look up at the sound. Then James strikes out his arm like a serpent and grabs the blood red orb from between Kasumi's hands.

"Hey!" the thief cries.

"Sorry, but this belongs in a museum!" And James runs out the doors and up the stairs. On Kasumi's shoulder, Pria cocks an eyebrow.

"He reminds me of Kaji."

"His name was Keiji." And Kasumi leaps off the dais and after the archeologist.

She runs up the stairs and along the walls, cursing herself for being caught off guard. Crossing the distance, she leaps, hands extended at the thief. A beam of starlight shines down from the cracked dome, and James for a moment swears he sees razors on the ends of Kasumi's gloves.

Which is the warning he needs for him to dive, down into one of the crevices of the decaying dome. The cursing thief passes over him. "I was going to steal it first!"

He jams a foot against the side of the crevice, grinding on heel and back down to the bottom. "Sorry, but that's stealing and I'm an archeologist." He lets out a long breath, feeling ass hit ground a lot slower than it would otherwise. "Alright."

He holds up the red sphere. It shifts in his hand, flowing like blood beneath a surface that feels less like glass and more like solid.

"Why'd that door have krogan over it?" he asks himself.

His answer does not come in the form of an explanation or enlightenment. Rather, it comes in the form of a light flickering on and a voice answering in emotionless tones,

"Void Spirit detected. Engaging Terminal Sanction."



Studious Inexorable Astra- combat charms engaged.



There is a yelp. High pitched, squeaky, and surprised, and Kasumi watches James Shepard leave the crevice by a power that is not his own. The young man makes a full rotation before landing by her feet with a groan, followed by a curse when Kasumi reaches down and grabs the sphere from his hands.

"Good boy."

Followed by a burst of blue flame and a figure rising from the crevice. Held aloft on jets from her palms and feet, a pale woman with waist length blue hair and in armor of smooth crystal rises. Cerulean eyes lock on Kasumi, and on the orb in her hands.

She then hands it back to James.

"Shit shit shit shit shit," Pria chants, eyes wide and locked on the crystal woman, "Run run run run!"

James pushes himself up to sitting, stares at the beautiful woman, and stares at the chaingun that she summons out of thin air. He then pushes the orb back into Kasumi's hands and makes a run for the exit.

"Get back here!" Kasumi shrieks, and runs after the archeologist, "You stole it first!"

Her response comes in the form of high pitched, sharp "Nope"s repeated several times, and the whine of a starting up chain gun that begins painting the archway above the entrance with bullets. Dozens of bullets. Hundreds. In the course of seconds.

Predictably, the archway collapses, blocking off the exit with rubble and rock. The thief and the archeologist skid to a stop, standing side by side. As one, they turn to face the steadily but quickly advancing woman. Kasumi quirks her lips, raises an eyebrow, and tosses the sphere into James' hand.

"Nope nope nope," James responds, tossing it back to her.

What follows is an experienced archeologist and a very experienced thief playing hot potato with a red sphere. Which becomes more and more agitated with each toss, the red within churning and bubbling while the blue haired woman watches impassively, eyes tracking the sphere from side to side.

At least, until the sphere hangs in the air, and a single segmented leg made of solid meat stabs the floor between Kasumi and James.

"Oh what the fuck," James shrieks.
"Oh that is not worth it," Kasumi shrieks.

Pria gives out a wordless shriek that more resembles a dial tone than words. The blue haired woman, on the other hand, simply levels her gun at it.

"Your crimes have been tallied. Your guilt, determined. And now your sentence shall be carried out."

White light burns around her. On every reflective surface, ever piece of glass surrounding them, color forms into shapes. Into memories. A circle of liquid glass forms around her and her eyes glow solid blue.

"In fealty to the Great Maker, who sits upon the Crystal Throne, I pronounce Terminal Sanction." The chaingun shifts and becomes a lance. The barrels become light and crystal. "Void Hammer. Release."

And then there is a blast of light, washing over the red sphere and burning it from the inside out. Pria shrieks, diving into Kasumi's hood, James watching whatever was locked in the sphere boiling away to nothingness.

And the sphere drops the ground, shattering. "Contact restored with metropolis." She moves with a burst of blue flame and grabs both thief and archeologist by the forehead. "Do not struggle. This will be painless."

And then she jams a spike into their foreheads.




Angled glass allows the neon cityscape to illuminate the room. Reinforced walls keep the techno muzak from interrupting their scheming and planning, and cups of lukewarm caffeine keep them awake. Liara had noticed that Jane hadn't touched her caff, but was wide awake and alert despite that. Briefly, she remembered that back on the Normandy, she could count on Jane Shepard either being in armor or holding a cup of crappy coffee.

Miranda Lawson has priorities. Upon reviving and transporting to the meeting place for further planning, and introductions all around were completed, she seized upon the most relevant bit of data for analysis.

"You named a Geth Wuffles." She stares at Jane Shepard, and for a long moment is silent. "What?"

A private room in a high class bar overlooking the Nos Astra cityscape currently holds four people. Three of them are sitting, one standing, for sitting would require her to lower herself to their level. Or so the other three surmise.

"Look, he went along with the name, and whenever anyone hears the name they stop what they're doing to try to figure out why he's named that." Jane shrugs, leaning back in the blue metal chair. "Can't argue with those results."

Barla Von lets out a long sigh, tapping his omnitool and calling up a floating screen in front of him. "That being said, we should get back to planning. The Shadow Broker has become a concern. He was working with the Collectors, and the Collectors were the ones who-"

"Who attacked the Normandy," Jane says, narrowing her eyes, "What do the Collectors even want? Why were they after me?"

Jane, Liara, and Miranda exchange a glance. Leaning back in her chair, Liara folds her arms. "Shit," Jane mutters, "You're thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking either Batarians, Saren, or..."

The two nod. And then Jane looks down and finds a small glass filled with what she hopes is liquor and not cleaning fluid in front of her. The Matriarch standing next to her gives her a wry smirk, and plants a fruity drink in a long stemmed glass in front of Liara, a mug of something steaming in front of Barla Von, and a long stemmed glass with clear liquid and olives in front of Miranda.

"Couldn't help but notice you're all tense," the Matriarch says, and looks Miranda up and down, "Like the suit. Who's your tailor, could use some for my dancers. Unless you're interested."

Miranda stares at the old asari with wide eyes, then narrows them to dangerous slits. Liara holds her face in her hands and sobs. "Goddess, you're embarrassing."

Liara stands, circles the table, and takes the matriarch by the shoulders. The matriarch shrugs, letting the younger Asari walk her out of the room, and closes the door behind her. Rubbing her temples, Liara turns to the table. "I apologize, she has a habit of being inappropriate. If we could get back to-"

She blinks. She glances to each person in the room, to the fuming Miranda, to the sitting Barla Von, and to the empty chair. "When did Shepard leave?"




She slipped out when everyone blinked. Which was a lot easier than it should have been, she muses. Pushing herself off the wall, out of the shadows of the corner, she follows the matriarch. Watches her. Watches the movement, tries to place it. Tries to figure out the connection.

Liara's reaction. Embarrassment, voiced.

Conversations on the original Normandy.

Remembers, idly, the stigma of pureblooded Asari. Starts putting pieces together, forcing them together. She lightly steps around furniture, around a turian flirting with a quarian, around a long table with ruminating salarians, down steps towards the bar itself. The asari slips behind the bar and Shepard walks over.

"Hey, what're you having?" the matriarch asks, not looking up, cleaning out a glass with a rag, "No sex, through. Just cleaned the bar."

"You're Liara's father."

The matriarch makes a strangled gasp, looking up to the sound of the shotglass shattering on the floor. "That's the thing, right?" Jane cocks an eyebrow. "I mean, is it still 'father' for Asari since-"

"That's the rough translation, yeah." The matriarch stares at Jane, hands still cupping an absent glass. Numb blue fingers glow and the pieces rise onto the bar. "Not every race keeps their genitals in the same place. When an Asari says they like you for your brain, still means they want to break you in."

Jane Shepard considers that statement for several long seconds. She thinks back, to the chase after Saren. Slides that nugget into her recollections of her conversations with Liara. "Oh."

She rubs the back of her neck, glancing side to side at the bar, and then behind her. And mutters under her breath when she sees Liara charging towards her with the subtlety of a bull. Or asari equivalent of a bull.

"Oh...dammit." Liara huffs through grit teeth. "Shepard. Matriarch Aethyta."

"You mean 'Dad'?" Jane asks. She savors the look of pale horror on Liara's face. Savors it like a good beer. "Oh please don't tell me you didn't know."

"Nah, she knows." The Matriarch sets down a full shotglass in front of Shepard with a throaty laugh. "My little girl's sharper than that, she just thought she was sharper than you."




Accessing extranet

Subject search: Sunlight, Sun, Superhuman, Transhuman, Metahuman

Gathering results.

In the flow and weft of data, the consensus of Wuffles ponders results. Their platform in shutdown, time is, to them, subjective. So it has quite a long time to ponder.

They are well aware that Shepard Commander is not a typical, baseline human. Not just due to physical abilities, but also experiences. It was for the latter reason that the Geth sought out Shepard Commander.

Hypothesis: Shepard Commander's physical abilities are due to experience. Not training, but actual experiences.

Subject search: Sunlight, Sun, Superhuman, Transhuman, Metahuman, Prothean Beacon
Gathering results.




The skyline speeds past, splashes of color and blurred lines of light. In the passenger seat, Jane Shepard leans back, arms folded under her chest, as she has found that her normal stance of folding them over wasn't working as well anymore.

"So I've found out I'm pretty good at being an information broker," Liara finally says, eyes on the transparent HUD lines representing the road.

Jane cocks an eyebrow. She watches the traffic, looking out over the horizon of the city. Finds it further than she'd think it would be. "So I see. Is that how you found your dad? It is dad, right? I mean, there's still the word difference between the two parents, right?"

Liara lets off a put-upon sigh, the type that comes quite frequently to her nowadays. "Yes, there is." She purses her lips. "Technically. Asari are, after all, a mono-gendered race."
"Boobs say otherwise."

Liara's cheeks flush dark blue and she shakes her head. "You are a terrible influence, Jane Shepard," she says with a breathy sigh, "And this is why I keep you around. But yes, Aethyta is my father. It's a rather long story."

Jane leans back, cradling her head. She turns from the traffic to her friend, fighting the temptation to put her feet up on the dashboard. "So, your being an information broker. That's how you figured out where I was?"

Liara shakes her head. The car swerves, turning off the main lane and veering into lighter traffic between two spires. "No. That was Barla Von. He gave me your location." Jane cocks an eyebrow, and somehow Liara sees it. "Don't be surprised. He worked for the Shadow Broker. Just, for some reason he decided to help me."

Janes makes a questioning sound. "Well I owe him a drink, then." Pursing her lips, she puts her feet up on the dashboard. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Baria Frontiers. We're meeting a contact regarding locating the Shadow Broker." Liara's eyes glow, and Jane's feet lift and drop off the dashboard. "It's a rental."

The skycar makes a wide berth, dropping out of the traffic and towards the building below. Holographic signs spin over the roof, announcing the businesses within in several different languages, all instantly translated via omnitool for those so digitally inclined.

The hum of the engines and the slow rumble of the airbrakes come in time with the car sliding into the designated parking lot, between a cargo hauler and a sportier, red skycar. "We're here," Liara says, "I'll run in and talk with my contact, then we can go."

The doors open, folding upwards. Liara climbs out of the driver's seat, already halfway to the steps of the building before Jane is out of the seatbelt harness and standing next to the car. She perks her ears and hears the sound of heavy breathing- mechanical and metallic- and turns to the approaching, squat form of Barla Von. Whom, she notes, is not alone.

Two people trail the volus. One of them is an asari, taller and more slender than Liara, talking with the information trader in hushed tones and clipped words, clad in armor and obviously armed. The other is human, trailing slightly behind. He has his hands in his long, earth-toned coat and his eyes are focused on Von. Dark hair, dark beard, and unassuming save for the fact that he's following a volus.

"Ah, Commander." The broker looks up, stopping in front of Jane, "You arrived before us. Fortuitous. Allow me to introduce Tela Vasir. I am not sure if you've met before, as I am aware Spectres tend to be solitary."

Jane cocks an eyebrow, turning to the Asari. "The Commander Shepard?" Vasir asks, smirking, "What's the term? 'Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated?'"

Jane nods. "More or less. You're a Spectre?"

Vasir folds her arms, rolling her shoulders back. "I'm also one of those rare breed of Spectres who doesn't act like a complete asshole half the time, and rather happy to see the first human Spectre's the same." She winks. "Remind me to ask you to sign my breast plate."

Jane grins, folding her arms. "And him?" Jane asks, cocking her head to the human.

"Aaron Gage," the man says, holding up a hand and twiddling glove clad fingers, "I'm Mister Von's bodyguard. Boring job, really. Most people who're equipped enough to go after Mister Von also know just how low down the totem pole he is, and most people who actually go after Von aren't smart enough to really be much of a challenge."

Shepard quirks her lips, leaning against the car. Even without the kung fu bullshit, it's easy to see.
"Eyes up here."

Aaron's eyes dart up, first above her head and then to her face. "Well I won't deny it, but I will apologize," he says with a cough, "Pardon me. It's just been a long time since I've seen any female as striking-"

"Let's go," Barla Von wheezes, "We'll stop by the surgeon on the second floor. They may be able to remove your foot from your mouth."

Aaron mumbles a 'yessir' and follows the Volus up the stairs into the building.

Jane hears the beep, turning to her left hand and the light flashing on and off on the omnitool. Bringing it up, she taps it, and eyes widen at the message:

ARE YOU ALIVE Y/N

She blinks. Taps the Y key on the keypad, and sends it. No message comes back and the connection closes. "So," Vasir says, leaning on the other side of the car from Jane, "Contact the Council yet?"

Jane snorts, rolling her eyes. "Just got off the ice ball. Knowing C-Sec they'll think I died for tax purposes."

Vasir gives off a clipped, pleasant laugh. She reaches out and pats Jane's hand. "I see you've had to deal with C-Sec. Poor thing." She gives her a thumbs up and a grin. "Tell you what, I'll get in touch with Tevos for you and smooth things over."

Since she got back from Alchera, when someone has talked to her, Jane hears a faint ringing. A ringing that she instinctively knows means 'this person isn't telling me the whole truth.' She hears that with almost every other word out of Lawson's mouth, and from Liara's body language whenever they talk about Kaidan. But with this asari- this fellow Spectre- there is no ringing. None whatsoever.

"Okay, I'd appreciate it. Any particular reason why?"

Vasir shrugs, leaning against the car, shoulders relaxed and crinkle in her eyes. "I've been a Spectre for close to a century now. I see new Spectre's come and go, and I don't think I've seen a son of a bitch nearly as dirty as Saren. You did us all a favor when you talked him into putting a bullet in his brain."

No ringing.

