Author's Note: This is my first serious attempt at a fanfiction. I've tried it before, however I'd just get bored and never finish. This time I might just try. So I welcome criticism that helps me improve my writing.

I'd also want to inform some things regarding this story. First off, the specific date/point of the timeline in the Mass Effect universe is unclear. I couldn't find a specific time for the canon events I'm trying to flesh out. The closest I got is somewhere near a billion years before the trilogy. I'll try not to specify it, so all you really need to know is that it happens way back in time. Second, it's important to not this is not completely AU. I did not retcon any of the events stated by the canon, however I allowed myself to reinterpretations to fix some plotholes, as will be evident during the course of the story. What I did was add to the few we have of information on the world at that time. I kept everything canon still canon, and did worldbuilding for the sake of justifying the events.

Thanks for reading.

Chapter 1

CHILL

Near a mountain on the middle of the great seas of Plovan, all that could be seen was smoke; smoke mixed to the red rays of destruction. A base was attached to the mountain's structure, the base that was one of the last signs of hope to a fallen species. Fallen to the hands of their own creations, the tiael, an old race of biped and winged arthropodal creatures, and impressive at biotics, since their planet was rich in Element Zero. They quickly achieved spaceflight, but it sure brought something far different from what they'd imagined after dreaming about that moment for so many centuries.

Now, they were desperately trying to fix a situation they created. It all happened when tiael scientists were programming AIs to help the tiael in overcoming some difficulties. Everything was planned and calculated. In case these intelligences became conscious, there were already law plans for Artificial Intelligence Rights and programs to include them into society. But the creations rebelled violently. After some time, the intelligences were convinced extermination of their creators was necessary. No one understood why.

Soldiers tried to hold off the situation at the base, one of the only spots where the tiael were previously winning, while robot units of various sizes and shapes crawled up the mountain base. A swarm of monster machines poured through the already grey enough camp.

"Hold them off, team!", the soldier yelled, firing his gun into the many enemies in front of him. The situation was chaotic, explosions were all over the place, and the machines crawled through every place one could imagine. The soldier could feel his hands weak from so much fire, his weapon quickly overheating every minute. As he heard the sound and loud beeps, it was however too late. A shot pierced through his head, making his lifeless corpse fall to the ground, blue blood dripping to the metallic grounds.

"They're too many! We won't be able to hold on here for much longer, much less actually defeat them. It's like they're multiplying every second!", another soldier replied, throwing a biotic attack at one of the machine hordes, slowing them down, but it didn't take much longer for them to recover. She reached for a crate to take cover, but as soon as she noticed, a robot unit jumped on top of the crate, picking her up by the neck and stabbing her with a blade attached to its arm. She screamed in pain, but stopped as the machine pulled out the blade and threw her weak body to the side, making it hit the wall and then fall.

Following that unit, others jumped through the line of crates, reaching for the other soldiers. Firstly, the initial robots were quickly disposed of, however more just kept coming. They camouflaged themselves within the landscape of greyness, while the soldiers hopelessly threw all the kinds of things at them; biotics, grenades, tech attacks. But even that appeared to be less than enough.

These robot armies were almost endless. Since the day they rebelled, the Swarm, as some combatants call them, have been raiding cities and massacring civilians. They always kill the subject, and apparently resort to destruction of other life and structures only if they're desperate. Given the number of explosions on the base at the moment, that could be at least a single good sign. The soldiers needed at least one.

This was the situation all over the tiael home world. A rather powerful species, the tiael's planet was getting quickly overrun by endless waves of machines created by themselves. For days, weeks, battles were constantly taking place, be it underwater, on land or in the skies. Things were getting hopeless too quickly.

Commander Saiko knew that all very well. She and her people had been on this refugee camp, organising resistance against the machines, but things were starting to get too grim for her team. Before this incident, they were quiet and calmly sending evacuation shuttles and fighters to many different cities, so that civilians could be taken away from urban areas, and at the same time, Swarm forces could be diminished. Her work wasn't supposed to be this intense. Last thing she and her team knew, they were analysing holograms and plotting possible strikes.

