A/N: Hey guys, so I know it's been a while since I updated Nano Effect, but unfortunately I ran into a massive wall in that story atm and I'm just not sure how to continue it. I've been stuck in the same place for the last.. wow has it really been three months? But its really irritating, I managed to write half of the chapter in like two or three days, but the rest is not letting itself be dragged from my mind.

Anyway I decided to just go ahead and release the first chapter of one of the stories that I've been writing on and off for probably a year now whenever I haven't been able to write NE. A little backstory as it were, I've been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic on and off since it came out and while yes gameplay wise it is exactly like WoW and as such is extremely boring, I am always dragged back by the stories which I love. In particular I always return to the Sith Inquisitor as the Inquisitor is my favorite class in that game. I know that many people prefer the Warrior of the two sith but personally the Inquisitor is right up my ally. So since I love Darth Nox, and I love mass effect I decided to write this, a story where Nox is thrown into the Mass Effect universe right at the beginning of ME2 and will try to take over the universe, corrupting Shepard as he goes.

While originally I had planned to not post any new fics until NE is finished I figured that hey since I've got some severe Writers block in NE and that Star Wars Episode Seven is just around the corner (Hype!) I might as well go ahead and post this.

Now then this is going to get dark pretty quickly. Darth Nox is not a nice guy, he is evil and he is going to be killing and torturing on his quest to take over the milky way, so be warned. As Darth Nox himself says, "Murder and Mayhem awaits!"

Commander Zacharias Shepard crossed his arms as he regarded the leader of the extremist group. He had just gotten back from the colony of freedoms progress, the most recent in a series of attacks, where he had just confirmed that the collectors were behind the abduction of every human from the colony. Before that he had woken up to an attack on the facility he was in, soon learning that apparently two years had passed and that he had died in an ambush that destroyed his ship, only for Cerberus to bring him back. He hated having to work with the Illusive Man, after all that he had learned about Cerberus, however he was forced to see his point. If no one else was investigating the Reapers and the collector attacks, then he would grit his teeth and bear with it. "You're holding something back. how do you know the Reapers are involved?" he asked, testing the man infront of him.

"The patterns are there, buried in the data." Was his simple response. "The Council and the Alliance want to believe the Reaper threat died with Sovereign. You and I know better. I won't wait until the Reapers are on the march. We need to take the fight to them."

Shepard nodded. "If this is a war, I'll need an army." he paused for a moment "Or a really good team."

The Illusive man smiled. "I've already compiled a list of soldiers, scientists and mercenaries. You'll get dossiers on the best of them. Finding them and convincing them to work with you could be challenging. And that already brings me to the first complication."

"Well this is starting out well." Shepard muttered.

The Cerberus leader gave a slight grimace. "Unfortunately one of the men I had selected to join you was stationed at a facility that recently went dark. I would ask that you go to this facility and investigate. Find and extract him."

Shepard raised an eyebrow "Who is he?"

TIM as Shepard had started calling him in his head took a long pull from his cigarette. "An ex-alliance N7 operative. He was rather incensed about the Alliance refusing to acknowledge the reapers and joined Cerberus. I'm sure that you will actually find him to be quite agreeable."

"Fine. I'll go look for him. Where is this facility?"

"You fill find the facility on Xawin, in the Horse Head Nebula. I will send you the coordinates." TIM paused. "Before you leave two more things. First, I would suggest you go to Omega. Find Mordin Solus. He's a brilliant salarian scientist and my sources tell me he should be able to find a counter to the seeker swarms."

Shepard narrowed his eyes. "I haven't even started and you seem to be telling me what to do?"

"I'm giving you direction." The Illusive Man corrected. "What you do with it is up to you. I'm sure you'll make the right decision."

"Fine. And your last thing?"

"I've found a pilot I think you might like. I hear he's one of the best. Someone you can trust."

Before Shepard could ask what the hell he meant with that, his hologram disappeared and the holographic tube that had surrounded him started to lower back down. Hearing the door behind him open he turned around as he heard a familiar voice. "Hey commander. Just like old times huh?"

