I only own Faylin. All other characters, places, organizations, ect belong to Bioware.
Please feel free to leave comments or message me with comments about the story. Enjoy. :)

I also may bounce back and forth from using James Vega's first name to using his last name. Please do not let this confuse you. I will attempt to use either one or the other instead of both in future chapters.

"It should be clear on our way to the roof, but still you should stay behind Kaidan and I," Liara said to me as we prepared to leave the room.

"I'll pull up the rear and watch our backs," James said, holding up a huge shotgun with a cocky smile.

I merely nodded and began to follow Liara out of the room. That was when I caught my reflection in the glass across the hall. Disregarding Liara's protests, I pushed past her and stepped over two Cerberus bodies to look at myself. My hands went to my face first. I still looked familiar, yet at the same time about five hundred times more gorgeous than I remembered. My hair was super long, stretching down to my hips and chocolate brown. My delicately arched brows sat over my familiar emerald eyes that I used to scan the rest of my face. My cheeks were thinner, but not so gaunt as to look sickly; they merely accentuated my high cheekbones. My lips were full and pouty and I bit the bottom one nervously. Though I hadn't been thinking about it before when I was getting dressed, my body was more athletic than it had been. I looked down at my hands, my eyes passing from one to the other.

"You are different than you remember," Liara asked tentatively.

"And yet I'm somehow the same," I sighed and closed my eyes. A sudden anger took hold of me and my fists clenched hard. With a growl I punched the glass and it cracked a little under the pressure. I opened my eyes to see a fiery blue aura surrounding my fist. Looking in the cracked glass, I saw my eyes were matching. "What the hell did they do to me," I asked allowed.

Liara approached cautiously and took a soft hold of my shoulders. The blue aura dissipated then. I turned to look in her eyes. She merely stared at me and I found a certain comfort in the blue of her eyes. Vega and Kaidan seemed to be arguing in the background and it made both of us turn and look at them. Liara scowled at James and gave Kaidan a questioning look, but they didn't seem to see it.

"She could be a danger to us, Alenko," James said. "We shouldn't bring her on the ship."

"That's nonsense," Kaidan countered in my defense. "She knows who the good guys are. We've given her no reason to attack us."

"Kaidan's right," Liara interjected. "I don't think there will be any problems."

Something unnerved me and I happened to glance down the hall as a Cerberus squad rounded the corner and began to raise their guns at us. I reacted on instinct alone. Leaping over one of the bodies and throwing up my hands in the direction of the soldiers. The blue aura shot up my arms to my elbows and a sheer blue wall manifested between us and them. The first round of bullets hit the shield and fell to the floor. "They've got the girl," one of the operatives called out.

"We don't have time to argue guys," I called back over my shoulder.

"Back up towards the door," Kaidan ordered. "Liara get it open. Joker, do you read me?"

A voice came through the communicator on my omni tool, sounding off by my ear. "I got ya, Commander."

"Send the shuttle down and be ready for a fly by," Kaidan barked over the communicator. I began to back up slowly, following the sound of his voice. "We need a fast exit. Cerberus is all over us."

"Roger that, Commander," Joker responded. "The shuttle's on its way, ETA five minutes."

"Roger that," Kaidan answered. I continued to move back, holding up my shield. "Keep coming on back. Vega, move that body so she doesn't trip." I heard Vega sliding the body he was told to move across the floor.

"I can't believe you're letting her hold that up," He protested, grunting with the man's weight. "She hasn't had biotics training. How do you know she can hold that up for much longer?"

Before Kaidan could respond I barked back at Vega. "I really wish you'd stop fucking doubting me. God, you're worse than my husband ever was." Kaidan chuckled. "Listen," I grunted a little as I tried to focus. "I'm very good at following my instincts, okay? And I'm getting kind of pissed off from being shot at. Don't make me turn around and beat you."

Vega huffed indignantly, "I doubt you could."

I laughed. "Oh man. You know, challenging me is not a good idea. I just love proving people wrong."

"That's enough you two," Liara chided us playfully.

"We can't let them take subject thirteen," the Cerberus officer called to his men.

"Subject thirteen?" I asked.

"I think he means you, Lola," Vega growled, seeming overly eager to shoot at them.

Another round of bullets was unleashed on my barrier and I felt the pressure upon it with my mind. "I don't like the sound of that," I said gruffly.

The door opened behind us and I felt a hand loop into my belt. Whoever it was guided me softly backward out the door. I held up my barrier until I heard the soft "whoosh" of the door sealing. Once my barrier was down, Liara rushed forward and used her omni tool to sabotage the door. The hand left my belt and Kaidan appeared from behind me. I looked around, taking in the soft pink of the sky above us and the same metal grated floor of the outside deck. A large flat place was the only area not littered by containers. I presumed the shuttle would land there.

"We should seek cover behind the crates," Liara called as she turned away from the door.

"Agreed," Vega chimed, nervously. I glanced at him, watching him with his shotgun ready as he scanned the area.

"The girl will-"Kaidan began.

"Woman," I interjected with a scowl.

He looked at me and continued, "The woman will stay with me. Liara, post up on the left and James, you post up on the right."

Liara nodded while James responded with a gruff, "Aye aye, Commander."