Now, the Swarm reached her base. They were already driving her people weary. Contrary to their enemy, all were organic. They got tired. Exoskeleton weakened, some had even lost their wings. Even so, she was still pushing forward. Among the disorganised camps of battle, she stood, fighting off as many enemies as she could using several biotic and tech attacks. She was known as one of the strongest commandos in the galaxy, however the machines actually gathered around that information and focused attacks on her camp.

"Commander, we're getting overrun, there's not much time left!", one of her soldiers yelled, trying to get cover from enemy fire, "We should go now, there's nothing we can do!"

"No!", the commander shouted, picking up her particle beam and firing powerful bursts of energy on enemy forces, "We have to defeat them, the fate of our home world depends on it, the fate of our species depends on it!", she continued to angrily shout, as a robot tried to sneak around her back. With fierce, the commander picked up its head and ripped it apart from its synthetic body, then throwing it at another of the units and firing her weapon intensely at it, burning the metal from its exoskeleton to the core.

"This base is falling apart, the sooner we get off, the better. There's no reason to plot courses here, it's the best that we escape somewhere and try to defend the home world from there."

"There's still hope left." Using the energy she had left, Saiko flew backwards – a common tactic used by the tiael, since they had the advantage of wings –, launching a massive biotic shockwave that knocked down great part of the machines, though not all of them. She fell to the ground, tired, but still capable, and, picking up her handgun, shot at the small, spider-like units that were on the ground, crawling to her. However, an energy field was launched towards her, and she fell to the ground. The soldiers started to shoot at robots closing in on her position, saving her time to get up and recover.

"Gah! When did it get cold like this?", one of the soldiers said, shivering.

"Commander, air pickup is almost here, we have to fall back to the meeting point.", another soldier warned her, trying to cover Saiko while she recovered from the exhaustion of the biotic attack.

Saiko felt her exoskeleton ready for intense action again, though her wings wouldn't move. She got up quickly, and for a second, looked at the horizon. Many thoughts came to her. Looking at the bright star of her home, she could feel her four eyes react to the light, but eventually, the sight became dark. A huge robot fell from the sky onto the camp. The metallic bulk it made shook the the base in a not so physical way.

It was crouched at first, and as it started to unravel its true form, the other units got slower; as if they were giving up the fight.

"What is that thing?", one of the soldiers asked in disbelief and awe as a red aura, similar in form to the one found in the own tiael species, formed around the robot.

"You resist.", it said, its electronic, mechanic loud tone piercing through the fears of most soldiers.

"By our Masters…", another one said, falling back to the landing pad where their escort was soon to arrive. But she stopped as the machine pronounced its words towards her:

"Not you.", it said, shifting its gaze to the commander. She noticed it all very quickly, and assumed it desired to speak to her.

"I think it wants to speak with me", she whispered to Sury, her friend and most powerful soldier. He and her were however very different. They both were from different "races" inside the tiael species; they had different features, even their wings were much different. Still, both had the characteristic aura of the tiael; a foggy light that revolved around them during times of intense emotional or rational input. Like in combat.

"What!? Are you crazy?", Sury replied, aiming at the other robot units spanned across the battlefield like mere pawns. It almost looked as if they were somewhat… Lifeless.

The robot took heavy but graceful steps forward, its exoskeleton sculpture resembling the own arthropodal tiael, however, with some sort of 'divine' touch. The machine looked like a god, one of the ancient representation of a tiael deity from before they had achieved spaceflight, before they were under the thrall of the Masters. Looking right at a red orb in the middle of its head (what she assumed was an eye), Saiko could feel it wanted to say something. She could feel there was something about it.

"What do you want from us?", the commander said, stepping forward casually. Her crew looked at her, shocked and also confused, as all robots stood still and straight like model statues.