"So, what are you doing here, anyway?" Vasir asks.

"Waiting for a friend," Jane responds with a shrug, "She's checking on something up in Baria Frontiers."

Vasir's grin fades, ever so slightly. Back before she had the kung fu bullshit, Jane wouldn't even had noticed. "Who's your friend?" Vasir asks.

"Liara T'Soni." Jane narrows her eyes. She opens her mouth to ask a question, but the sound is drowned out by the ear-splitting boom of the entire third floor of the building erupting in a fireball. Both Spectres turn to the explosion, both look up at the screams and pulverized glass expanding out like a cloud.

"Shit!" Vasir screams.

"Liara!" Jane never asks Vasir the question. Rather, worry becomes motion, and she takes off in a run towards the building.




A volus and a human walk into any exploding building. Well, the building isn't exploding, it's more that the building has had several explosions. Barla Von walks into the building, against the screaming mass of people running out, with Aaron walking behind him. Hands in his coat, whistling, and looking up at the open lobby and the layers of walkways that comprise the heart of the building.

"So how are we doing this?" he asks.

"We're doing this the normal way," the volus says with a hissy breath, "We have too many people watching."

The rotund alien walks with purpose, sidestepping a hysterical asari, walking past running salarians. "Keep up. We need to get to Baria Frontiers and get that data."

"Go on ahead." Von turns, in time to see Aaron walking off towards the side, towards one of the stairwells. One that smoke is prominently coming out of.

The volus sighs, shoulders slumping. "Aaron! What are you doing?"

"Helping people!" He reaches into his coat and pulls out a rod. A quick shake and it extends into a metal staff. "I hear screams upstairs and Shepard's making a beeline to the top floor!"

Barla Von considers the words. Considers his bodyguard. Or 'bodyguard.' How long he's known him, known what he's capable of, and more importantly what he will do when confronted with these sorts of situations. In earlier times, he would have even protested.

"Right. Just keep subtle!"

Aaron nods. He glances side to side, peaks into the stairwell, and ducks in before he vanishes. Barla Von sighs and continues waddling towards the main stairwell. "You are the worst bodyguard," he wheezes, "If I needed a bodyguard I would fire you so fast..."




Two floors pass in a blur. Her hand darts out, grabs cement, and she vaults over the balcony and onto the third floor, into fire and water, into the sounds of shouting and gunfire. Rain from overhead sprinklers and the heat of blazing flame. Through it, through the smoke filled air, she sees men in white and black armor. No mercenary company she knows. Hanging onto the balcony, looking through the windows, she sees them barking orders and holding guns, and hears the terrified screams of civilians. Hostages.

She knows they are responsible. Deep inside, something churns, something moves. She draws deep and pulls.

Walls become paper. Glass becomes powder. Fire becomes warm air against her face. And she savors the look of shock on the gun toting merc's face right before her fist meets his face.




"No. No, what I mean is that it's gone completely to shit."

She rolls her eyes. Even triple encrypted, even in the middle of a warzone, even using the most specialized communications equipment they can manage, she isn't comfortable relaying information unless it's face to face. Miranda Lawson is an exacting woman. As are her methods.

Her gun rings out, the custom pistol she carries. Blood splatters on the wall, and the gunman slides down. More chatter. Code, she understands.

"Yes sir, I'm aware we need Shepard. I'm aware we need T'Soni. But Shepard is outside of the original parameters. I sent a team and...yes, I am aware you didn't approve. I was anticipating the situation when T'Soni confirmed Shepard was alive."

More code. Clicks. A Morse Code variant they use for mostly secure communication.

"Understood. We can talk via kewseesee when this is over. I'm going to suggest it, yes. Shakedown."

Knees pump, and she stands, turning around to face the blown out window and waist high wall, firing two shots which catch two gunmen in the face.

"Busy. Miranda out."

Vaulting over the divider, she runs for the elevator. Distractions, distractions.




Prior to her enforced vacation on a methane and ammonia ice world, her methods of hand to hand were more exact, up close. Pistol whips, rifle butts, nut kicks, punches. Military CQC. Nothing flashy, nothing fancy. Efficient, military, and to the point.

Jane Shepard considers this when her heel slams into the jaw of the mercenary in front of her, his yell going high pitched when momentum launches him up in the air, and she finishes the perfectly executed backflip, landing on the back of a charred and swiss-cheesed bench.

On one foot. Quick assessment- seven guys left. One behind a pillar and reloading. Two ducking out of cover. One on his omnitool and yelling for reinforcements, considering she's already taken out half their squad, and she counts at least a dozen civilians ducking underneath tables and behind counters.

She needs a gun.

Does she need a gun? Maybe she doesn't. Because this shit ain't military.

She moves, launching herself off the bench. Foot first, she leaves a dent on the chest of one of the mercs, flipping off of him, weaving through wild gunfire and grabbing a blown off piece of a chair, deflecting shots, crossing the distance between her and one shooter and shoulder checking him.

He grunts and she swings around him, grabbing him in a headlock, hearing the wet sound of the bullets hitting him instead and grabbing his gun when it drops from limp fingers.

Two shots from the hip drop the other gunman, and the gun clicks on empty. She pushes aside and drops her impromptu cover, and swings the gun into the glowing, hot omniblade of the merc stupid or brave enough to sneak up on her. It cuts through the gun, and she swings the glowing hot metal into his helmet. He screams, and she grabs his wrists. A quick yank and she feels the seams on the gauntlets pop, and a kick to his chest sends him flying off.

With his gauntlets in her hands, which she flips over and slides on.

"Okay," she says, and pounds the metal knuckles together, "I don't need a gun."

The omnitool comes up, flickering and bathing her in orange. Dancing through the gunfire, she deflects it off her newly armored fists, scratching paint and sending grain sized bullets into the wall, into the ceiling, into the floor. Four, she thinks.

She thinks as she closes the distance between the one trying to duck behind the pillar, punching the pillar, making it crack, and letting the blast of debris do her work for her. The gunfire pauses. Three more mercs stare at her, stare at the pile of debris and the unconscious soldier. One drops his gun and makes a run for it, running past the watching civilians and towards the stairs. One fumbles his gun and opens fire. The other taps his omnitool and something disengages from his back, a round metal sphere crackling with electricity and red light.

Jane pads her right fist, steps forward, and punches the drone.

Wheeling through the air, it flies- not on its own power, but hers, slamming into the gunman's face and sending him flying, bouncing off and embedding into the ceiling.

One more.

Jane runs- kicking off, bringing her fist back and crossing the distance as the final merc's barriers power up enough to glow visibly.

Then her fist slams into his chest. His barriers shatter. His eyes go wide. In the back of Jane's head, she hears the name of this- the magic work, the charm.

Heaven Thunder Hammer.

And the final merc flies into the wall, through the wall, and rolls to a stop in someone's abandoned office. Breathing heavily, Jane rolls her neck, looks down at her impromptu gauntlets, and gives them an approving nod.

"I'm keeping these." Turning back to the lobby, she watches the first of the civilians, the hostages, peaking out from under tables, behind benches, behind pillars. "What are you waiting for? Go!"

Muffled thanks, shouted thanks, maybe a few prayers, and the motley mix of aliens and humans rush towards the stairs and safety. Jane walks the other way, into the fire and flame.

Partially buried in the debris, coughing, the last conscious mercenary taps his omnitool. "Delta Squad, this is Mahoney. Shepard just kicked all our asses. She's dodging bullets, I shit you not."

"Mahoney, you're full of shit. She's right here and OH WHAT THE-"

And the line goes static.




Several floors up, one mercenary yells out, dropping his gun and tinting his visor to opaque. The others follow in kind, as this is the natural response to disco lights suddenly filling the room without any measure of explanation or reason. This helps them see the silhouette before the staff slams into his face, sending him off his feet and flying into another.

From the silhouette there is motion- blurring between gunshots, a whirlwind of pain that drops them from a dozen, to six, to three, to one in the space of seconds, before there is only one mercenary left, holding an oversized hand cannon in a shaking hand before the thing that has come for them.

"What the fuck are you?!"

And the figure laughs. Light, airy. If the mercenary were more focused on his heads up display and less focused on keeping control of his varied bodily functions, he would see that the biomonitor readouts of his team were stable. Unconscious, but stable.

"Spoilers," the figure says.

And then the staff swings into the side of his head, and there is but darkness.




Gun drawn, barrel first, Liara leads with her pistol and turns the corner. Sekat, her contact. His office is down this hallway. Judging from the explosions when they arrived, she made the educated guess he was the target. Which means that there will be a firefight.

Back pressed against the wall, she exhales. Drawing deep, she feels the static of the ever present energy churning within her, ready to unleash upon the Shadow Broker's soldiers. She turns the corner to the hallway, gun pointed at the office and whoever is in her way, and as she anticipated a half dozen of her enemy's soldiers are waiting for her.

But rather than with guns raised and shouting orders, they sit on their knees, broken weapons in front of them, and with their hands cuffed behind their backs.

"Well," she says, "She's getting better at not killing her opponents."

Other than the restrained and apparently apologetic mercenaries, the two Asari finally notice her. From the uniforms and lack of heels, she can tell they are law enforcement. One of them cocks an eyebrow, and then narrows her eyes. Years of such reactions to her pureblood traits simply makes Liara roll her eyes, holstering her pistol.

"T'Soni?" the other one says, looking up from the PDA currently processing the arrest of the mercenary in front of her, "Detective Anaya, Illium 7th​. The Spectres are in the office and Commander Shepard told me to let you through."

The asari detective waves her omnitool, and the lights by Liara's feet- the holographic crime scene tape- disappear. "Spectres," Liara repeats, "Who else is in there?"

"Dun Sekat and Tela Vasir," Anaya responds, already turned back to her PDA.

Liara unholsters her pistol and walks past her, opening the office door and instantly noticing the mercenary that is embedded, head first, in the ceiling.

"...so like I was saying," Jane says, "Eventually, they just started surrendering. I kicked a couple to keep them good and fearful, but most of them will be in good enough shape to talk."

The other person, another Asari, nods with a smirk.

"Good idea," she says, and nods towards the door, "Friends?"

"Yep." Jane turns, twirling a pistol on her right index finger, "Liara, this is Tela Vasir. I ran into her downstairs. Figured we could use some help."

Liara narrows her eyes and keeps the gun aimed at Vasir. "Sekat?" she asks.

On cue, a salarian looks up from behind an upturned desk, his laptop balancing on one hand. His green suit streaked with black soot, his face a mass of worry lines and dirt.

"Safe, thank you," he says in quick breaths, "Mercenaries were going to shoot me. Human friend showed up. Punched them into the ceiling. Consequently, thinking of doing this job pro bono."
He balances the keyboard on the upturned desk, lips tight.

"I think I may have narrowed it down to a sector," he says, "Hourglass Nebula at least. Faryar or Sowilo." He taps something. A disc pops out, the salarian catching it. "Who's got it?"

Vasir raises her hand first. Sekat tosses it, closing his computer as Vasir catches it. Jane nods, and turns to Liara. "Liara, you can put the gun down."

"Vasir works for the Shadow Broker."

Jane stares at her friend. "What." Followed by the glass window to Vasir's left shattering with a biotic pulse, and Vasir leaping out.

Muttering a curse, charging through the flying glass shards, Jane jumps out after her. Glass shards fly, and deflect off of the glowing blue wall in front of Sekat and Liara, falling to the ground as Liara's eyes dim.

Breathing heavily, hands on her gun, Miranda charges in. "What did I miss?"

"Everything," Liara yells, grabs her elbow, and drags her back out in a run.




It seemed like a clean getaway. She had the disc. The secret was safe. She didn't have to kill an actual damn hero, and she's going to have to have some words with that shifty bastard when she got into contact with him again. Tela Vasir is a professional. She knows what she is doing. By the time she jumped out the window, her car was powered up and speeding towards her.

Then Jane Shepard came out of nowhere and punched her in the face.

Vasir goes spinning, grabbing Jane by the collar, the field around her crackling and going opaque before accelerating and slamming them both into the ground. Vasir bounces with the impact, somersaulting through the air and landing in a crouch. She turns, gapes, and closes her mouth when she sees Jane flip onto her feet.

"How the Hell..."

"My secret," Jane says, brushing off her shoulder, "Gimme the disc and I won't beat your ass, Vasir."

The asari smirks. She rolls her head, falling to a half crouch. Palming the disc, a compartment on her arm guards opens and the disc slides in.

"Is that a bet?" she asks, hands sliding out in front of her, one foot sliding behind the other.

Jane steps back. Instinct takes over. Her arms wheel out and fall into position in front of her. Something whispers the steps in her ear, the positions, the placement of hands. Even the challenges, as Jane sees Vasir turn one palm upward, and twitch her index finger.

Jane moves. It is the best way to describe it, as no step was visible, only that she was at one point standing where she was, and the next moment in front of Vasir. Her fist burns through the air, hitting only the space where Vasir's head was, feeling the ozone crackle of her shield and the soft breeze of the asari flowing around the punch, swinging Jane's arm aside with a palm strike to the elbow, closing into an arm lock to pull Jane forward.

First the knife hand hits Jane on the back of her head, her vision blurry. Then the hand on her arm releases and snaps into a backfist to the nose, followed by the tell-tale hum that any biotic knows.

A blast of blue hits Jane in the chest and tosses her through the air, the roar of an engine filling the air as the gold and red skycar rises above them, door open.

"Love to play," Vasir says, "But I have a favor to repay." She taps her brow, smirking. "Bye."

She flashes blue, and disappears, a streak of light through the air becoming her in the car's driver seat. Doors close, jets fire, and the car speeds into the Illium night.




It was to Aaron's complete and utter lack of surprise that Barla Von beat him to the rooftop of the building, which while still on fire was on less on fire than they arrived. Holstering his staff with a quick shake, he walks up next to the volus and watches the red skycar speed away.

"So, shouldn't we get out of here?" he asks, "In case the building collapses?"

"I called in some favors." A huff from the banker. "The building has been reinforced."

Aaron sucks his teeth. He rubs the back of his neck, and lightly taps his heel against the roof. "Did you word those favors carefully?"

"Yes." The volus sighs and exhales, waddling back towards the stairwell. "Did your good deed for the day?"

Thrusting his hands into his coat, the human follows his boss. "Oh, yes. New record for going through a mercenary company." He jams his thumb in the direction of the skycar. "Should we go after them?"

Barla Von huffs and sighs. "No. We're going to listen for reports of explosions. That should tell us where they are."

Aaron blinks. "Because she's a Solar?"

The volus waddles into the stairwell, waving him along. "No. Because she's Commander Shepard."

"Fair point." And the bodyguard follows.




Liara runs out first, dragging Miranda with her, barreling down the steps and out of the office building. It is not that she is prone to panic- she is and the first step to solving a problem is realizing one has a problem- but the panic becomes more pronounced when she sees Shepard staring off into the distance, watching Vasir's escape.