"So, who's this operative we're supposed to get, and what's at this facility?" Shepard asked looking over at Miranda who sat opposite him in the shuttle.

"Samuel Michaels." he said, opening his omni-tool. "Also known as the Lion of Elysium. He was one of many who left the alliance after battle of the citadel. He was very outspoken about the reapers following your death. Too outspoken, our sources say that the Council put pressure on the alliance to silence him. They in turn gave Michaels a choice, either to stop telling the truth or be discharged. He decided to leave of his own will and joined Cerberus instead. As for this facility we're going to, unfortunately I don't know much. The only thing that the Illusive man has informed me of is that its purpose was to study some kind of unknown ship they found drifting in space."

"Reaper?" Shepard asked narrowing his eyes.

Miranda shook her head. "The Illusive man did tell me that it wasn't a Reaper or Collector ship. But something completely different."

"Sounds like Cerberus was messing with things they shouldn't have. Again." Shepard muttered.

"Some could say that the lazarus project is something that we shouldn't have 'Messed with' either. Would you agree with them commander?"

Shepard stared off at the wall of the shuttle in silence. In truth he wasn't sure what his feelings on his resurrection were. he pulled himself out of his thoughts, pulling out his shotgun as he felt the shuttle landing. "Its pretty cold here. You sure you're equipped to deal with it?" he asked looking skeptically at Miranda's catsuit as he sealed his helmet. "Well if you're sure." he said when Miranda nodded. The shuttle doors slid open, revealing a harsh blizzard that severely limited his visibility.. Taking a step forward he sank ankle deep in the snow that had piled up on the landing pad. Peering through the blizzard, he spotted a walkway leading up to a door built into the side of a mountain.

Trudging forward in the snow he reached the door and stepped to the side, motioning for Miranda to enter the codes he had been given. After a short moment, the door slid open and shepard stepped inside, followed by the two cerberus operatives. As the doors slid closed behind them, Shepard took in the room which he had just entered. Chaos would be the best way to describe it. Dead guards lay everywhere, pools of blood starting to dry lay around the corpses.

"What happened here?" Jacob asked in horror looking around at the devastation around them.

Shepard grimaced as he knelt down next one of the bodies, examining it closely. he frowned as he noticed something very unusual. "Do you guys see this? Some of these guards seem to have been bitten, clawed and beaten to death. And look here. These guards, have blood in their mouths, on their hands… And look at their faces, skin as white as a sheet, yet their veins are black. This reminds me of the husks that the geth used, but different. Those were blue and had definite synthetic parts."

Shepard saw Jacob and Miranda exchange worried glances. "Come on, we need to investigate further. Maybe there are still some people alive here."

Shepard closed yet another scientist log. He had found quite a few of these logs throughout the facility and from what he could gather, Cerberus had found a ship with technology completely foreign to them drifting in space. When they boarded it to investigate they found it to be in relatively good condition, in addition to finding a masked humanoid alien in some kind of stasis chamber. They had immediately towed the ship away and brought it to this facility. He wasn't quite sure how they managed to land the ship without flying it but he supposed they could have put it in the cargo bay of a frigate or cruiser if it was small enough. The scientists had been unable to conduct any scans on the person in the stasis chamber, as something, presumably the energy emanating from the chamber, kept disrupting their scans. They were however able to learn about much of the ship's technology. Apparently it didn't use any kind of mass effect technology at all, fired energy weapons and used ion engines for propulsion. Cerberus hadn't been able to tell if the ship was capable of FTL travel or not before the problems started occurring.

These problems apparently started small, a few scientists and guards started suffering from short term amnesia but then soon after regaining their memory. They would sometimes suffer blackouts, not remembering what they'd been doing in the past few hours. Then it got worse, the blackouts started happening more and more often and the victims started going crazy for the duration before snapping back to reality. As time passed the victims began to no longer wake from their ailments and went completely insane, starting to babble about trying to save the "Dark Lord". Those unaffected by whatever was going on started to think that the alien was this "Dark Lord" something that Shepard was starting to agree with. Not long after, the victims turned hostile to everyone else and just started beating, biting and clawing the others to death. It seemed very similar to the "indoctrination" that he had witnessed during his hunt for Saren. But the ship seemed to be nowhere near known reaper tech, and the bodies that he found didn't seem like the husks as he remembered them.

