I hit the ground hard, Kaiden Alenko, current... former lover, stood above me pistol in his left hand and a Warp bubble around his right. I spit the blood out of my mouth, which has had an interesting taste since I was rebuilt; more on that later.

" The Alliance hasn't trusted you since Cerberus put you back together from spare parts of the real Shephard." Kaiden said, his handsome face smiling down on me, black hair sweat soaked and out of place.

" Everyone always said you were boring, an Alliance puppet with one layer of interest. I always thought there might be more." I smiled with bloody teeth.

Kaiden frowned at me, " You aren't the Shephard I loved. You're just a puppet!"

" I guess Alliance Assassin adds a few layers. Figured you as more of an ass kisser secretary to some Admiral personally." I laughed at my own wit before getting kicked in face.

Purple bangs swayed in my face, my vision was blurry from the prior battle. We had just sent Tali off on the shuttle back to her ship of Quarians. The scorching sun put us in a small ring when Kaiden ambushed us. As we began to radio down for a pick up Miranda got blasted into the sun by a Biotic Warp, then slammed repeatedly onto the ground. Unconscious and no one to recover her, Miranda's body burned away in the ultra-hot sun rays. Before we knew what had happened, I was thrown up about 20 feet in to the sun and onto walk way along the wall. Luckily the walkway had a three foot solid rock guard rail and I scurried into the shadows, my shielding almost completely gone. Hearing crashes and Jack yelling obscenities I recovered as fast as possible to move along the guard rail and towards a ramp almost completely in the shade.

Kaiden had become very powerful since our last meeting, he was going blow for blow with Jack, one of the most powerful human Biotics... aside from me. I sent a message up to the Normandy to get the hell out of here, if Kaiden was here so was the Alliance. Looking into the atmosphere-less sky, I saw an Alliance Dreadnaught appear a few hundred miles from my ship. There was nothing more I could do but hope my message went through.

Looking back at the fight, Kaiden had shot Jacks in the right shoulder and left leg effectively putting her out of commission. Jack screamed at him some shit about not being beat by some Alliance scrub. Kaiden stared at her with no emotion, Pulled her up and Pushed her off the side of the cliff. I couldn't believe it. Kaiden had transformed into something else entirely since he had been a part of my crew and attracted me to him.

I sent a Shockwave down, Kaiden looked… shocked. Apparently he thought I'd be as easy to dispatch as my last two team members, I guess to be fair, I did almost die. Leaping over the side of my cover and falling twenty feet, I used a push to stop my decent and began firing my assault rifle at him.

He boosted his barrier and sent a warp at me. Rolling to the side, I shot a few more times then sent a Singularity at him. The field of mass effect energy opened up and I saw Kaiden try to fight the pull but was ripped off the ground. As he floated helplessly around the Mass Effect bubble. I sent a Push at him followed by some assault rifle rounds. He flew towards the edge of a shadow used his own Push to stop himself as his Barrier soaked up my rifle rounds. Landing on his side, Kaiden struggled to get to his feet and recover.

Feeling victorious as I sent a Shockwave at him, I carelessly walked towards him. Unfortunately, the Shockwave sent him tumbling perfectly to his feet. He looked surprised for a moment then smiled and sent a green blast at me. Perplexed by what just happened I didn't have time to react to his follow up. It hit me and I knew I was screwed, I'd been hit by it only a few times before, somehow Kaiden had learned the ability Stasis. Kaiden then shot me in the legs and used Slam on me and that's about where we are right noe.

Spitting blood again I looked back up at him, " Your outta shape, I've been kicked harder by a Hanar."

Kaiden frowned and shook his head, " The great Shephard defeated by me, you can't be the real her."

" Well we did just fight a whole Company of Geth and a Goliath... in temperatures that make the Sahara seem like a winter retreat... before you sauntered onto the field fresh from your temperature controlled shuttle." I cackled, " But you just go right ahead and juxtapose your version of events onto the situation."

Kaiden grinned, " You did get her mouth though." He lifted his right hand, Warp field glistening brightly, "In her honor, I'll put you dow- ARGH!"