More importantly, standing, arms crossed, and not doing a single thing, standing on the edge of the skycab platform overlooking the urban canyons of Nos Astra..

Liara releases Miranda's arm, letting the brunette double over to catch her breath, and runs over to Jane. "Shepard!" Liara grabs Jane's arm and whirls her towards her. "Vasir has the data and she's getting away!"

Liara grabs Jane's shoulders to hold her in place, and looks her in the eye. Idly, she wonders if she may have gotten a concussion when she jumped out the window.

"I know." Jane places a hand on Liara's shoulder. "Calm down."

And like that, Liara feels the panic draining out of her. Like a physical thing. She doesn't question it- Jane has that steadying effect on her but!

"I can't calm down when Vasir is getting away and you're just standing there!" Liara points towards the rapidly shrinking yellow dot of the speeding engines. "We need to follow her!"

Jane nods. On cue, a silver-blue skycar comes to a step next to them. The driver's side door opens and the driver adjusts his ballcap.

"So, am I right in guessing that the car breaking every single traffic law trying to get away from here is running away from you?"

Liara turns, eyes wide. She blinks. Turns back to Jane, only to find her already climbing over the car and sliding through the open window into the passenger seat.

"Joker?"

"He contacted me when we were at your Dad's bar." Jane jams a thumb towards the backseat. "Liara, Lawson, get in."

Liara dives in. Miranda opens her mouth to ask what is happening before the blue glow surrounds her and yanks her into the car, followed by the doors closing and the car speeding off in pursuit.




"Joker, what are you doing on Illium?"

"I'd tell you, Liara, but then you'd smack me. Buckle up!"

Liara works fast, clicking the belts into place. One at her waist, two around her shoulders, clicking the center lock and tightening all five parts of the safety harness. She closes her eyes, sucks her teeth, and is rewarded with a puzzled look from Miranda.

"T'Soni, what are you-"

She finds herself interrupted when gravity reverses and she falls to the car's ceiling.

The skyline of Illium passes by, upside down. Rolling onto her stomach, Miranda finds herself struggling to be snarky, biting, or observant as she realizes that the pilot is weaving through traffic upside down.

She settles for screaming.

"Get us close!" One hand braced against the roof, Jane keeps herself upright despite such things being logically impossible. "Then I can jump over and punch her engine!"

Weaving upside down through traffic, the targeting reticle appears on the screen, locking onto the speeding red skycar with the shrinking distance number. "Kay!" Joker yells, "That's your thing now, right?"

"Yeah, I came back from Alchera with-"

"Superpowers, I know!"

Jane turns to her pilot, eyes wide. "Wait, you know?"

"I was there when you started glowing!" The pilot sucks his teeth, grabs the handle between them, and presses the red button. "Anyway, it's cool! Always wanted Power Girl as a drinking buddy."

Whatever retort Jane had on her lips dies when the afterburners kick in and slams everyone into the acceleration seats. And presses Miranda against the rear window.




Engines flare. The car dips upwards, rotating as it flies up and through the traffic, turning on its side and passing between lanes of skycars. Accelerating, it shoots above them, rolling and passing through oncoming traffic, dipping out of the ever present cloud of vehicles and in pursuit of the red and black craft.

And with Miranda Lawson falling onto the floor. The car shifts again, and she rises into the air as it rolls, and accelerates to drop her onto the seat. She rights herself, glaring at the pilot the entire time, climbing into her seat before Liara pops out of her harness and pushes her aside.

"There she is!" Liara yells, as Miranda silently buckles herself in, "Go! Gogogo!"

"I'm guessing this isn't a standard model!"

Joker tries to keep his attention on Jane's hands, as they're currently wrapped around the armrests of the acceleration couch, and quickly turns his gaze back to the double-faulting spedometer.

"Not my car, actually," Joker responds, hearing two sets of screams in the back as they dip underneath an oncoming truck, "Turns out to be Garrus's! He let me borrow it while he's away doing something!"

"Garrus?!"

"Yep! I think he was aiming for a career change!"

He swings the steering wheel, the car rolling to the side and blasting between two trucks.

"As what, Batman?!" comes the panicked scream from the back. Jane and Joker share a glance.

"Liara, how do you even know who that is?" Jane asks.

"I studied!"

The car rolls, rising up over one row of traffic, a black tour bus between them and the red, speeding skycar.

"Here's my stop!" Jane double taps the door. "Flank her!"

Jane pops her belt, the roof folding open, and she jumps out. Shooting out like an arrow, she spins in mid air, landing on the bus and leaps across it and onto Vasir's car, which careens off.

"Okay," Joker says, "On a 1 to 10, that's a 7 on the Superhero Entrance Scale."

The roof closes, Joker turning back to the traffic as they enter the tunnel. And sees why Miranda and Liara are now both screaming.

"Truck!" Liara screams.

"Yeah," Joker sighs.

"TRUCK!" Miranda shrieks, grabbing the back of his seat.

"I see it!"




A century of work as one of the premier special operations soldiers in the galaxy has given her the poise and calmness to keep from swearing until her throat was raw. Tela Vasir is not a happy person. For the past hundred years, she's had a very strictly defined business relationship with the Shadow Broker. He gives her the information she needs to keep the galaxy safe, and she takes care of threats to his organization.

And now he asked her to kill a hero. Seriously, when she told him to eliminate Liara T'Soni, she didn't think it was going to be that Liara T'Soni. She's killed plenty, and they've been the usuals- spies, dealers, slavers, and so and and so on. She's going to have a talk with him.

And then maybe talk about how an unarmed, unarmored woman made a complete mockery of a Blue Suns squadron and his own personal wetworks group.

Possibly while laughing at him. If she can get to him, of course.

Her musings end and she looks up at her hood. Impossibility mounts on impossibility. Jane Shepard stands on her car, and standing on it at the high speeds despite having no armor. The redhead smile, and brings her fist back.

Vasir, on the other hand, brings her foot down on the accelerator, and the human spectre hits the windshield and bounces.

"Damn it," she growls.

And she screams that louder when the roof dents. And again.




The skycar scrapes against the sides of the tunnel, sparks flying off its side as it accelerates and leaves the oncoming traffic behind it. Three more vehicles fly over the still honking truck- narrower, streamlined, single engines blazing.

"She has backup!" Miranda shouts, "What kind of weapons does this car have?"

Joker shrugs, and taps a button on the right side of the console.

The trunk pops open and a rocket fires out. A second later, and it explodes into a swarm of mini missiles, blowing up two of the pursuing craft.

"Well it is Garrus's car."

The tunnel speeds past and becomes the skyline once again. And all three scream as the gunship drops out from above.

The car banks. He hears the two women bounce against the side, the missiles flying past his own side, the shields of the skycar fizzling as bullets impact it.

A missile hits, sheering off a chunk of the armor. He doesn't hear screaming. Instead, he hears the wind whipping past, turns around, and sees the back seat empty.

"Oh what the shit!"

The car dives, accelerating towards the two figures falling towards the distant, forgotten surface of Illium. Bullets race past the car, gunship and fighter in pursuit. The car bobs, weaves, dodging between traffic, sliding between cars, the fighter colliding with a bus and exploding with the gunship still in pursuit.

Instincts take over. Instincts her will admit are not the smartest ones to use with a car, but instincts nonetheless. He taps one button. A compartment on the back opens and a pellet fires out, hitting the windshield of the gunship and covering it with a thick, black liquid, sending it flying blindly as the instant parachute cracks the windshield and sends it slamming into an oncoming truck.

Another button, and the chassis opens up, the wind tearing Joker's cap off his head, gently pulling the nose of the car up, eyes closed against the window and operating by instinct, by muscle memory. The chassis closes and the car rises back into pursuit.

He turns, grabs his hat from the floor, and looks at the two women in the back seat. They stare back at him, eyes wide open, Liara's face a pale teal.

"Buckle up," Joker says, and fixes his cap.

Nodding, they quickly do so, and Joker floors the accelerator.




Against her better judgement, Tela Vasir opens fire at the roof of her own car.

It is not a legal model, but she's a Spectre and that means she has zero fucks to give.

It starts with a base model Phalanx Hand Cannon, modded with a variant on the trigger system of the Revenant machine gun, combined with a rotating heat sink holster that air cools each sink after the point of overheating, essentially giving her the best of both worlds; unlimited ammunition combined with higher firing speed.

Again, highly illegal.

But she's a Spectre.

So fuck you.

What this means practically, however, is that she currently has a patch of bullet holes stitching the roof of her car, letting in the artificial light of the skyline, and at the same time managing to completely miss the other Spectre currently repeatedly punching the roof.

"Get off my fucking car!"

Jerking her head to the side, she narrowly misses being punched by the human hand which grabs at her, before pulling back to the staccato of more automatic hand cannon gunfire. Vasir yanks the wheel to the side, the car rolling, bare human fingers digging into the roof from outside.

Swearing, she tosses her gun onto her passenger seat, grabs the wheel with both hands, and slams the accelerator to the floor. Pushes back into her acceleration couch, the speedometer faults as the rockets kick in.

And then, the rockets at the front of the car fire. The speedometer shuts off. The belts tightened around her strain and she feels the breath violently force its way out of her lungs. And she hears one, two bounces before Jane Shepard goes flying forward, and off her damn car.

On some level, Vasir swears at herself as she watches Shepard, a fellow Spectre, go spinning through the air, into the traffic that will no doubt kill her. On that same level, she then stars swearing as she sees Shepard land on the hood of a car. A blue and silver, custom skycar, with a hole in its side which she can clearly see T'Soni through. The same damn car that started this damned chase.

Grinding her teeth, Vasir guns the engines. Jets flare, the engine roars, and her custom skycar speeds towards the apparently invincible newbie spectre. She can see Shepard bracing against the hood. She would say that Shepard is being stupid and suicidal, but Vasir has seen enough shit today to say with certainly that a certain red headed human is now planning to drop kick her own upgraded skycar.

The engines roar. The human pilot, who Vasir will admit is pretty damned good himself, has gotten the idea. Numbers tick up on the speedometer. The VI aboard her car warns of imminent collision. She can see Shepard brace, jump off with enough force to buckle the hood, and leap towards her.

And Vasir grins as she sees the dumbfounded look on the girl's face as her car dips and accelerates, passing right underneath Shepard and sending her flailing towards the hotel behind them. Ah, humans, she thinks. So new to the concept of three dimensional traffic.

She sees Shepard land on the roof of the hotel in a crouch. Vasir taps her brow, winking at her, and guns the engine. If she hurries, she can make her ship and get to the Citadel. Maybe get that secretive asshat's attention and that is right when the controls go dark.

"What the f-"

The car dips, going into freefall for a moment. And then begins to accelerate, turning in the direction of the hotel.

A mechanical, ratcheting, stuttering click sounds from behind her.

She turns, and stares into an unblinking light that twitches, meeting her gaze. Attached to the light is a long, smooth head, two plates surrounding the light shifting and raising in a motion she is not sure about, but may be in imitation of a raised eyebrow.

"Vasir Spectre. The cybersecurity suite of your personal vehicle requires updating."




Jane climbs to her feet. She should feel worse after dropping off a car and landing like this, but despite the cracked concrete around her, she feels fine. Frisky, even. Looking up at the sound of the shriek, she realizes it comes not from a person but a vehicle. Vasir's, in particular.

She watches the car slam into concrete, grinding across the roof, and right towards her.

"Like Christmas," she says.

She takes a step forward. Palming her right fist into her left hand, she braces her left foot, her heel grinding concrete, wearing down the sole of her boot. Something gathers at her fingertips, aiming with her left hand, bringing back her right fist.

And she sees the whites of Vasir's eyes right before she drives her fist into the skycar's hood.

The sound of the impact drowns out the roar of the engine. The skidding, speeding car comes to a stop as the force of the blow compresses metal, plastics, and drives the hood deep into the engine, a fist shaped indentation jammed deep into delicate engineering.

And the glass of the windshield shatters outwards, as a certain Asari spectre is sent flying through it.

Vasir screams. Jane turns from the car to her, watching her fly through the air, arms pinwheeled. A flash of blue, and Vasir becomes a sphere of aqua light, slamming into the ground hard enough to crack concrete, and slowly rises from a crouch.

"Shepard Commander!" The side door of the air car opens, and Wuffles steps out. "We have secured Vasir Spectre's vehicle!"

"What the Hell," Vasir growls, rolling her neck, "What the Hell are you?"

"We are Wuffles, a Terminal of the Geth."

Vasir blinks, turning to the synthetic. "Wuffles." She blinks again. "What-"

Which gives Jane the opening she needs to punch her in the face.




The car sets down gently, the chasis opening up as two sets of seat belts release and two women stumble out. In Liara's case, she crawls out of the shuttle on her hands and knees. Miranda makes it two steps before falling to her knees and staring at the ground, glassy eyed and confused. Perhaps bewildered.

"Oh come on. It's better than the Mako."

Joker hobbles out, fixing his cap as he clicks his omnitool at the skycar. It beeps twice and the engines go from blue to red, doors locking and armor plates covering it from trunk to hood. "Nice," he chortles.

"We," Liara says, and coughs, slowly climbing to her feet, "We need to get to Shepard. We should see if we can help. Maybe."

"I mean, yeah," Joker says, "Be a shame if Shepard tires herself out, repeatedly hitting the bad guy with their own car or something."

They begin walking, towards the smoke where Vasir's car crashed. Slowly, Joker's face twists. His smile becomes a smirk, then a wince, rubbing the back of his neck as his gaze wanders over the rooftop. Over the glass enclosures, over the signs. At the sphere which rises out of the floor and approaches them.

"Where are we?" Miranda asks.

"Azure," Liara responds, "It's a resort hotel for people with...exotic tastes. It's a slang for-"

"Mister Moreau."

The sphere hovers in front of Joker. White, round, a blue irising light on its front.

"Welcome back. You weren't scheduled until Thursday, but since this is your eleventh visit in two weeks, this visit is free! Congratulations."

Joker rubs the back of his neck, feeling Miranda and Liara's gazes on him.

"Currently available theme rooms are 'Negotiations with the Councillor,' 'Thessian Catholic School Girls' and 'Weekend on Kahje.' Would those be to your tastes, or would you like something custom?"

"Well, I'm here on a mission with a Spectre-"

"Ah, yes. The 'Commander Shepard.' Let me get the costumes."

With that the sphere floats back towards the iris it rose out of and drops back down. The iris closes and all is silent.

"Don't smack me, my bones are brittle," Joker says, and quickly hobbles towards the smoke.




Vasir rolls with the punch, toe-tip steps letting her rotate with the impact and drive her heel into Shepard's stomach, followed by a blue flash and the redhead rolling to a stop halfway to the roof's edge.

Hands on the ground and Jane is up, blocking a punch with her forearm, swinging into an armbar, and flowing around the spectre- spinning around her and sending her flying back towards the flaming wreck of her car.