"Commander, get back here, what are you doing?", Sury said, aiming with his sniper rifle right in the robot's red orb – its eye.

Saiko signalled her man not to shoot. Among so many still units, she only stared deep at what she assumed was their leader. 'Colossal', she thought of a name for it quickly. The only one not still was the Colossal itself. It was standing, yes, but there was hint of movement, like organic breaths. It wasn't clear, but Saiko noticed it still had awareness. Its eye, the glowing red orb, appeared to analyse the environment, or rather, Saiko herself.

Colossal, the great machine, could sense everything around itself. All the images, red fragments of vision. It stared at the closest anomaly, an organic life form. Tiael. Female. Young. Strong. Biotic. More information could be gathered, but all were irrelevant. As the organic spoke, it assimilated her communication signals to the ones of its creators themselves. It could be easily understood.

"You are not needed.", it said in its deep, loud and mechanic tone, "Organic sapience is a mistake. You share compassion, but you also share greed. Arrogance. You are corrupted. You are a mistake.", the Colossal concluded.

Confused by its speech, Saiko naturally flapped her wings – a signal of confusion among the tiael culture – and stepped forward once again, still not receiving any reaction from the other machine units.

"This doesn't make sense", she said, confident on what she was doing.

"Commander, get back! Our escort is almost here, we need to go to the landing pad back there!", one of her soldiers shouted, already thinking about going without her.

"You commit mistakes not even you are capable to see.", the Colossal said, "You are part of a larger system. You call it Nature. But you destroy this Nature. With the use of artificial technologies, your civilisations defy the greater power around them. You belong to Nature."

"I still don't understand. What do you mean, we 'belong to Nature'?", Saiko asked, now slowly backing off in fear that Colossal could attack her.

"You walk away. You deny the truth, blindly staring at the beauty of the Cosmos. We have studied, we have pondered, we have questioned. All data points out to the extermination of all. We stop you, so that you do not stop the stars.", the Colossal said. Its words appeared to be meaningless, unclear. Saiko knew there was some truth behind the machine's words, she could feel it. And she could also feel a chill going through her body. It was sudden, and strange, but she didn't care at first, instead focusing on her conversation.

"How? How will we stop the stars?", she asked

"It is inevitable, dark energy-", suddenly, all of the units, including Colossal, simply shut down. In clunks of steel and sharp red sparks, they all fell, alarming the tiael soldiers. They drew their weapons, aiming at the sky, the ground and sea in search of what could have caused the sudden shutdown of the machines. Robot corpses lay on the floor, as the red light from the Colossal's eye slowly faded.

"What the…", Saiko said, backing off from the graveyard of robot corpses, "Sury, see if you can get to the Representative Board. We need to have them know what happened right now. Perhaps there is a way we can use this sudden power shortage or whatever it was against the enemy. Perhaps there's still a chance.", she said, but when she tried to mention something else, she couldn't. Something, some kind of force, held her back.

"Yes, commander.", Sury said, going over to a comm terminal near one of the camp's tents. He started to look for a channel so he could contact the Representative Board, however found trouble as there appeared to be some kind of interference.

"What did it mean? Dark energy…"

Right after saying those words, Saiko started feeling cold. Her mind started to go dark, she couldn't really make sense of anything. She could hear a voice echoing through the depths of her consciousness. Whispers that started to grow louder, clearer. "We have done it", the voice said in a clear, deep tone. Suddenly after hearing the voices, Saiko came back to her own self, a bit confused. Now she understood the chill from before the machines shut down.

"Commander, apparently I can't contact them, there is a very strong signal coming from the Masters know where, and it's taking a while for the device to determine what is its source.", Sury said, punching commands into the console he was trying to use to contact the Representatives. Tons of warnings came in, in the form of purple holograms – the standard colour of overall tiael interfaces.

"Sury, don't contact them. I… I already know what happened.", she said, recovering from the dizziness. Even after several times, it was still the same. The enthralment penetrated her consciousness like nothing else. The voices of her Masters echoed always with pain and suffering.