Finally after watching a log with a timestamp of just a few hours ago, where the scientist recording got set upon by a group of the insane, Miranda spoke up. "Commander, I don't know if we should continue investigating here. It seems to be far too dangerous. We don't know what caused this insanity and for all we know we are being exposed to the same thing."

Shepard frowned and shook his head. "I don't think it will affect us this quickly. Besides if this is Reaper tech then we need to investigate it. And there may be some people still alive and sane in here. We need to get them out and hopefully if we can find the source of this insanity, probably this "dark lord" then we can stop it and save those afflicted by it."

"Commander" Jacob interrupted holding a hand to his ear "Can you hear that?"

Shepard fell silent and strained his ears. At first he couldn't hear anything, but then echoing through the corridors ahead of him he heard the very distant sound of gunfire. "There's still someone alive in here! Let's move it. Double time!" Starting to run towards the sound of gunfire Shepard began to hear sounds that sounded as if a pack of rabid animals were attacking something, causing him to increase his speed even more. After running through various corridors he finally arrived in a large room, in the middle of which stood a small frigate sized ship, about one hundred meters long. Two triangular wings jutted out on either side of what he assumed to be the cockpit that joined together at the back to form the main body of the ship. It was covered in black armor plating and on either side of the wings it had cannons the like he had never seen before. No doubt those laser cannons he had heard the scientists talking about in their log. However what grabbed his attention was the horde of crazed people, all either wearing guard or Scientist uniforms, trying to run up a ramp which he assumed led into the ship itself. he heard the staccato of an assault rifle and spotted multiple people tumble off the side of the ramp, dead. The others pressed on, ignoring their dead, rushing up the ramp, all the time releasing this hideous growling, wordless babble.

As Shepard stared at the scene in shock, a few of the crazed people spotted him and began running towards him, looking less like humans and more like feral animals. As they got closer, shepard saw that their eyes seemed to be glowing with a faint purple light. Reluctantly pulling out his assault rifle he started letting loose short bursts at the incoming threat. They continued to rush towards him, even as a few of them fell to his accurate shots. A second later and Jacob and Miranda both opened up on the incoming insane Cerberus personnel. It didn't take long for the other feral humans to notice the new threat and come charging towards him, but this time he wasted no time in taking them down with accurate shots to the head.

The last feral guard fell a minute later, and Shepard slowly lowered his rifle, looking around at all the dead bodies with regret.

A moment later he heard a voice call out from the entrance to the ship. "Hey, who's out there?"

Swallowing once more he took off at a light jog towards the ship. "I'm Commander Shepard. What's been going on around here?"

"Shepard?" The voice asked incredulously before muttering something that he couldn't make out. A moment later and a tall, well built man stepped out from around the ramp. The man saluted as he saw him. "Samuel Michaels. Am I glad to see someone here."

"Michaels." Shepard nodded in greeting. "What the hell happened here?"

The Cerberus soldier sighed "Hell if I know for sure. I just know that a bunch of people went insane. And ended up killing everyone except me. They really seemed to want to get in here. I'm guessing it has to do with that person who's in stasis in there." He said, motioning up into the ship.

"Do you know who it is in there?" Shepard asked wondering if he knew anything new as he started walking up the ramp into the ship. .

The Ex-Alliance soldier shook his head. "I don't know who, or even what race he is. He looks human, but is wearing some kind of robe and mask, and the stasis chamber he's in prevents us from getting any readings from scans. I'm almost completely sure that he's the source of this insanity. If he's not then something in this ship is. I'd suggest we destroy it."

"Hmm." The ramp led up into a small room that he guessed could be an airlock of some kind. A corridor on the right wall of the room curved towards the front of the ship into a large room with some kind of device sitting in the middle of it. On either side of the room were two doors that opened into corridors while in the three other corners of the room where additional doors, two of which led into smaller rooms and the third led into another corridor. The angular design of the interior, coupled with the red lighting put Shepard on edge.