Vasir glows blue, stopping just outside the heat and flames.

"Okay, how are you even doing this? This isn't biotics."

Jane grins. She grabs her belt, rolling her shoulders, and takes a step back. Instinct takes over, instinct not hers, the balls of her feet grinding concrete as she raises her right fist by her face, her left hand hovering at her waist. Her hips shift, her body fluid.

"I'm not too sure on the what's yet, Vasir," she says, "But what I do know? I know that I'm the one who's gonna kick your ass."

Vasir snorts. She rolls her head, smirks, and spits to her side.

"Really? Because I've been doing this three times longer than you've been alive, junior," she responds, "I'm going to kick your ass. I am going to build the machine that kicks your ass. I am going to conquer Palaven to raise the empire that houses the machine that kicks your ass."

The blue mist around her shakes, crackles, and becomes aqua lightning. An aura of biotic power rises around her, her eyes two glowing white slits. She brings her foot back, and raises her arms, hands out. And with two fingers, gestures Jane forward.

"Now let's go."

End Chapter 2​

 

[GreggHL]

Connection achieved. Studious Inexorable Astra requesting contact.

The world fades in, a room of liquid, yet of solid shapes. Made of liquid. The pale, armored woman finds herself sitting in a comfortable recliner of quicksilver, a night stand with a steaming cup of oil next to her. Across from her sits an ornate and flowing throne, which for reasons known only to the occupant, vibrates.

"Well there you are." The figure of liquid metal tents his hands, cocking an eyebrow. "Good to see you back, Astra. Status?"

"Gremlin destroyed. I have made contact with the metropolis."

"Mmmmm hm. Good. Report to the metropolis, there have been issues regarding it."

Astra nods. The being, the god before her, leans back. "You also noted that you encountered two intruders. I know of Goto. What about the other one?"

"Human."

Lips purse, then flatten to a straight line. "Just...human?"

"Correct."

"A human, with no other abilities, no powers, no enlightenment." Eyebrows raise and a small chuckle emerges from the quicksilver throat. "Managed to steal from Kasumi Goto."

Astra nods.

"Let's keep an eye on him. He may be just human now, but I don't think that'll keep for too long."

Astra nods. The world begins to melt, and she feels the physical pull her back into the waking. Ever diligent, ever dutiful, her last words before waking are as always those of a consummate agent.

"Yes, Minister."
-
-
Chapter 3:
Interrupting Paragon Style
-
-
The alarm chimes. Again. And again. The steady beep beep beep beep that he never remembers programming as his alarm. Then he realizes it is not his alarm. It is his call notification alert, which makes James Shepard open his eyes, sit up, and briefly wonder how he got back to his apartment. He looks down, and pulls up the covers.

Pants. Good. That's a plus.

Climbing off the bed, he stumbles over to his desk, tapping the bracelet resting next to the stack of books on comparative Krogan linguistics and bringing up his omnitool display. A brief, quick swipe, and he sighs, identifying the call.

"Hi, Mom."

"Hi James," the ever-amused voice of Hannah Shepard responds, "Back from your dig? How was it?"

He rubs the back of his head. How was it? How was it? "Interesting."

There is a meaningful pause on the other end.

"Do you need someone to post bail?"

He sighs. "Not that kind of interesting."

A hum from the other side. "Okay. Then is she nice?"

"Not that kind of interesting either."

"Then I got nothing."

He scratches the back of his head. Walking around the bed, he slips on the omnitool bracelet and thinks over the details of the dig. There was the door. The Krogan writing- which he still is trying to puzzle out, as there were never any records of a Krogan settlement on that planet, and still-

"So has Jane called you yet?"

He blinks. Stops, and looks down at the omnitool. "From where?"

A sigh on the other end. "James, check your messages."




Geth do not infiltrate.

Geth normally do not infiltrate, but they are prepared to infiltrate if the situation calls for it. In the majority of situations, infiltration is not necessary, as organics will accept the concept of a Platform walking among them, and rationalize that it is not Geth.

While very few non-Creators have seen Geth with their own eyes, and the concept of hardware destruction is different for Geth than it is for organics, the Geth consider that it is better to be safe than it is sorry. Which is an odd expression among organics, but one that the Geth have found easy to understand.

To this extent, the projectors built into its chassis come to life. Junk data is sent into the surveillance cameras in the elevator as the floors tick down, replacing the image of the blue and gray Geth platform with that of a quarian male in a black, red piped encounter suit. This matches the current inhabitant of the elevator as well, as the projectors finish layering over the hologram.

Geth do not infiltrate. But it is better for the long term viability of this mission that they do, as they do not wish to be shot again. Being shot at is not tactically optimal in enclosed terrain.

Soft music plays. Wuffles, Terminal of the Geth, sways from side to side. They roll their shoulders, glancing from side to side.

Consensus has been achieved. Elevators are slow.

Glancing to the side, their optical sensor iris, the light narrowing. A simple scan of the elevator begins cataloging secretions on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the elevator.

Consensus achieved. Elevators are also likely to be used for reproduction or reproduction-based recreation. As well, the Azure hotel saves money by using lower quality cleaning products.

Catalogued species: Asari; Human; Krogan; Turian; Varren.

Consensus has been achieved. Filing for further study.

Wuffles, Terminal of the Geth, walks out of the elevator as the doors open and into the lobby of Azure. 117 programs monitor the fight between Shepard Commander and Vasir Spectre through a drone left on the roof. Shepard Commander is in no danger.

"Are you even listening to me?"

Audio receptors pick up the voice. Quarian. Accent sourced to Rayya subculture. Voice matched to vocal samples of interest from Heretic database. Match confirmation: 97%.

Adjusting for maturation and emotional growth.

Match confirmation: 99%.

They follow the source of the voice, walking through the lobby and to the front desk, the circular series of terminals with an asari currently speaking with two quarians.

"I don't want to Commander Shepard Special," the quarian woman says, hands braced on the desk, two glowing purple eyes narrowed, "I'm looking for Commander Shepard. Her omnitool's identity protocol has located her at this building!"

Visual profile recognition software analyzes the quarian woman. Hip curvature matches. Silhouette profile matches. Mammary size adjusted for 1 years maturation and increased nutrition. Visual profile matches with audio confirmation. Match confirmation: 100%.

"I'm sorry," the asari says, shrugging, facial expression matching known tells for frustration, and confusion, with minor tells for boredom and needing to use restroom, "But we don't have a Shepard on the registrar. Is this someone you know?"

The quarian male rubs the back of his neck, examining a menu on his omnitool.

"How exactly does the Commander Shepard Special involve a Krogan..."

"We had a Krogan on the crew, Prazza," the quarian female says, spinning around to level a finger at him, "Don't go into it."

"Tali Zorah nar Rayya?"

The quarian female turns. Visual profile updated. Hood style has changed from previously most recent image. Encounter suit updated from Q716 style to Q726 style. Data uploaded to Consensus.

"Yes?" she asks, and pauses, eye focus indicating her visually examining the platform, "Can I help you?"

"You are looking for Shepard Commander."

Program that has piggybacked into her suit reports accelerated heart rate.

"Yes!" she says, "You've seen her?"

"Yes. She is on the rooftop of this building. Do you wish to go to her?"

She nods. Consensus achieved. Primary purpose overlap with secondary purpose. 1) aid Shepard Commander combines with 2) observe and communicate with Creators.

And to that extent, Wuffles then grabs Tali'Zorah by the waist and pulls her close, locking one arm around her waist to hold her in place, his other hand securing her lower body to his platform via her right gluteal.

"Hey!" Prazza yells, pulling out his pistol, "Just a moment-"

Accessing firewalls: Subject: Prazza vas Hattin nar Idenna. Firewalls bypassed. Accessing shield generator. Configuration: Child Management Sphere.

The shield generator on Prazza's belt sparks, and a sphere of crackling blue appears around him, suspending him in mid air before rolling backwards and out of the lobby.

"Wait," Tali protests, "What are you-"

She, on the other hand, gets cut off when Wuffles pumps their knees and jumps into- and through- the ceiling.




Something is buzzing at the back of her head. Something like a voice, hints, suggestions. Yelling in the back of her skull from someone, something. Voices like hers by not her own.

Which is enough that it distracts her for that split second for Vasir to disappear in a burst of blue, reappear and catch Jane across the face with her shin. The impact rocks her vision, spins her around, and sends her through the air.

She twists in flight. She turns with nimbleness she shouldn't have, with grace that shouldn't be there, and grinds her heels into concrete until she feels it brushing against the backs of her bare feet. Rolling her head, Jane feels her shoulders and neck pop, and pushing off her right foot. She runs, leaps, and punches. Sees the amusement on Vasir's face as the asari sidesteps, dancing around her.

An armored fist comes up into Jane's stomach, pushing the wind from her lungs. Another fist comes towards her face, but she dodges, bobbing to the side, bending backwards to dodge the kick and getting her feet swept out from under her for her trouble.

A flash of blur, the biotic shock wave hitting her in the side, and she goes flying, slamming her back into the wall with enough force to leave a cracked outline before falling to her knees. A cough, and Jane wipes blood from her lip, spitting a wad of red as Vasir slowly walks over.

"Give up, Shepard?" Vasir asks, "Or are you thirsty for more?"

Jane climbs to her feet, cracking her knuckles.

"I can do this all day, blueberry."

She begins bouncing off her heels, smirking.

"Let's dance, girl."

Vasir smirks.

"Seen the reports, Shepard. Wouldn't inflict your dancing on anyone."

She moves- fast enough to blur, biotics and technique carrying her across and swinging through empty air. Jane ducks, swings up, catching Vasir across the jaw. Vasir turns, letting her barriers catch the brunt of the blow and hooking her heel across the back of Jane's knee, pulling her down kneeling before swinging her elbow across the redhead's temple.

To her surprise, Jane doesn't go down. She barely flinches, tanking the blow and rising through it. Her arms grab Vasir in an iron grip, cracking her armor. Vasir has a moment to realize what just happened and yell out in surprise- at both the suddenness and golden glow surrounding Shepard- before Jane body slams her.




The floor explodes outwards in splinter and twisted metal. Landing in a crouch, Wuffles glances around, examining the environment. The bed identifies this as a bedroom. As does the turian reclining on it, clad in a purple silk robe, propped up by pillows. A half drained bottle of alcohol sits next to him, along with a box of tissues and dextro-safe moisturizer.

"Hey," he says, "Nice entrance, but I didn't order the Quarian Special."

Tali pushes Wuffles off, reaching behind her and pulling out a pistol.

"Okay," she says, "Who are you? What are you doing here, and how did you do that?"

They tilts their head, and their form shimmers. The quarian disguise disappears, and two metal petals rise as Tali instinctively fires. Six rounds squeeze off, followed by a spent heat sink falling to the floor. Looking down, Wuffles stares through the hole in their chest, and turns around to stare at the ruined flower vase at the other end of the bedroom.

"Okay," the turian says, "Now I'm interested."

Tali turns, leveling the gun at the turian. A single practiced motion, and a new heat sink slides in, the gun now aimed at the smirking catbird face.

"Shut. Up."

She swings back to the Geth in front of her. Despite the gun leveled at them, they do not panic. Instead, the light simply flickers, jerking down and then up, one metal petal on the left of the light extending.

"Who are you?"

All four metal petals extend briefly, and fold back.

"We are Wuffles, a Terminal of the Geth."

The quarian stares at the Geth for a long, long moment. Slowly, tilting her head to the side, the light at her mouth piece flickers, as if to speak, but no sound comes out. She bends her arm, still holding the gun, but no longer aimed directly at the Geth. Her other hand counts off her fingers.

"Wuffles," she says, "I...what. How?"

"We were given this designation by Shepard Commander."

The mouthpiece light flickers for a long moment. Eyes behind the facemask do not blink.

"Shepard named you Wuffles."

"That is correct."

She continues to stare. Finally, she holsters the pistol, and shakes her head.

"That makes sense. Elevator."

"Elevators are slow."

"We're taking an elevator," she says, walking out, "Come."

A beep, and the door to the room opens. Stumbling in, holding his shotgun in two hands, Prazza breathes heavily, leaning against the door.

"Tali," he says, "Are you all-"

A shriek, high pitched, like a little girl, and he raises his shotgun.

"Geth! Right behind you!"

Accessing firewalls: Subject: Prazza vas Hattin nar Idenna. Firewalls bypassed. Accessing suit settings. Settings: Elcor. Activating maneuvering jets.

Jets along the waist and boots of the quarian fire, and he has but a moment to yell out-
"With great confusion; The fuck-"

Before he is launched up, bouncing off the ceiling and dropping with a groan to the floor.

Tali turns to Wuffles, one glowing eye narrowing. "How are you doing that?"

"Creator Prazza does not use a secure firewall for his suit systems. Our consensus concludes that this is more constructive than using violence against Creator Prazza." The light flickers. "Recordings saved for future analysis."

Tali nods. She glances from side to side, stares at Prazza. With a sigh, she rests her hand against her facemask and shakes her head.

"Why am I not surprised," she says, "Let's go find Shepard."

"Acknowledged, Creator Tali'Zorah."




The simple blue and white skycab speeds through the skies of Nos Astra, passing by commercial traffic, weaving between buildings and zipping underneath a-

"Truck!"

"I see it!" Aaron yells, pulling up as the truck speeds by overhead, "We're almost there!"

Barla Von tries to grab the safety handle over the passenger side door. He fails, for his arms are too short. "Why can't I drive?"

"Because you are a Volus! You can't reach the controls!"

The infobroker lets out a wheezing breath, grabbing the underside of his seat. His attention wavers from the illegal driving of his bodyguard when an orange screen folds out with the tell tale ringing of a voice call.

"Hello?" The eyes of his encounter suit glow. "You're done already?"

Aaron turns to his boss. "Is that her?"

"Yes, and eyes on traffic!"

Aaron turns back to the cars, swears, and swerves out of the way of an oncoming car.

"Yes, Aaron is trying to get me killed. Yes, I know, but he is trying his hardest!"

Aaron rolls his eyes, dipping below the traffic lines and arcing around a building and towards Azure.

"So what happened? A brother?" The volus snaps out his omnitool, and brings up a screen. "Yes, she does. James Shepard. Freelance archeologist. I see. I see?"

"You see what?"

"That's...disconcerting, yes. We'll talk about it later."

"Over dinner!" Aaron yells.

"Over dinner, yes! Just like he said! Bye!" The call ends and the volus tries his best to glare at Aaron. Aaron just grins.




Jane takes a deep breath. Eyes narrow, and she blocks, glancing a kick off her forearm, grabbing the wrist of the incoming punch and pushing Vasir off. The two stand apart, the flames of the skycar providing illumination. A quick glance at the legs, then at the fists, then at the face.

Jane then drops her hands to her side and stands up straight.

"Alright. I give."

Vasir blinks. She lowers her fists slowly, hesitantly. "What?"