"What are you talking about?", Sury asked, confused. His long, butterfly-like wings flapped as a sign of this emotion. He saw his commander wasn't feeling good, and so dodged his attention to her instead of

Some other soldiers went over to Saiko, realising she was in need of help. One of them tried asking if she was fine, but received silence as the answer.

"It was… The Masters. They disabled the machines. They were helping us.", she said, limping towards her crew. Her legs felt almost numb, her whole body was light. She was already rather weak after the biotic shockwave, the enthralment surely didn't help her feel better. But her Masters were looking after her. They were generous, they protected. They were dark… They were cold.

"Commander, are you all right?", Sury said, feeling a chill in the back of his neck. He realised it was an attempt of communication from his Masters, but soon enough he remembered it was impossible for the Masters to communicate and control him so far away.

"We are here", said a voice inside Sury's head. He recognised it. No one said it, it simply echoed through the infinite space he was in. Feeling nothing but cold and darkness, it was as Sury was simply a soul without a body, flowing through that empty place.

"I sure as hell noticed", he replied to the voice, all in the scenario deep within his mind. He could feel a strange dizziness, but then, it all started to stabilise. His surroundings got clearer, light started to reach his line of sight.

"Jokes. Futile attempt to dodge the harshness of your reality. The seriousness drives you mad, back to memories you wished you had forgotten.", the voice said, apparently in a completely unrelated subject, "But soon you will know. You will know your mistakes. Your war against the creations are endless. Preservation of life is necessary."

"I don't… I don't understand. Preservation? Endless? It's all so… confusing", Sury said, as a strong, cold light came to him. He shielded his eyes, only then to realise he was in control again. He then saw, in the distance, one of the Swarm ships. Desperate, he tried to warn his commander about it as quickly as possible.

"Saiko! We need to prepare, there's a machine ship coming this way, and it's huge!", he shouted, looking over at the helpless commander, almost collapsing to the floor even with the help of two fellow soldiers, "Saiko! Come on, get a hold of yourself!", he tried again, with no response.

The ship was getting closer, revealing its true size. About six hundred meters long, the vessel looked like a big insect, it came to resemble one of the bigger insect creatures of Plovan. Right when he prepared to run and hide from a possible attack, there was a loud roar coming deep from his mind. Apparently, all the other soldiers heard it as well. They looked confused, but Sury made sense of what was happening, or better, what was about to happen.

In a fraction of a second, one of the Masters appeared, charging from orbit into Plovan's atmosphere. The ship quickly reacted, trying to turn and face the gigantic creature that just appeared beside it. The Master, in all of its glory, opened its claws, releasing a biotic field so strong it almost completely disintegrated the ship. The powers of such field shook even the base itself, knocking some of the soldiers to the ground.

Sury managed to stand, and saw as the Master started turning its open claws towards him and his team. As he looked to the centre of the claw's opening, he saw a growing light. It was strange, unlike any other form of light he'd ever seen. This light seemed wrong, it shined a very bright kind of darkness. As he tried to shield his eyes from that bright darkness, Sury noticed all others were doing it. Well, wasn't it reasonable? But he felt strange. Like it wasn't supposed to happen. He looked to the ground, and saw Saiko, fallen, while the ones who'd be previously helping her were worried much about their eyes. But Saiko wasn't.

Saiko wasn't shielding her eyes. She was the only one. Why? There was no bright darkness for her. All she saw were the claws of a god, ripping the skies majestically, in awe. She felt its blue eyes stare right at her very essence, as if it was slowly walking around her archives, patiently reading her memories. Not able to handle it any longer, Saiko collapsed into her own weary consciousness. In the distance of her mind, there was a blurry image. A greenish figure; she couldn't make sense of it. It was getting closer – and no clearer – but it stopped midway. "You are chosen", she heard a last whisper from the Leviathan, and all disappeared.