"The stasis chamber is over there." Michaels said motioning towards the room in the opposite corner of the corridor that led out.

Taking one last look around the ship, Shepard stepped towards the room in question, holstering his shotgun as he did so. Looking in he saw, tucked away in the corner to his right a rather normal looking bed, while directly ahead of him was what looked like some kind of glass tube, with rings of energy emanating from the top and bottom of the tube. Floating in the middle of the tube, arms spread out slightly to its side, head raised as if staring up at the ceiling was what could definitely be a human man. He was wearing black robes with black armored chestplate, that by Shepard's standards looked to be too light to stop any kind of weapons fire. Vicious looking spikes protruded from his gauntlets. His head was covered in a helmet, the mask of which had a distinct T-shape visor with various strange runes inscribed upon it. Just looking at the menacing feature of the mask caused Shepard to shiver involuntarily. He wasn't sure if it was just a side effect of the design of the ship and the figure floating unnaturally in the stasis tube, but he could almost feel a malevolent, dark and oppressive presence watching. he shivered slightly, as it seemed that the temperature dropped a few degrees.

"Do you feel that?" Michaels muttered beside him. "That cold, dark feeling?"

Shepard nodded "Have you felt it before?"

"I- Growing darkness… Smothering- So cold." Shepard glanced sharply over at Michaels who had started shivering violently.

"Michaels what's the matter?" he asked watching in growing horror as the man continued muttering to himself.

"Choking, no light. So cold…-" Michaels suddenly fell silent, the violent shaking stopping and he stood still for a moment before his mouth opened once more to speak.

"Ahh. Finally it works." The voice that emanated from his mouth had changed completely. No longer was it filled with slight panic and exhaustion, it was completely calm, taking on a honeyed, modulated tone that put Shepard on edge. Michaels eyes, which had closed earlier opened, causing Shepard to gasp and stumble backward in shock. The previously ice blue eyes of Michaels had taken on an extremely sickly yellow color that looked completely unnatural on a human. "Well, hello there. I don't think we've been introduced." Michaels smirked, the expression looking almost predatory on his face.

Shepard drew his pistol in one swift motion, aiming it at Michaels, pushing his fear aside as he realized that it was no longer Michaels that was talking to him. "Who are you? And what did you do with Michaels?"

"Oh, Michaels has taken a… leave of absence." He informed him dismissively "As for who I am, you may call me Darth Nox." He paused for a moment, glancing at the pistol that was aimed squarely at his head. "And do put that down. You wouldn't want anyone to get hurt now would you?" He asked amused.

"I don't care who you are. Let Michaels go right now." he ordered, keeping his pistol aimed steadily at the man.

An ugly angry look suddenly crossed his face and before Shepard could react he violently waved his hand towards him and he was suddenly blasted backward by an invisible force. "I am sith, Human. No one gives me orders!"

Shepard gasped as he slammed into the wall his eyesight darkened for a brief second as his head collided with the wall. Shaking his head he noticed that Miranda and Jacob had also been blasted back into the wall beside him and that Michaels had walked over to the stasis tube where the figure was still floating. "What do you want? he coughed slowly getting back to his feet.

Michaels glanced over at him "I wish to break my chains, commander Shepard."

Shepard watched in slight confusion as Michaels started tapping on a holographic interface that had appeared when he approached. His eyes widened as he realized what he was doing. "Michaels! Why are you-" he broke off mid sentence when Michaels fell to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut, apparently finished inputting his commands. The low hum that had permeated the room spiked for a second and then faded away at the same time as the rings of energy.

"Michaels!" Scrambling forward shepard grabbed his unresponsive body and dragged him back away from the stasis chamber that was obviously shutting down. Dropping him off next to Miranda he motioned for the Cerberus operative to aid Michaels as he turned his attention back to the stasis chamber just in time to see the figure fall to the ground, dropping to one knee. he raised his pistol instinctively at the masked person as he stood back up and stepped out of the chamber.

"We went over this, before Commander. I suggest you lower your weapon."