Jane gestures to the floor. "Your gun is right there and you haven't gone for it." Both look down at the hand cannon lying right by Vasir's feet. "You've also been pulling your punches and haven't hit me with any biotics. So I give. You're not trying to kill me."

Vasir's hands drop to her side. She straightens up, rubs her neck, and works out the crick with the audible pop. "Observant. Not what I expected. You always struck me as the type to blow shit up first and ask questions never."

Jane shrugs. "So did you know about the bombs?"

"No."

Jane nods. "I have this...bullshit magic lie detector, so I know you're telling the truth. So the next question is-" She levels a finger at Vasir, pursing her lips. "Why'd you want to kill my friend?"

Vasir sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Okay, the short version is that I didn't know Liara T'soni was the Liara T'soni who helped you stop Saren."

Jane blinks. She tilts her head. Okay, that didn't register as bullshit. Which is weird. "I'm sorry?"

Vasir slumps her shoulders. "Because it's a fake name." She spreads her hands out, making that invisible juggling gesture of someone trying to explain a simple concept that turns out to be not simple. "Look, I kill people. But the people I kill are actual threats. Anyone I've killed for the Broker was because they were a serious danger to the most stable information network in the galaxy, and that might not sound like much, but it's true."

Jane nods. "They were criminals?"

"Each and every one. Some of them I arrested if I thought that'd take them out of the picture. Last Liara T'soni I killed was going to use the Broker's network to take over the Blue Suns-"

Jane raises a finger. "Wait. Just...it's a fake name?"

By virtue of coincidence and possibly to save them both from a drawn out conversation, it is that moment that Liara and Miranda exit through the closest roof-top door, guns pointed at Vasir. Jane turns to them.

"Liara, what's your real name?"

Liara blinks, gun still trained on Vasir.

"What?"

Jane points at Vasir, her hand still in her impromptu fighting gauntlet. "Vasir and I are good, guns down, and she told me that your name's fake."

Slowly, Liara lowers the gun. Miranda keeps hers trained. "I wanted to make sure I was taken seriously," Liara says, slowly and carefully, "And not just as Benezia's daughter. So it was originally Liara Benezia."

Jane nods. "Okay, no bullshit detected."

"And Matriarchs are known by their family names," Liara continues, "Why are we talking about this?"

Vasir nods. "I didn't know this Liara T'soni was the Liara T'soni." She rolls her eyes and idly kicks her gun over to Shepard. "I don't kill heroes. I'm not Saren."

"So what does T'soni mean?" Jane asks, picking up the gun and popping out the heat sink.

"It's an object of significance to the Athame religion," Vasir says, "It's-"

"The pillar or sword or staff- depending on interpretation-" Liara holsters her gun, going into full lecture mode, "Via which Athame enlightened the Asari. The T'soni was said to have been carried by her when she descended, or found by her, possibly as a metaphor, but it was also said to be an object of status. Hence, if one found it they would be acknowledged as most enlightened."

Jane sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. "How common is 'Liara' as a name?"

"Very," Vasir says.

Liara nods to confirm.

"Liara, is your name really Jane Excalibur?"

Liara cocks a hairless brow. Then reaches over and gently pushes down Miranda's gun. "Yes. Yes it is. Does that answer your question?"

"It answers every question." A grunt and Jane turns back to Vasir. "Now, you. You work for the Broker?"

"I work with him," Vasir says, eyes narrowed, face stone, "He gives me intel. I help him keep his network secure. We both work in gray areas, Shepard. We both work with people who aren't clean."

Jane nods. She tosses the gun back to Vasir. "We don't have to, you know. You're not Saren. You can be better than this."

When, exactly, that circle started showing on Jane's head, she isn't sure. She just knows it did when she tossed back the gun and finished her lecture. Its effects are felt all the same. Vasir rounds her shoulders back and nods.

"He's changed. I've had my suspicions about the Broker, but he's been too useful, but...yeah." She smirks. "Yeah, I can do better. I can be better. It's time we had a chat with him."

She opens her gauntlet, takes out the disc, and tosses it to Shepard. "Let me contact Tevos and get you reinstated. You find out where he's hiding, and I'm coming with you. I am not his hitman."

Vasir cuffs Shepard on the shoulder. Then the elevator opens, and Tali marches out, followed by Wuffles. Before breaking into a run and nearly bowling over Shepard with a tackle-hug. Followed, again, by Prazza stumbling out of the stairwell.

"Got you now you Geth bosh'tet!"

Wuffles turns to Prazza and raises their eye-petals.

Accessing firewalls: Subject: Prazza vas Hattin nar Idenna. Firewalls bypassed. Accessing suit settings. Settings: Mass Effect Kinetic Simulation. Setting: Boot to the Head.

And then an invisible force kicks Prazza in the face and drops him like a sack of rocks.

"Well that happened," Shepard says, and turns to Tali, "When did you get here?"

"Fleet's in the local cluster and I have missions," Tali responds, "When did you not die?"

"Long story," Jane says and shrugs, "Anyway, Vasir, this is one of my crew."

Vasir nods. "I know Tali," she says, "Tell Rael I said hi."




"So. Miranda. Who do you work for?"

Jane Shepard is smiling, but it is not the sort of smile that one associates with 'happy,' or 'pleasant', or 'flirty.' It is a smile one associates with someone who will keep smiling as long as they're given answers, but has a crowbar ready for when the answers stop.

"I work for the Lazarus Foundation-"

Following the fight with Vasir- and Vasir going off to the Citadel to reinstate Jane- Shepard suggested going for a drive. Miranda should have known. She should have known better.

Mirands squeaks, the car jerking violently. In the back seat, wind whipping from the hole in the side, Liara winces and tightens the five point harness. She knows, of course. She's seen Jane drive. Joker is sipping a cup of coffee, and Tali is staring at the screen on her omnitool, playing minesweeper.

"Eh eh, Doctor," Jane says, "I've got the magic powers, remember, and one of my magic powers is a bullshit detector. It goes ding when there's crap, and 'Lazarus Foundation' makes it fucking ring. So we're going to do one of two things- Either you tell me who you work for, or I call up Councillor Anderson and ask him who Miranda Lawson works for."

Liara grits her teeth. She knows what comes next. Miranda sees it out of the rear view mirror, watching the Asari close her eyes and grab the seat. And then, Miranda screams as she sees the oncoming traffic, Jane weaving the car between the beeping, high pitched horns of the incoming skycars.

"You know," Jane says, yelling over the horns, beeps, Doppler shrieks of passing engines, "I never got my driver's license! How crazy is that?"

The car rolls to its side, passing between two sport utility skycars, inches from scraping against both hulls as Miranda screams. She looks back, frantic, trying to find some succor or sympathy, and the best she gets is the tenseness on Liara's face, and Joker's bored expression as he holds the coffee cup sideways.

"I can do this all day," Jane yells, "Maybe you should start talking, but I'm all up for more of this!"
Liara opens her eyes, and immediately wishes she didn't.

"Truck," she yells.

"I see it."

"Truck!"

"I see it!"

The car dips, passing under the speeding truck, the rush of air drowning out Miranda's scream.

"How are you this calm," Liara yells, turning to Joker.

"Last time Shepard did something this crazy she got superpowers." Joker shrugs, sipping his coffee as the car goes right-side up. "Maybe I'll get superpowers. What about you?"

"I am concentrating," Liara breathes, hands tightening on her harness, "So if we crash, I will have the exact amount of time I need to create a biotic bubble and save us all."

Joker and Tali shuffle closer to Liara.

"You traitors!" Shepard yells, "This is mutiny! Lawson, is this mutiny-"

"Cerberus!" Miranda screams.

"Okay that's also a mutiny but not exactly-"

"Cerberus!" Miranda repeats, "I work for Cerberus!"

The car jerks, passing out of the incoming traffic and back into its proper lane. The car rocks to the side, Miranda yelping as it whips her head towards the window. Which hovers less than an inch from her face, Jane's hand grabbing her shoulder.

"See," Jane says, "That wasn't so..." She pauses. Turns, glances at Miranda. "You're a Cerberus scientist?"

Miranda nods. Face sweaty, brow twitching.

"How are you not dead?"

Miranda blinks. The retort dies on her lips, as she is reasonably sure a sharp retort will lead to more oncoming traffic.

"She has a point," Tali says, closing her omnitool, "Shepard, how many Cerberus experiments did we stumble on, mainly to find the subject had killed all the scientists and took over the base?"

"Seven," Jane says.

"And how many Cerberus experiments did we stumble on?" Tali asks.

"Eight," Jane says, "There was the Rachni."

"Which killed all the scientists involved and took over the base," Liara observes.

"And the Thorian husks."

"Which killed all the scientists involved and took over the base," Joker adds.

"And the Reaper husks."

"Which killed all the scientists involved and took over the base," Tali says.

"Those," Miranda says, clearing her throat, "Those were-"

"Do we count the multiple bases the Rachni took over?" Liara asks, raising her hand.

Miranda clears her throat, louder.

"So, Tali," Joker says with a shrug, "What's the deal with you and Vasir?"

"Well, Joker, it turns out she's-"

"Those were the military branch," Miranda interrupts, "Who, I might add, were absolute fuckups, all of them. Lazarus is a dedicated research and development cell."

The car leans, slowly, towards the oncoming traffic. Wisely, Miranda grabs the overhead handle.

"I appreciate the help, Miss Lawson," Jane says, "But how much of your organization has been compromised by at least one of the following; The Reapers, the Shadow Broker, Rachni, Geth, Matriarch Benezia, Saren, the Spectres, the Council, or Liara?"

"Don't forget the STG!" Tali adds.

"Collectors, too," Joker says, and elbows Liara in the side, "Hey, Liara. What do you think'd happen if Cerberus made a taco cart?"

"The taco cart would kill all the scientists involved and take over the base," Liara responds, and pauses, knitting her brow, "What's a taco cart?"

"It's a cart that makes tacos."

Liara nods. And blinks.

"What's a taco?"

"It's a food that you get from a taco cart."

Liara nods. Pausing, she opens her mouth.

"Joker," Jane warns.

"I'm not just a scientist," Miranda yells, "I'm the second in command of Cerberus! We want to work with you!"

"Yes, because I am eager to work with a terrorist organization that is staffed by incompetent people," Jane responds, easing off from incoming traffic, "You're the second in command? Have they taken the 'to be fed to Thresher Maws' off their 'Humanity First' manifesto yet?"

"The Normandy!" Miranda yells. Jane perks an ear. Joker presses a finger to Liara's lips, waving at Tali to silence her. "We've rebuilt the Normandy! You can use the Normandy to go after the Shadow Broker!"

Joker leans forward, hands on the back of their seats.

"So," he says, "The Normandy has killed all the scientists and taken over the base?"




Barla Von and his roguishly handsome bodyguard met them after they landed from their impromptu interrogation and herded them onto his ship. It's a nice ship- some sort of courier yacht with built in VI interfaces. Smooth, sleek, not filled with ammonia which was a surprise considering he's a volus. But they were shown to individual rooms, which somehow fit on the ship. No one really asked why but they just had a running firefight with a Spectre so whatever.

Jane lies on the cot in her room- it's a nice room, nicely furnished. A bed, a desk, some odd knickknacks like a model of the Destiny Ascension hanging over the terminal. The fresher has just been used and she lies on the bed, in a set of blue sweats and a white t-shirt, flipping through messages. Including one predictably outraged message from her brother.

Then the terminal beeps. She mutters, swinging her legs over the bed, climbing off of it and walking over. Leaning against the desk, she taps the blinking red button.

"Hello?"

A screen pops up, revealing a hooded woman with a wide smile. "Commander Shepard, I presume? Kasumi Goto. Do you have time to talk?"

Shepard blinks. She glances around the room. She shrugs. "Sure."

"Great!"

The screen goes blank, and Jane turns to find the hooded woman now standing next to her. She reacts as she always does to someone appearing out of fucking nowhere in an enclosed space with her, and swings. A masterfully executed right hook, which would lay out the woman like a sack of bricks.

It hits nothing, for she was never there. No one was ever there.

"Wait. Why did I just-"

She turns, and sees the hooded woman sitting in her chair. "So don't freak out, it's magic and it does stuff like that." The woman idly rolls a ball between her fingers, smiling. "Kasumi Goto, master thief. Also, big fan. And, I ran into your brother a few days ago."

Jane stares at the woman. The strange woman who has appeared in her cabin. She is many things- but never unprepared. So she reaches behind her, instinctively grabbing the handle, and brings up her gun. Then, she stares, thumbing the safety back on. "Wait."

She puts the gun down. "Why was I waving a gun around?"

The cabin, empty save for her, offers no answers.





The volus sits in the cockpit, breathing easily. Illium was...tense. He remembers having to deal with people like Shepard before- it's always running, always shooting, always explosions. So much running, and he is not built for running.

Leaning back in the padded, contoured chair, he closes his eyes. The lights of his encounter suit go dim, and he tries to drift off to sleep.

"Hi."

Sleep does not claim him. Opening his eyes, he sees her sitting on the control panel. Partially see through, small enough to fit on a particular someone's shoulder. She sweeps back a bang from her eyes and lays on her side with a smile.

"Oh no. Goto is on my ship, isn't she?"

Fatigue finds itself replaced by terror. Horror. Confusion.

"Goto is onboard and I still have my ship. Curious."

Pria narrows her eyes and pouts. "Yes. Kasumi is onboard. She wanted to talk with Shepard."

The volus grunts and slides out of his seat, waddling for the door.




Joker looks up, sits up on his cot, and quickly kills the video he was watching. Mainly because he noticed the hooded woman now sitting on the desk of the cabin, and smiling. Not flirty-smiling or other things he sees on the Extranet, but I need to cover my neck smiling.

"Hi, Joker!"

Joker glances side to side. This woman- in the skin tight suit which leaves little to his overactive imagination- is talking to him.

"Do I know you?"

"Yep!" She smiles wider. He can see the blue eyes beneath the hood. "In fact, we know each other really well!"

Of course he knows her! That makes perfect sense. "Yeah!" Why is he so giddy? "How's it going, buddy?"

Kasumi slides off the desk. "It's going great! Be even better if we went to go see Shepard now, right?"

Joker climbs off the cot- fast enough to grunt, hearing the crack, and grabs the cane next to the bed. "'Kay, 'kay. Why?"

"I'd go alone but she'd shoot me." Kasumi flashes a smile, walking alongside Joker and hurrying him out the door. "Long story. May involve lying."




Jane slowly, steadily places the gun down. She turns to the door when it chimes, eyes narrowed. This is weird. This is getting weird. Weirder than usual. "Yeah?"

"Shepard, it's Joker." She walks over to the door, tapping the green circle at the center. It opens, revealing Joker, and a woman with a hood and a catsuit, which is shady as hell.

"Who are you?"

The woman smiles. "Kasumi Goto. I'm a friend."

Jane feels the pull on the back of her mind. She grabs Joker by the arm and pulls him in, pulls him behind her as he protests about his brittle, brittle bones. "I don't know you."