Slamming my knife into his calf, his Warp field shot into the sky. Removing my knife I used my Lift ability to throw myself at a 60 degree angle, sliding my knife across the weak part of his armor over his rib cage as I passed. When I crashed near the metal door Tali had been behind, I looked over to see Kaiden holding his ribs, which to my satisfaction glistened red, and was limping towards his pistol which I must have knocked from his hand on my passing. I forced myself to stand, sliding up a wall and resisting my muscles instinctive reaction to cave to pain of having some nice sized pistol holes in each. My head throbbed with pain, well hell my whole body throbbed after some of the flying around I'd done, but using another Biotic ability was going to hurt.

I hated to do it, but I had learned my own special ability. Kaiden had been one of the only people I'd ever opened up too. I had loved him and he me, however he had convinced himself I was not actually me. Hell some days I wondered the same thing. I'd taken him on many missions and he'd killed then too, but there was a carelessness, an ease to his killing of Miranda and Jack that told me a lot about the man he'd become in the last two years. Maybe that's how he saw me as well, I don't know, but I wasn't going out in a flash of remorseful passion. He chose this mission so he chose to live... or die with the consequences.

My head felt like it was going to explode as I formed a purple bubble around my hand. Kaiden had just recovered when I lobbed the purple pulsating orb at him. His eyes lit with shock as he reacquired me in his sights just in time to get hit with Reave. It was a little harder than I had thought to watch him convulse in pain and almost sadistically romantic as his barriers energy drained and his pain transferred to me as energy and power.

All of my pain was gone and I was able to move again. I sprinted towards a door, opened it and shot the controls after it closed. I had a feeling Kaiden had survived Reave, but doubted he'd be pursuing me. He chose a very volatile place to attack me and was now in pretty bad shape. If he could make it to his shuttle I'm sure he'd survive. I also knew that as soon as Kaiden reported failing to kill me, which would be anywhere between a minute to five minutes, that Dreadnaught was going to rain down some hell on the area.

The effects of Reave were wearing off and I was beginning to slow down, now very aware of how much pain deadening had happened by the ability, I hit my Omni tool and injected myself with some healing Gel. It didn't give me an energy boost, but I felt a hell of a lot better. It appeared wherever I had run I hadn't been here before. This must have been some sort of mine entrance. I hope my luck kept going, if I could get deeper I could escape what was to come.

As I jogged down into the darkness my suit light kicked on. I saw an elevator shaft with a metal wire dangling down for as far as my light would show. I stared into the abyss for a moment, ah hell I wasn't deep enough right now to avoid the explosions, I was dead if I didn't slide down this thing. I ran and jumped, grabbing onto the wire and began sliding down. My suits material protected me from the friction burn one would usually experience when sliding down metal using their body. As I fell deeper into the abyss the air began to feel cold, moist even, it was a welcome temperature change for sure. I slid down the wire for what felt like 2 minutes when finally I could see ground. I hit hard and rolled, damn my legs hurt.

I wandered down a tunnel and it opened up into a cavern. When looking up, it looked like solid rock above me, which was a very good thing. I saw a metal processing bunker and ran into it, slamming the door closed behind. Now all I could do is wait.

I had no idea what had happened to Normandy. As I fell against a wall the exhaustion set in. Even in my suit I was soaked in sweat and blood. I touched a pocket and felt something other than ammo in it. It was a transponder, Garrus had given it to me, told me if I ever got myself into something I couldn't handle by myself, to activate it. Holy shit, if it worked... and he was alive it was my one way out of this hell hole. If I could depend on anyone, it was Garrus.

Hitting the button a blue light flashed. I watched it for a few seconds when I felt a large thud. Yep, quarantining the site. That's right you bastards, you better try your best to scrub me out, because if I get out of here...well hell hath no fury like a Shepards scorn. A few more thuds hit and things started shaking a bit, rocks hitting the roof of my metal box. I was pretty sure there would be a crater for miles, if the bombing hadn't stopped when it did I was sure I was going to be dead.

The rumbling subsided, but now I was concerned about all that solid rock that had made me so happy a few minutes ago. I was tempted to go to the door and look out but my body wouldn't respond to my commands of getting up so I laid there. I guess on a positive note the metal shack didn't turn into an oven to turn me into roast Shepard, so I could at least assume that the bombardment had not breached the mining cavern. Hopefully they wouldn't do what I would do, which would be to send in a cleanup crew to make sure I was dead. I grabbed my sub-machine gun and heavy pistol and laid them on either side of me, if the Alliance nannies did come, I would put up a hell of a fight.