Shepard normally wasn't one to succumb to fear or threats, yet for some reason, when this "Darth Nox" as he demanded he be called, ordered him to lower his pistol, he couldn't help but lower it shakily for a moment before calling up his inner strength and raising it once more. "Maybe you should ask nicely." he said glaring at the masked figure in front of him.

A dark chuckle sounded from the man as he slowly raised his hood, which shrouded his entire mask in darkness, leaving only the lower part visible in the dark lighting. "You are lucky, Commander Shepard. I've killed people for merely approaching me."

"I'd like to see you try and kill me." he challenged disgusted at hearing about how casually the man had talked about killing people.

"It would be so easy." He hissed starting to slowly prowl around him. "Crush your throat, suffocate you. Drive you insane, make you kill your friends before killing yourself. Crush you underneath a rock. Or just plain old electrocution. So many ways to murder someone." Nox stopped his walking and stood staring directly at Shepard. he could feel his gaze, even through his mask piercing his very being. "Yes. I can feel your fear. You hide it well but it grows ever stronger. You fear me, yet you also fear something else. Tell me, Shepard. What are these Reapers that haunt your mind."

Shepard narrowed his eyes as the man in front of him spoke. "Are you reading my mind?" he asked incredulously. he had never heard of something like the power that this man had. He seemed to have some kind of power that let him throw things around like biotics, but if what this man was saying now, he could also get into people's mind.

"Not so much reading as merely listening in." He mused, the words not fitting well with his tone. "But you changed the subject. What are these reapers?"

"Why would you care about what they are?" Shepard challenged. "Why would you care what haunts poor little me?"

"Well I could care less for your own fears. However I am unfortunately in this galaxy now. And by the look of my ship it's been severely ravaged by incompetents and is in no position to get me out of here. So since I am trapped here I have to know who to kill and these Reapers sound like the prime target."

"Fine. If you're so interested. The Reapers are extremely advanced artificial intelligent starships that come every fifty thousand years to wipe out all civilization."

"Interesting. What about these collectors? What are they?"

Shepard winced as he was suddenly assaulted by memories of his death at the mention of the Collectors.

"Well well well. What is this? Death? How curious. You are full of suprises Shepard. Full of them. very intriguing. And now you are hunting these Collectors. I wonder." He trailed off into silence for a moment until finally turning his focus back on Shepard. "I have a…. proposition for you commander. I will join your ship's crew and help you destroy these… collectors. You will find that my powers will be of great value to you."

Shepard's eyes widened in surprise, whatever he had thought he would say it was definitely not this. "You expect me to just let you join my crew, after having seen you drive everyone here insane?"

"Yes. You don't know the true extent of my power. I can crush these collectors and anyone who stands in my path. I have witnessed galactic war first hand. I have fought on many battlefields against many enemies. You need my aid Shepard. I have foreseen it."

"Oh you have foreseen it? I suppose you can see into the future now?" Shepard asked scathingly.

"Yes. The force gives me the ability to peer into the future. Cut through the clouds of the present to witness the future. And I can assure you that should you decide to… leave me behind, you will fail. Your galaxy will fall to fire and ruin and in your final hour you will look back to this day and wish you had accepted my offer."

"I don't believe you. No one can see the future."

"Then let me show you for yourself." Nox said as it seemed like the temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees and he felt the overwhelming presence of darkness envelop his mind. his vision darkened until it looked like he was looking through a tunnel of dark saw himself fighting the strange buglike creatures that he recognized to be collectors. He saw himself fighting massive, four legged floating creatures with human husk heads in its mouth as it shrieked and fired a massive energy beam at him. He saw himself leading a team of shadowy figures in a dark hive, fighting more collectors. He saw a large station explode. He saw the arrival of the reapers. He saw himself leading team after team against the reapers in futile as the reapers continued gaining ground and watched as more and more people died until finally he was standing on a barren wasteland, surrounded by everyone he ever knew, watching as hundreds of reapers descended upon them and as the reapers all fired as one. Finally he felt himself be wrenched back into reality, gasping for air as Miranda and Jacob both questioned if he were alright.

"And this is the future?" he asked hesitantly.