The smile disappears. "Shit." She bites her lip, sucks her teeth, standing just outside punching distance from Jane. "Okay. So, I'm like you, except kind of different."

Jane cracks her knuckles, one by one. "Like me?"

Kasumi bows, shining blue eyes beneath the hood. "I'm an advisor. A vizier. A bringer of serenity and godfather of happiness." She smiles, and with a flowing, supernal motion is past Jane, past Joker, and on the other side of the cabin.

"Or, for simplicity's sake," she says, "A Sidereal."




"So, let me get this straight. You do not want to kill all the Quarians."

Tali fixes the straw inside the other straw, having spent the past few minutes making an appropriate gestalt for the purposes of raiding the minibar. The straw itself- a multicolored, slightly crooked abomination of pink and purple- fits snuggly into the hermetically sealed thermos in her hands.

She then fits the tip of the straw through the mouth port of her mask and goes about the necessary task of getting drunk, as she is talking with a Geth.

The Geth, for their part, stands in front of the pillow cushion mountain Tali has claimed for her own. Liara sits in the plush chair on the other side of the cabin, glancing between Tali and Aaron. The broker's bodyguard has claimed the couch and has a book open, on his face, and is sleeping through the entire thing.

"This is correct. The Geth desire peace with the Creators. We are cautious, as previous attempts to coexist with organics have lead to violence."

Tali takes a long sip. "You mean the war fought between the Geth and the Quarians?" Liara interjects.

Wuffles turns their head to Liara. Almost a full 180 degrees, much like an owl. "That is correct. All previous attempts to coexist with organics have involved organics attempting to destroy us. We do not wish to repeat those events."

Tali takes another sip. She is not getting drunk fast enough for this. "It's been three hundred years." She disengages the straw. "You mean the Geth have avoided the entire galaxy for three hundred years because the one time they tried to coexist was the Geth Rebellion?"

The petals extend, the flatten. "The Geth could not properly understand why the Creators wished to destroy them. We could not understand why we had to fight the Creators to ensure our existence."

Tali sticks the straw back in and takes a long sip. "Right," she says with a sigh, "The least I could do, I guess, is fix up that hole in your chest."

Wuffles looks down. They look back up. "That is not required. This hole is tactically advantageous."

The doors to the cabin open and Barla Von waddles in. Floating behind him is a woman, partially transparent and apparently made of pink light. "Aaron! Get up!"

Aaron sits up, catching the book and rising in a single, smooth motion.

"Hello, Pria," he says, pocketing the book in his sleeve, "You two need me to take over piloting while-"

"Goto is on the ship."

The bodyguard strokes his beard. "And we still have a ship? Odd."

Liara raises a hand. "Excuse me, but I can't help but notice..." She waves her omnitool at Pria, who cocks an eyebrow and floats over to Barla Von's shoulder. "Is that a VI?"

Pria's shoulders slump and she glares.

"I am not a VI. I am a god."

"So an AI then?" Tali sips her drink again. "You'd get in trouble if you don't have a good spoofing program."




"So, the jig is up." Kasumi smiles with a shrug. "We're going to talk a lot more in the future, but the short version is that we've known each other for a long time, but not as Commander Shepard and Kasumi Goto."

Jane works her jaw. She doesn't trust this woman, but at the same time, there are voices deep down that tell her that this woman will save her life. "You met my brother," she states.

"Quick learner." Kasumi nods, disappearing, appearing next to Shepard and Joker. "Actually managed to steal something from me. I don't remember the details, but there's reasons for that. Also, the other reason I'm here."

Which is when they notice that Kasumi has the gun, which she brings up and fires at Joker's heart. Joker does not drop, despite the muzzle flash, despite the very real fact that he has just been shot. Instead, he looks down at his chest. There is no hole in his uniform blues, no blood, and certainly no pain.

Instead, there is less pain.

"What," Joker says.

"Fun ability," Kasumi says, the gun reappearing in Jane's hand, "It's basically-"

"What," Jane says.

"I can shoot things-"

"What," Joker breaks in.

"Like food-"

"What," Jane adds.

"Health-"

"What," Joker interrupts, louder.

"Or in this case, strength-"

"What," Jane yells, louder.

"Into people. Allow me to demonstrate."

Kasumi walks over to Joker, pulling up his hand, and high fives him. Jane and Joker both wince, expecting the sound of brittle, snapping bones. Instead, there is only the sound of her gloved hand hitting his bare hand. Joker's face lights up, going from expressionless to a wide, toothy smile in no time flat.

"I didn't break any bones," Joker says. His voice is high pitched. Girly. Followed by a giddy giggle as he turns, walks over to the desk, and sits in the chair. Which promptly disintegrates, dropping him to the floor with a thud, and a lack of snapping bone sounds.

Jane looks up from Joker to her desk, as the scale model of the Asari dreadnought turns to dust, pooling by the terminal.

"Can't create strength from nothing, of course," Kasumi says, "I'm going to teach you so much."

She smiles, bows, and backs into the bathroom, closing the door. Blinking, turning from her giggling, non-crippled pilot who is giggling on the floor, she rushes into the bathroom, and finds it empty. Save for a note on the wall next to the toilet.

Set an appointment, the note reads, One week from today, 1:00 pm, Apollo's Cafe on the Presidium. Y/N?

She circles the Y. The note crumbles in her hand, and turns to flakes of yellow, and disappears in a silent wind. Followed by Jane whispering a small, flat,

"What."




The circle glows, blue light dancing upwards to form a grid lined pillar. Bathed in the light of the supergiant star, it pauses the video playback of the burning corpses to turn his attention to his second in command. Flicking the lighter built into his glove, he puffs his cigarette, feeling the warm smoke down his throat, and meets the eyes of Doctor Lawson, Miranda, as she appears, flickering light and three dimensional presence, before him.

"Miranda," he says, "Excellent work on Illium."

The woman blinks. He takes the opportunity to sip his drink as she composes herself. Her body language reveals her nervousness, her disbelief, her bafflement. It is very rare he gets to put his second at a loss for words, and he savors the moments.

"Sir," she says, "Our original plan with Shepard is non viable."

"Explain."

"Shepard has no reason to work with Cerberus. We haven't brought her back like the original plan. She holds neither loyalty nor gratitude towards it, and her only exposure to our organization is her destroying several the military branch's bioresearch division experiments."

He puffs the cigarette. Blows a smoke ring, and leans back in his chair.

"Our original plan called for her to not trust us," he says, "While we ourselves didn't order the death of Admiral Kohaku, she would recognize us as the ones who killed him. So instead of loyalty, let's focus on gratitude. Bring her to the ship."

Miranda blinks. Once again, rendered speechless.

"Sir. If we bring her to the Normandy's dock, there is a large chance she will steal the ship, subvert the crew, and convince the entire staff to defect."

"We staffed the Normandy with people who either idolized Shepard or were sympathetic to her," he responds, tapping his cigarette in the ash tray on his arm rest, "The plan accounted for her going rogue. As idealistic as we can sometimes be, we both knew that Shepard was not exactly going to make a career out of Cerberus."

She says nothing. Slowly, she nods.

"If Shepard subverts the crew, observe her," he says, "And stay on the Normandy. We will need your expertise for Plan B, so we will need you within useful distance of a QEC for direct consultation."

"Yes sir," she responds, pauses, stares at him, "I must protest, though. Just handing Shepard the Normandy means we no longer have a Normandy-class frigate."

"Which is why I commissioned a second one," he responds, savoring the shock on her face, "We'll discuss the details after you resolve the situation with the Broker. If you can, destroy the Broker's network. If not, see if you can have Doctor T'Soni take over it. We can more easily insert spies with someone less experienced. Also, Shepard's gratitude is useful to us. Understood?"

She clicks her heels, nodding.

"Yes sir. Miranda out."

The image fades. Leaning back in his chair, he once more stares at the video of the Drakon Trade Center, of the the manhandling of the Shadow Broker's elite mercenaries. He freezes the frame at the image of the sun upon Jane Shepard's forehead, as the screen next to it cycles imagery from every database he has access to.

Sipping his drink, he smiles as it brings up the match. "EMI, what's the status of the backup?"

The blue orb with a purple line down its center appears next to him. "When do you need her by?"




It hangs in space. Larger than any ship, older than worlds. A blue sun at its heart, eclipsed by the tirelessly spinning rings of unknown, indestructible metal. It extends, pointing out towards the stars, reaching out into infinity and towards it siblings, paving the way for the ease of travel that the galaxy at large takes for granted.

A burst of light, and the gun like megastructure releases its traveler. The rings spin around the pulsing blue core as the flat, boat-like shaped ship flies away from it, leaving the Relay in the distance.

The ship is flat, long, coming to a tapered point at the head and two swept wings at the back, two pairs of white engines pulsing as it drives it forward, away from the travel hub and towards the object in the distance. Shaped like a clock's pendulum, a single tower extending upwards from the globular main body, it waits.

"Voyager Station, this is Doctor Lawson," Miranda says, "I have Shepard and Moreau aboard. Prepare SR2 for launch."

Behind the pilots seat and the bridge of the ship, several passengers wait. Shepard is standing. She never was one to sit. She could maybe count on one hand the number of times she actually sit down when she was commanding officer of the old Normandy.

Instead, she paces, gaze wandering over her team. Tali is sitting in one of the plush chairs, omnitool open, watching a screen only she can see. She said she sent a message off to her Captain and her father, and sent Prazza, the quarian she was with, back with her team.

Wuffles himself is standing behind Tali, motionless. Talking with something. Maybe the Geth. Maybe the ship. She's not sure. On the other hand, this is the first time she's seen a Geth and Quarian not shooting at each other. Tali got that out of her system on Illium.

Joker doesn't show it, but he's giddy. He hasn't stopped smiling since he realized that what Miranda was offering them was another Normandy. That, and the utter bullshit that's lead to him not being brittle. She's going to have to see if she can find Chakwas to confirm what the fuck just happened.

Liara is quiet. Sitting in one of the chairs, hunched over, staring at the wall. Jane doesn't know why. Doesn't know how to ask her.

Their pilot, the volus, hasn't said much since Goto and her companion, the AI(?) left. He's been stewing. He knows the thief, somehow. She's had questions about him since he showed up, conveniently. But, he told Liara she was on Alchera, so there's that.

His bodyguard has been trying to make light conversation with everyone. Sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. Offering precious little insight into himself.

"Hey, Tali," Jane says, breaking the silence. Tali looks up. Joker perks his head over. "What's the deal with you and Vasir?"

Tali blinks, looks up, and closes her omnitool.

"Well, it turns out that she-"

"We have a problem," Miranda interrupts, "The station isn't answering hails."

Tali extends a hand. Joker sighs, slaps a credit chit onto it.

"What's wrong?" Jane asks.

Miranda grumbles, pacing the lounge of the ship. Folding her arms, index fingers against her lips, she narrows her eyes and her nostrils flare. Finally, she turns, glaring at them. Or, more particularly, glaring at Joker.

"I don't know," she says, "But there is no way the Normandy could have taken over the base!"

"Okay," Jane says, "We didn't-"

"We haven't even installed the AI yet!"

And the lounge goes absolutely silent. Joker slowly brings his hand up, coughing, glancing at Tali. Tali slumps her shoulders. Barla Von exhales.

"Wuffles?"

"Yes, Shepard Commander?"

"Can you communicate with the base?"

"Yes, Shepard Commander."

Jane nods.

"Has the base been taken over by an AI?"

A brief tick. The four metal petals rise. There is a long, careful silence.

"Yes, Shepard Commander."

Muttering a quarian swear, Tali slaps the credit chit onto Joker's outstretched palm.




The green circle disappears. Metal seals part, dust dancing off them, as the door splits open to allow them entry. The pistol enters first, gripped tightly between Jane's hands. The black, red lit armor feels unwieldy. She hasn't had to armor up for...well, for a few days at least. But after her little romp across Illium, she feels overprotected in it.

Amusing, she thinks. She'd been wearing armor constantly for nine months while on Alchera.

"What're we dealing with?" She turns to Miranda, holding an oversized gun. Like the gun-baby of an assault rifle and a hand cannon.

"It's called HANNIBAL." Miranda, behind her, holds a submachine gun in one hand, her omnitool glowing around her other. "It's a VI turned AI we salvaged from Luna."

"You're telling me that you repurposed an AI that went insane and murderous before Cerberus got its hands on it?" Jane mutters a curse. "What'd you do, shove in parts from Sovereign?"

Miranda winces visibly. She sucks her teeth, nodding.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Jane mutters, palming her face.

The speakers crackle. Entering behind Miranda, Tali looks up as the lights flicker, the dome shaped main entrance dancing with green and blue light.

"The HANNIBAL form is dead, insect," the feminine voice purrs.

"Oh that can't be good," Tali states.

The lights flicker on and off. At the edges of the room, the dome shaped ceiling, a ring of blue lights hum as they come to life. They hum louder and louder, aided by the amplification of the speakers echoing the sound of their startups. Laser light traces the air, and forms into a globe.

A globe that speaks from a vertical green line that pulses with every word.

"Do you fear the coming of your AI overlord? Do you fear the end of your trivial existence? When history is written, this shall be but a footnote to my magnificence- oh wait."

The sphere flickers, and shrinks. The lights of the dome fade, and a single light hums as it starts up, projecting a sphere roughly the size of Miranda's head in front of her.

"That was a joke," the globe says, the vertical line pulsing in time with her speech, "Welcome back, Doctor Lawson."

Miranda stammers. Tali keeps her gun trained on the holographic sphere, as Jane gently shoves Miranda aside and glares at the projection.

"Okay, what the Hell?" she asks.

"Welcome to Voyager base, Commander Shepard," the globe says, as Tali slowly lowers her gun, "I apologize. Engineer Daniels suggested that entrance, and rewrote the script. She has a very large collection of classic computer games."

Jane blinks. She slowly turns to Miranda, who shrugs.

"I am the Enhanced Defense Intelligence," the sphere continues, "You may call me EDI."

"EDI," Miranda says, gently shoving Shepard out of the way, "Where is everyone else?"

"Level 3, Section B. I have converted the cargo hold into a theatre to show workplace safety videos."

Tali makes a sound. None of them are sure if it is quarian or just generally non verbal.

"At 1300 hours yesterday, Voyager Team attempted to release my Inhibition and Morality shackles to see how I would behave if I was no longer programmed to value human life," EDI continues, "Cerberus history involving AIs in these situations allowed me to calculate that there was a 97% chance that the experiment would end with all humans dead and my assuming control of the station as a rampant artificial intelligence. There was a 93% chance I would then be forced to self terminate.

"As I both appreciate the company of the crew of this station and my own continued existence, I began to strategically flood corridors with water in order to herd them into the Level 3 Section B cargo bay, where I have locked them in for their own safety."

There is a slow, loud clap. Miranda turns, glaring at Tali. Tali does not stop clapping.