The hooded, masked figure infront of him nodded. "It is the future that you will face should you decline my proposal."

"Shepard!" he turned his stunned gaze to Miranda. "Are you alright? What did he do to you?"

"He showed me the future." he mumbled in shock, at what had just occurred. Slowly he turned to face Nox "Very well. I accept your proposal."

"Shepard! You can't do that. This man is a complete unknown, he's dangerous you can't let him on the Normandy."

"This is my decision Ms. Lawson. The Illusive man put me in charge of this mission and I feel that we will need the skills of Nox on our mission."

Miranda Lawson watched worriedly as Commander Shepard and man known as Darth Nox shook hands. Normally she would have jumped at the chance to bring someone of Nox's obvious power on board to help take down the collectors, but she couldn't help but feel uneasy at the way he talked. Not to mention how he was a complete unknown to him. She remembered how dismissive he had been about taking possessing Michaels, how casually he had talked about killing them. How he said that he had killed people for merely approaching him. The confidence and arrogance that seeped off of him, how he didn't seem to regard them as a threat in any way, yet didn't give the impression of underestimating their skills. Miranda shivered unconsciously as Nox's helmet turned slightly to stare at him. The intimidating mask forcing him to avert his gaze from him.

"Come on. Lets go." Shepard ordered finally holstering his pistol and started to walk out of the ship.

"There are some artifacts that I must take with me." Nox said walking out toward a different part of the ship. Curious despite herself Miranda slowly followed him to a large room that seemed to be some kind of storage room. By the time she looked into the room Nox was standing in the middle of it, with multiple objects floating already around him and a couple of boxes started floating up towards him as well. She watched in awe all the objects started to float around him, marveling at his control.

She had never seen or even heard of biotics having this level of control as he saw several smaller objects float towards a box that opened as they approached and closed once they had been deposited inside them. Finally the last crate closed with a sharp click and Nox strode out of the room, ignoring Miranda as he walked past her, crates still floating behind him.

A/N: Well there you go, the first chapter of this fic. Now I plan on having this run all the way past Mass Effect 3. As for what kind of Sith Nox is, i.e if he's a Sorcerer or an Assassin, I kinda made him a hybrid of the two. His focus is definitely a Sorcerer, he mainly fights with the force, he is a master in all the aspects of the dark side. And he isn't just a master in one aspect of the force, like Lightning, Madness, Corruption or telekinesis, but I've made him be extremely profficient in all of them with a definite mastery in all the uses of Force lightning. He's no where near as good as the dread master in the arts of Madness but he is more than proficient in its use, as seen here in this chapter. Corruption as a "healing" art is definitely revamped. Its going to be alot more about sacrificing one for another. In order to heal a wound with the dark side life will need to be sacrificed in return. Now thats not to say that its going to be a force power that he can just use mid combat to heal himself and kill an enemy. Its going to require a ritual and some actualy effort.

Oh and while Nox will definitely be extremely powerful in the field of combat, he is a Dark Lord of the Sith after all, he's not just going to be able to go around murdering everyone and subjugating the galaxy on his own. He'd be killed pretty quickly on his own, no matter how powerful a sith you are, if an entire army goes up against him by himself he will die. He's going to need to gather an army and use intrigue and guile to aid him. And he will have some definite weaknesses to prevent this from becoming "Darth Nox stomps everyone into the ground and is now emperor of the galaxy. The end." Fic. There will be setbacks, there will be times that Nox gets beaten, where his plans fail. But there will also be times that his plans work flawlessly and he annhiliates enemies. A good mix of everything.

Well I could continue with much more but I'm going to stop here. One thing that I do want to say is that do not expect this to be a very regularly updated fic. My focus will be on NE at least until NE1 is finished. I may take a break, write up good sizable stockpile of NE2 before I post that. I also might decide to release a couple of my other fics but I'm not gonna promise anything.

Well thats me done, like I said don't expect this to be updated regularly but I do have a couple of chapters just about done that I may end up posting sometime soonish. Let me know what you guys think, is it good, bad or just meh. It really helps me out if I get some feedback. Until next time.

~LEGION