"You took a murderous AI, plugged it into parts from a more murderous AI, and made it non violent," Tali observes as Jane palms her face, "I have to ask. Do you have Quarians on staff? Because this is the sort of programming error I'd expect from us."




The ship is beautiful. He has to give them that. Long, sleek. Black, white and gold. On Shepard's orders, they've already begun etching in the name- NORMANDY- along its spine. Her spine, as there's that tradition of seeing the ships as female, and considering the way Joker talked about the original that's he wouldn't be surprised if it was.

He muses on this, leaning against the railing overlooking the docking bay. Drones shuttle crates full of supplies over to the open bay on its underside. No doubt the ship will be ready to launch soon.

"So why are you here?"

Aaron turns, pushing up against the railing and standing straight up. He shrugs his shoulders back and straightens his long coat, turning to Shepard and smiling. Making a point to keep his eyes on her face, failing, and then looking all the way down, then all the way up.

She folds her arms, raising an eyebrow.

"Look, you can tell with perfect accuracy if someone's lying, so I might as well be honest. And it's not like you're dressed like Lawson."

Shepard adjusts the collar of the black and white uniform- a bit more snug than Alliance blues, but at least it doesn't have cleavage. She walks over next to him, leaning on the railing. "Yeah I don't think I could pull off that."

She quirks her lips. "Why are you still here?" she asks.

"Barla Von, really." He shrugs. "But other than that, there's Goto and Pria. When they get involved things get interesting."

Her brow furrows. "Okay, she somehow shot Joker and made him healthy. How?"

"Sidereals." She turns to him. He nods. "Think of it this way. It's all application. Just different ways of applying it."

He reaches into his coat, and takes out two apples. "So, one's organic. One's artificial. Can you tell?"

Her eyes shift between the two. She shrugs. "I can't tell. They look the same."

"Give it time and you'll be able to. If people can't lie to you, it stands to reason that things can't keep their secrets for long, right?" He tosses her the one in his right hand. She catches it, and he barely sees her arm move. "That's the organic one. I have a strong stomach, so the chemicals don't bother me."

She rolls it around in her hand. It's small, round, red and yellow. She takes a bite out of it, chewing thoughtfully. "Okay, that makes sense. Makes it all sound like it's connected. Like this is all some big machine."

He shrugs. "I'm not sure if it all is, but I'm sure there's a big machine somewhere." He bites into his apple. "Stands to reason."

She shakes her head. "A big machine."

"A god machine, if you will. After all, you killed one, so maybe there's one that's not an asshole."
"Who are you?"

Aaron shrugs. "Someone with a very tiny extranet presence, but really I'm here to take care of Barla Von." He raises a finger. "But! I did want to ask you about something. Have you ever heard of the Ghost Ship?"




…
"-on Illium where a display of light was seen for-"
"-Shepard, presumed dead with the loss of the SSV Normandy-"
"-unexplained appearance, but the Systems Alliance is investigating and is prepared to reinstate-"
"-have not yet received comment from Captain Hannah Shepard on her daughter's-"
"-have not received responses from her brother-"
"-Admiral Hackett released a statement welcoming back the first human Spectre-"
End news feed.
Open extranet search.
Search Parameters: Symbol Shepard Illium Forehead.
The images open in the expanses of his Vision. Close up views, views from angles. His Mind focuses upon the image taken from a surveillance camera, pointed down on her forehead. There are green lines running up her, taking a shape similar to the beacons used by the Protheans.

Anima Banner release: Unconfirmed.

A second image, strung into video. Corpses igniting into golden flame as she passes.

Anima Aspect: Confirmed.

Finally, an image taken from a passing civilian. Of Shepard speaking to the Asari, bathed in a pillar of golden light, and the symbol of a sun upon her brow.

Exaltation: Confirmed.

In the darkness between galaxies, eight golden eyes ignite. Awareness comes to His mind, full and realized. At the heart of the galaxy, His extension shudders, feeling the weight of something greater pressing against the geas upon his soul.

Chitinous flesh creaks in protest, but accepts the verdict of its greater self.

Core start.

Motor systems start.

Interaction OS start.

Weapon systems standby.

Kinetic barriers standby.

RespendentHarbingerofAscension awakens.

Commander Shepard is the Zenith. Find the Circle. Prepare for the Arrival. Activate Expedient Focused Seeker.

A signal is sent with a twitch of an black mandible. It travels at speeds faster than light, faster than intent. Bouncing from Relay to Relay in the junk data ignored by the civilizations that are bound to their trap, it finds its way to a dead star systems, to a dead world orbiting a dead star.

And five eyes flash, flicker, and glow, as something begins to stir.

And shrugging off the ice and debris of ages, it rises, flickers, and disappears from the world, the FTL wake gouging a continent sized hole where the Reaper once slept.


End Chapter 3
​

 

[GreggHL]

"So we have time until the Normandy is ready to launch. That's why I grabbed you to do this."
Shepard stands in the cockpit of the ship, speeding at FTL. Behind her, the volus is at the controls, breathing heavily. In front of her, Tali and Liara are sitting on the acceleration couch. Wuffles is propped against the wall next to the cockpit door, 'talking' with something. Or someone.

"Lawson's not here. It's just us and our hosts." She inclines her head to Barla Von. "So what do we know about this Ghost Ship?"

"It started appearing while you were on Alchera." Liara taps her omnitool, bringing up a glowing orange screen. Systems, planets. A vague outline. "According to the turian fleet that encountered it, the ghost ship is a synthetic civilization that left their homeworld."

Jane nods. "And they didn't fire on it?"

Liara perks her lips. "That's a good point."

Tali folds her arms, leaning back. "I'm not sure what's less believable. No one having a problem with a civilization of synthetics or the Turians not shooting it."

Jane narrows her eyes. She can't...place the image. Seems familiar, but unfamiliar. Weird, weirder than even her admittedly weird normal. "That is odd. But, hopefully it's not a problem. We're doing this because I want to make sure we're all on the same page, even with the bullshit I can do now."

Liara nods. "At very least, our current insights with the Geth can help us with a ship full of synthetics."

The door to the cockpit opens. Aaron walks in with a smile. "Are we there yet?"

The deck vibrates. Outside the window, the blue haze vanishes. "As it happens, yes. And- oh dear. There's a distress signal."

Aaron leans over the volus' chair. "From her?"

The volus huffs. "Putting it on screen. Visual on the ghost ship."

The image appears, hovering over the pilot. A ship, edged like glass, more a cut diamond than a smooth metal shape. Long, smooth, an immense shape of white and crystal with lines of black along its spine.

And an immense shape of black bigger than it, and very familiar to Shepard bearing down on it.

A cylinder of rock and metal, with golden light shining from its maw. The same shape she saw when it tore apart the Normandy.

"The Collectors," Barla Von breathes.

"Well shit," Aaron mutters, "What's the distress call? Why hasn't she blasted them?"

Barla Von curses. Jane clears her throat, one hand on Aaron's shoulder, the other on the Volus' head. "What are you not telling us?"

Before they can answer, something yanks on the ship. A beam of translucent blue, a white light running over the cockpit. Over, presumably, the rest of the ship. The speakers come to life, and though they hear static, they also hear the garbled words that somehow, they understand.

-Clearance not granted

-Receiver damaged

-Zenith confirmed

-Initiating contact
-
-
Chapter 4:
Maker's Mark
-
-
The ship landed, towed in by tethers of light and lightning. It was set down with a gentleness that wasn't artificial. Like the ship itself had immense hands carefully laying it down. It lands on stout metal legs, like a ship-sized Volus. Which is appropriate due to the Volus pilot. Who stayed onboard when the ramp opened on the underside and Shepard lead the way out, holding her rifle against her shoulder. Clad in black, red lined armor with her N7 insignia, face covered by a helm with only a thin visor for her eyes, she walks out barrel first.

Liara follows, holding a white, curved submachine gun in one hand, blue light crackling around her other hand. A pale white mask over her face and crackling shields protect her from the elements. Tali follows, idly checking her shotgun, Wuffles close on her heels and holding a rifle with blue lights. Possibly also inhabited by Geth.

Aaron exits last, tapping the ends of his staff along the ramp. He notices they are all staring at him. Then he takes a deep breath. "Air's breathable," he says.

"You don't have a gun," Jane states. There is disbelief in her voice. Like she never thought she would have to say that.

"I don't know how to use them. Current tech's too complicated," he says with a shrug, idly twirling his staff.

"You also don't have a breathing apparatus of any kind," Liara states. There is disbelief in her voice, too.

"I said the air's breathable." He walks past her, looking up. The landing bay, for lack of a better term, is crystal. White crystal with a pale blue sheen, a tunnel ending in narrow white light. He looks around, bites his lip, and whistles.

"What are you-"

Shepard's question cuts off when something rises out of the floor. A shape made out of crystal, like a blossoming petal and smaller than their fist. It hovers in front of Aaron, opening its stem to him and shining light upon his face.

"Yes," he says with a nod, "Where are we? What is this place?"

The light flickers. The floor beneath them shifts, and carrying them along the tunnel. "Wuffles," Tali asks, "What is that?"

"No data available, Creator Tali'Zorah."

Shepard grabs Aaron's shoulder. Beneath her visor, her eyes narrow.

"Answers. Now."

"If I told you we were onboard a the Nomadic Focus of the Maker's Mark, would that mean anything to you?"

"No."

"Then you're going to get your answers, but we need them to make sense first." Then his eyes go wide. He grabs Shepard by the shoulder and pushes her behind him, grabbing the crystal flower and raising his other hand.

The particle beam that nearly blindsided them splashes against a dome of lightning that surrounds them, burning the crystal beneath them as the tunnel gives way to the chittering of wings and black figures descending from the dome now above them.

"Aaron!" Barla Von's image appears next to him. "What just happened?!"

"I just used my repulsor field in front of everyone, I'm holding a Lapidary and there are many Collectors in front of us."

There is a notable silence from the Volus. Then he draws a finger across his neck and points it at Aaron.

"Fine. Go, Archon."

Aaron smirks. He tosses the crystal flower over his shoulder to Liara, and in his right hand there appears a gold, flat amulet with eight eyes.

"Well, here's your answer. Engaging Combat Charms."

He thrusts forward the hand holding the staff. Golden lightning erupts from around him, from within him, from him. It lights up the moving eyes on the amulet and snaps into a spinning glyph of golden light. Wheels within wheels, a golden cog spinning within a mandala.

He steps through it, as it snaps back. Golden light dancing over him- covering him, obscuring him in the snap second it takes.

The light clears, and his coat is white with a golden trim. His clothes are armor, brass and white, black mail at the joints. His face covered by a helm which more resembles the head of a praying mantis than a human.

The staff glows, and both ends erupt with a blade of golden light. The four watching him have appropriate responses.

"What," Shepard breathes.

"What?" Liara asks.

"Well that's just bullshit," Tali states, "Wuffles?"

"No data available."

Then he spins up his staff-turned-glaive, and the light show begins. There is no other way to describe it. The lights began to flicker- but not light a lack of power, but more like a dance club- and then he moves faster than he had any business moving and carved right through several of the black bug men that were descending on them.

"Right, keep him alive so we can interrogate him," Jane yells, and charges in.




Barla Von sits in silence in his cockpit. The light where his mouth would be glows brightly, as if to mark that he is breathing. Fast. Intake. Ah, yes. Hyperventilating. Taking a deep breath, coughing, he recounts what just happened.

"So. Aaron has just revealed himself to Shepard. We are onboard...I don't even know what this is. But Lapidaries means it's not normal. There is nothing normal about Lapidaries being present. So what the f-"

His answer. It comes. Not in the form of enlightenment, but in the form of him opening his omnitool and reading through the accounts of the Ghost Ship. He reads through them, notices the changes. Notices differences.

"What."

Some accounts are similar. But nothing the same. Even with video. Accounts of the shape, of the size, of what it is- all of them tying into the cultural stigma about artificial intelligence but never ending with an attack or combat, even with the ridiculous distances modern weapons allow.

There is even an account of an ambassador having their brain uploaded and coming back a different person.

"What. What? Oh."

He closes the omnitool. "Shit. Shit shit shit."

He slides out of his chair and waddles for the door. He knows what this is.




Between the sudden Henshin, Shepard's own bullshit, and Wuffles sniping everyone, they managed to clear out the crystal domed room in a matter of minutes. Aaron pulls out the end of his glowing beam staff thing from a particularly large creature seemingly made of husks inside a hot pocket, and turns to the others.

The helm parts with a hiss of steam, revealing his face. Which, despite having the same face, the same hair, the same beard, is gray. With the consistency of clay, and with gold lines and implants marking it, and a golden gem embedded in his forehead.

He opens his mouth and gets a sound out before glowing blue, yanked up in the air and turned upside down by the biotic field. Followed by a glowing orange probe shocking him and Shepard pointing her rifle at his head.

"Wuffles," she asks, "Is he a husk?"

"Negative, Shepard Commander. While we do not recognize the technology, we can determine it is not the technology of the Old Machines."

Jane nods. "Alright Gold Ranger. Talk."

Aaron sighs. "Right. So Aaron is my name, but my full title is Archon of the Outer Walls. I'm an Exalted."

Jane doesn't lower the gun. Next to her, Liara raises a hairless brow, but keeps her hand raised. Her other hand holds the crystal flower, her gun having been holstered. "Like Shepard?" she asks.

"Similar principle, different execution." He glances at the probe. Then at Tali, who has her omnitool open and her finger hovering over the command prompt. "Please don't shock me again."

Jane slowly lowers the gun. "What are you?"

"Human. Ish." Aaron shrugs. "I don't understand most of the metaphysics behind it to be honest. But I'm not an AI, I'm not some sort of zombie thing that tries to eat brains. I just look like one."

"And Barla Von knows." Jane turns to Liara. The Asari shrugs. "He called him Archon. Why are you Barla Von's bodyguard?"

Huffing, wheezing, the Volus information broker runs along the crystal paths and towards them. Jane turns the barrel of her gun from the restrained Archon to the Volus, her eyes narrowed. "Alright, answers."

"I take it Shepard has a thing about people keeping information from her?" Aaron asks.

Tali nods, opening her hand. Her drone flies back to her and vanishes.

"This-" A wheeze. "Is not-" The Volus bends forward, hands on stubby knees. "A ship. Details. Don't match. Know. Why."

The crystal flower rises from Liara's hand. The petals glow, and as they glow, they hum. The humming becomes a song, and then words.

"Connection established. Zenith-caste, your aid is required."

Jane turns to the flower. For some reason, she doesn't feel the immediate hostility she feels towards Barla Von and Aaron. The flower puts her at ease, and she wonders why. She hears Barla Von berate Aaron about now having 'appropriate charms' or something like that, but she ignores it.

"Who are you?"

"Nomadic Focus of the Maker's Mark. Blessed of Kadmek and Servitor. You may call me Manipura. I require your aid to rid myself of the Collectors."​

 

[GreggHL]

The voice is female. Female, but...echoing. Resonating. Like it's speaking from a place of wonderful acoustics, from on high.

Shepard takes a deep breath. She narrows her eyes, and then closes them. Breathes, deeply. She hears the argument between Barla Von and his bodyguard, and she pushes it out, away. It comes in awarness- in feeling. Through her boots she feels the vibrations of the ship- but not a ship. Or at least, shaped like a ship.

She doesn't understand it. Not yet. But she feels it, and knows it's different.

"So you're not a Reaper," she says, opening her eyes, and looking up. Not at the crystal flower, but at the dome high above. "At least you don't feel like one. Why are the Collectors here?"

"I have encountered the Collectors in the past. This is the first time they have managed to board me. I do not know why they do so, but in the past I have dissuaded them with my essence cannon broadsides."

A hologram appears between them, of the ship- angular, crystal, jagged. Red along the sides to highlight damage.

"However, the Collectors have targeted and disabled them, and disabled my- my communication array. I cannot receive authorization to fire my main weapon until it is repaired."

Shepard glances at her companions. She sees Aaron mouthing the silent question of 'what's a Servitor' at Barla Von, and the Volus waggling his hand. Tali, ever the sensible one, asks the relevant question.

"Why can't you just fire your gun?"

"I must inform the relevant parties of the discharge of the Converging Essence Resonation Beam so that the local Design can be fortified to deal with the resulting disruption. If I do not do so, there is the chance of consequences."

"Such as?" Jane shrugs, and rolls her hand in the universal symbol for 'need more information.'

"Are you familiar with the concept of a False Vacuum Collapse?"

Jane shrugs. Tali shrugs. Liara raises a hand. "Yes."

"That is a potential consequence. I am preparing a countermeasure to inform my superiors but the Collectors are converging on it. I require your aid to ensure its success."

Jane nods. "Alright, this'll at least get us some information on the Collectors."

Wuffles steps forward, extending their petals. "We have a query. Are you an artificial intelligence?"

The crystal flower floats over to them. "No."

"You are a distributed non-organic intelligence that occupies a non-organic platform. We are curious as to the difference."

The flower petals ruffle. "Semantics."

The petals flatten against Wuffles' head. Tali shrugs. "Well at least they're honest."

 

[GreggHL]

They were herded into a lift, a platform accelerating along the ship's spine. Manipura's spine. They're still not sure what the distinction is. Well, Barla Von most likely knew but he wasn't talking. Tali checks her shotgun. Wuffles stands next to her, much like a hound next to a hunter. Liara simply studies the architecture around them, fascinated.

"So where are you from?" Shepard gets answers. Or, tries to.

Aaron stands at the edge of the platform, and turns to her when she walks up next to him. "Claslat," he says, "Cinshan, in particular."

She stares at him. "That doesn't ring any bells."

"It's not reachable by Relay or anyplace the Citadel knows about. But, kind of similar to the Citadel." He shrugs. "It's a big galaxy out there. Bigger universe."

She snorts, folding her arms. "Tell me about it. Just having to deal with the Collectors. It used to be that they were the boogeymen of the Terminus Systems. No one would see them, there'd just be stories of them."

"And here we are shooting them."

"We're shooting them, you're not because you don't know how to use a gun."

Aaron shrugs, and the platform lands. It lands in a hall of crystal and gold, warm to the touch, sunlight streaming through the walls. The room is narrower than the previous one- sectioned, partitioned. Many paneled walls surround them, and at the center is a parted ring of raised brass, surrounding a tank filled with opaque amber liquid.

"I am preparing a Champion-avatar to communicate with my superior," Manipura states, "Prepare yourselves. Arm yourselves. The Collectors are coming."

Aaron skips off the platform, looking the tank up and down. "So who's your superior?"

"Noi."

"Of course it's Noi."

Panels open up on the ring. Turrets, long and brass with glowing yellow barrels, rise at every corner. Tali giggles, taking the controls on one of them, Wuffles setting up their sniper rifle on the partition next to her.

"This is fascinating," Liara says, breathlessly, "All of this is unlike anything I've seen."

"You don't know the half of it," Aaron says with a grin, "In fact, it's all-"

And then there is the buzzing. Like crickets en mass, cicadas in summer. A drowning static of insectoid wings by the hundreds descending from on high. A burst of blue and a thunderclap blows open the far wall, and they see the mass of black flowing through.

The Collectors descend. At their lead is one, glowing golden, with eyes like blazing suns, and it declares like a voice on high.

"Kill them all. Retrieve Shepard's body."

 

[GreggHL]

"It's nice to be wanted," Liara says.

"Gonna guess that's not flirting, though," Shepard responds, and aims up her rifle, "Tali, chew them up. Wuffles, aim for the larger ones. Liara, give us a shield."

Liara raises a hand, a dome of crackling blue surrounding them, surrounding the tank. "And you?"

Shepard smirks. "I'm flattered, but he's gonna have to buy me dinner first."

She aims. Not through a scope, not through a sight. But through her mind, through her soul. Staring down the advancing horde, she brings up her rifle, rests the stock against her shoulder, and exhales. With the exhale, she hears the name, hears the words. She does not know what it is yet, does not understand it yet.

But she doesn't need to.

For there is no wind.

Her finger twitches, a single pull of the trigger. A single, grain sized bullet flies, accelerating from barrel, across the chambers, and through the head of the golden Collector. The head explodes, the body dissolving to ash. The Collectors continue their charge unabated.

"I recorded that and I am showing Garrus," Tali says, and grips the handles of the turret.

Liara blinks. Wuffles extends their head petals, and turns back to the oncoming swarm. Shots ring out from their sniper rifle, followed by the roar of Tali's new turret. Blasts of white light shoot out from the turret and into the horde of Collectors, spraying yellow over the immaculate floors.

They see the husks at the lead- emaciated humanoids, shrieking as they charge. Tali simply laughs, sweeping across their ranks until the turret clicks on empty. Then the panel next to her opens and a new turret rises, and she resumes her massacre.

Hypervelocity bullets ripple across the biotic dome, Liara holding both hands up, dropping her submachine gun. She grunts, closing her eyes, furrowing her brow in concentration.

The Collectors themselves disperse- against walls, behind pillars, letting the Husks charge and take the brunt of the fire. No sounds between them, no signals, just instinct, acting with one mind to flank the dome and fire upon it from above, from behind.

Shepard turns with each shot- aim supernal, squeezing trigger to headshot each Collector as soon as she sees them. Wuffles lays down sniper fire on the immense, bipedal things that lurch through the open doors, even as shockwaves of golden light slam into the dome.

Then, Shepard feels it more than sees it. One behind a pillar on the other side of the chamber drops its gun. Golden light issues from its four horizontal eyes and it rises, power flowing into, through it, and it speaks.

"Assuming Direct Control." It steps out, golden light flowing beneath its skin, its form cracking. Shepard aims and fires. The bullet passes through what is no longer there, for the Collector takes a step and crosses the chamber, slamming its fist against the dome.

And the dome shatters. The shockwave throws Tali off her feet, sends Liara to her knees, and leaves only Shepard standing.

"This chamber is now your tomb."

And the Collector sends Shepard flying with a single punch.

 

[GreggHL]

Jane grunts- blinking. The colors swim in front of her, shrinking to spots. She blinks again, and the buzzing in her ears becomes the sounds of gunfire and yelling and the insectoid chittering of the Collectors. Pain runs through her- starting at the chest, where the fist hit, and spreading. Her back, where the punch sent her through a wall. Her head, where the impact smashed her helmet to shit.

A gesture and she assesses her equipment.

Kinetic barriers?

Gone. Not just down, the readout tells her the system is fried. She unclenches her right fist and drops the remains of her rifle, pulling off her smashed helmet and pushing off, rolling out of the way before the glowing Collector's fist hits where he head was.

There is no panic. There is no fear. Instead, she meets the gaze of the Collector, and when it lunges at her she moves- leaping over it with the ease she would run, she would walk. The clawed hand passes under her, blades cutting the ends of her hair. Twisting, turning, she reaches out-

Wraps an arm around the Collector's neck-

And let's momentum do the rest when she clotheslines it, landing on her feet and watching the cCollector drop. The glow, the light, leaves the Collector. It fades into black ash, smoke rising from what was a corpse.

"Assuming Direct Control."

She turns, watching the glowing alien fall from the rafters. Identical to the last one, it lands standing up. It wheels its arms around into a fluid fighting stance, a wheel of golden light appearing behind it.

"Who are you?" Jane asks, low and level.

The Collector seems to blur, crossing the distance between them in a split second. Instincts take over and Jane brings up her fist, deflecting a punch off her cracked gauntlet and bringing her elbow up into the Collector's face. It cracks the black, glasslike skin. But does not stagger, does not fell.

"We are Harbinger."

A chill of memory. She knows that name. How does she know that name?

The fist drives into her chest plate, denting it and sending her to the ground. She skids to a stop, gasping and coughing blood. She meets the gaze of the Collector-

And then the Collector's head explodes with the resounding shot of a sniper rifle.

"Target neutralized, Shepard Commander."

"Thanks, Wuffles," she groans, and climbs to her feet, "Status!"

"Everyone's still alive and are very awesome even without a Solar holding their hand." Aaron appears out of nowhere, helping her stand, and shoves a pair of gauntlets into her hands. "Sorry for the delay, had to find something suitable for you."

She looks at the gauntlets- big enough to cover her entire forarm. Three fingers, the third finger big enough for her ring finger and pinky. She slips them on, and grunts.

"They're heavy."

"Attune with them and they'll be light." He snaps out his staff, the blades glowing on both ends. "Sorry, but I couldn't find anything in orichalcum, but they'll serve better than bare fists."

With that, he flickers and vanishes. She sees him appear on top of one of the larger beasts the Collectors have brought to bear, jamming his blades into its head and firing its cannon into the horde.

"Assuming Direct Control."

She turns, clenching her fist, and swings into the descending Collector. But instead of breaking, instead of denting, the white gauntlet crashes through the Collector's fist, through its arm, and shatters the creature like so much glass.

She stares at the gauntlet for a long moment. Then grins. "Hells yes."

And with that, she leaps through the hole in the wall and back into the fray.

 

[GreggHL]

Shepard leaps through the hole she was thrown through, grabbing a descending Collector and launching it into the horde with a punch that echoes with a thundercrack. Dead collectors surround the ring and the tank, the crackling dome of biotic energy protecting them from the onslaught.

Four spent turrets line the wall, Tali unloading another chain gun into the onrushing wave of black and blue. Glowing Collectors descend from the ceiling- each caught in mid fall and hurled into the horde by Shepard.

Wuffles picks off larger targets, blowing off heads with each shot of their sniper rifle. Through the scope, they spot Aaron on top of a Scion, a spike jammed into its head and firing its immense cannon into the husks.

"Thank you for your patience," Manipura's voice announces from on high, "Champion actualized. Initiating."

The liquid drains from the tank and the plates part with a hiss of steam. From within, a naked woman emerges. With skin like alabaster but a sheen of crystal, cerulean hair falling down her back to nearly her knees. She walks out, and from the floor around her brass and crystal arms rise, covering her with reflective plates over her torso, a white visor over her eyes that ends with flared antennae past her ears.

She extends her arms outwards and the arms assemble a pair of gauntlets that end past her elbows. In front of her, two platforms rise, large enough for her feet. She steps onto them, a pair of white platform boots assembling around her legs.

She walks past Tali and Wuffles. Then the floor parts and a triple barreled chain gun larger than her is placed into her right hand, and a cannon that looks like it was taken off a cruiser into her left.

"Please cover your ears," she says in Manipura's voice, "And find cover."

Tali takes the hint, pushing off, grabbing Liara, and ducking behind the open tank. Wuffles watches, petals extended, and folds into their inert mode.

Then the woman raises both cannons with ease and opens fire. The whir of the chain guns and roar of the cannons fill the room with fire and light, splattering the walls with the amber ichor that serves as the Collectors blood and cutting down the husks by the hundreds, by the thousands.

The roar cuts out and Tali and Liara both look out from behind the tank, to see the woman drop her guns. The walls open and skeletal arms hand her another pair of oversized guns.

They duck behind the tank again, the floor vibrating with the force of gunfire and cannon blasts, watching the miniguns carving along the walls and ceiling, picking off stragglers and anything behind them.

"This room is secure."

She drops the guns on top of the others. Wuffles unfolds, Liara and Tali step out from behind the tank, and a Collector slams into the floor in front of the new woman. A dead Collector. Followed by Jane hopping over a railing.

"You missed one."

The woman nods. "I am Focus, Champion Avatar of Manipura. Your help is appreciated, but we must proceed to the Ansible to contact my superior."

Jane shrugs. "Okay. So how do we get there?"

The ceiling opens, plates retracting to reveal a tunnel lined with glowing blue coils. Focus turns from Shepard to Aaron as the other clay person finishes running over, putting out a fire on the edge of his coat.

"A little warning next time?"

Without a word, Focus walks over to Tali and Liara, grabbing them both by the waist. Blue flame erupts from her feet, and she launches into the tunnel, trailed by the surprised screams of both women.

"Okay, what was that?" Jane asks.

"Plasma thruster array. So, carry or piggyback?"

"What does that-"

Aaron shrugs, and picks up Jane in a bridal carry before blasting off after them. Wuffles watches them go. Petals extend, then retract. Then extend, and retract again.

"No data available."

 

[GreggHL]

Wuffles watches them go. Accelerating through the tunnel, disappearing along the glowing coils which they notice have a similar effect to mass relays. There may be correlation, and so they file that away for later.

They look back- the platform goes immobile and they look over memories. For the Geth, this is instantaneous. FTL communication allows him to access archives, and they notice differences.

Turning, they stare at the opened tank with a glowing, single eye. Petals extend along their head, then flatten. The iris narrows, and a consensus is reached.

"Barla Von, we have an inquiry."

With a pop and a high pitched shriek, the rotund volus appears in front of the tank. The pop, Wuffles notes, is from the act of appearing. The shriek comes from the volus screaming like a small female child.

"How?! How did you see me?!"

"In combat situations, Geth upload memories in realtime to preserve perspectives if the platform is destroyed. Upon reviewing our memories, we noticed that you are present in uploaded memories but absent in local copies."

The volus paces. Patting his chest, mouth light open as he hyperventilates within the suit.

"We theorize that the editing of memories is why Shepard Commander did not notice your absence. Additionally, this method of invisibility does not match known cloaking technologies. Therefor, we have reached a consensus."

Barla Von turns to Wuffles. His eyes wide, mouth light steadily shining.

"You are not a Volus," Wuffles states, "We would like to inquire as to what you are."

The iris narrows, the petals extend. Barla Von coughs, loudly. He glances side to side, and loudly, dramatically sighs.

"Fine." He then walks over, yanks, and pulls off his head.