Kaidan took me by the elbow lightly and pulled me behind a tall set of crates. I crouched down as he did, though if I stood straight up I could not even see over them. He stayed close to the left side, peeking around the corner at the door. I scooted over to the right side and peeked at the door. A loud banging had begun to echo around us from the door and I grew unsteady. I pulled myself back around the crates, pressing my body against them as I thought.

'I don't know how I know it but I can trust these people.' I clenched my left fist. 'All the data is right here. Everything they did to me.' "I'm only subject thirteen to them, "I muttered under my breath. Kaidan pulled himself back around to our side of the crates and looked at me. "They don't even see me as a person."

"Cerberus is ruthless that way," he remarked. "I don't even know what it is they wanted to accomplish here. They already did this once before with Shepard. They knew they could bring you back to life." The banging continues behind us.

"What year is it even," I asked.

"2187," he answered me matter-of-factly.

My eyes went wide with shock and I looked at him. He seemed concerned by my response. "No, it can't be," I said, shaking my head violently. "It can't be that long."

He looked at me with a puzzled expression. "What year did you think it was?"

"To be honest I didn't have a clue," I shoved my face into my hands. "I didn't even dream it would be over a century and a half since I died."

As I pulled my face out of my hands I saw the shocked expression on his face. "They must have preserved your body cryogenicly."

"They had to," I said. "I died in 2012." I looked at my boots that reminded me of my short time in the Air Force. "Everyone I knew is long gone," I said somberly. "I'm all alone."

Kaidan seemed lost for words, but strangely my words seemed to have struck a chord in his heart and his face softened. "What is your name," he asked.

"It was Mary. But I don't want to be called that now. I don't want anyone using that name for me anymore. It would just hurt too much."

"Well, I'd say one hundred and seventy-five years has earned you the right to start over." He gave me a reassuring smile. "Why don't you pick out a name for yourself?"

"I'll think about it," I said.

"Well, when you pick it out," he peered around his side of the crate, "let me know what it is."

"Sure thing," I said, feeling our conversation coming to an end as I felt a rumbling beneath my feet. "What the hell is that?"

"Most likely," Kaidan stopped to think a moment, "an Atlas."

"Something tells me that's not a good thing," I said.

"It's not," he answered gruffly. Clearly he was back into soldier mode, which I seemed to be finding very sexy.

The rumble beneath my feet got stronger and I peered around the edge of the crate. Just as I did the door exploded outward and I pulled myself back behind cover, retrieving my holstered pistol. The Cerberus operatives poured out of the doors with their commander shouting "Retrieve subject thirteen." I gritted my teeth in anger.

"I'm really starting to get pissed off," I declared. I looked to Kaidan, seeing only the back of his blue armor. "Tell me you're gonna let me fight too."

He looked at me over his shoulder at the blue aura of his biotics crept up to replace the earthy brown of his eyes and he smirked. "Just don't get hurt," he said, his left hand was becoming swathed in blue fire. "Vega will never let me hear the end of it."

I gave him a tight nod and let my anger push my biotic powers into action. The blue aura gathered around me, covering my entire body. HE seemed slightly surprised, but he turned from me with a smile on his face and began to open fire from around the crate. As Cerberus began to fire back at us, I could hear Vega off to our right roaring out as he shot at them with his giant shotgun. Liara's battle cries rang out from the left and I risked a glance from behind our crate.

What I was sure had to be the Atlas was making its way through the door. It seemed to be a manned giant robot with a rocket launcher of some sort attached to one arm and a machine gun on the other. I felt the need to disable it first. Gathering a mass of energy in my right palm, I readied myself. With a growl I threw the mass of energy around the edge of the crate directly at the machine. It hit with quite the blast, knocking the thing back a step and spreading off to two nearby men. The men fell to the ground dead and Vega called out from his post, "Nice shot, Lola." I smiled.

Liara evidently had the same idea because another blast of biotic power hit the machine from her direction. Her power rivaled mine. Kaidan released some sort of electrical attack upon it and I saw its shields fall. I began to ready another shot at it, but it opened fire with the arm that looked similar to a machine gun. The first shot took a big chunk the size of my head out of the edge of the crate. I shrunk back behind our makeshift cover.

"Wait for him to reload," Kaidan called over the noise. I nodded.

It was only a second later when the firing halted for a moment and I poked my head around the corner. The energy gathered almost instantly as I drew my arm back and hurled it directly at the offensive thing. Liara's followed mine quickly and Kaidan let off one as well. It stumbled back a step then seemed to freeze up. Beneath the orange glass of the cockpit hatch I could see the operator frantically trying to get it to move as it sputtered, electricity arcing off of it. Kaidan grabbed my shoulder and pulled me behind the crate as it exploded.

"Nice job," he said.

"Thanks," I grinned cockily back at him.

Vega cried out from his post and my attention snapped toward him. "Vega?" Kaidan called to him.

He didn't answer for a moment, but our fear had little time to grow. In a fiery rage, He burst from behind his cover, roaring while he opened fire madly on the remaining few Cerberus operatives. I followed his queue, stepping out from our cover and releasing a series of biotic blasts at two of the men. They fell quickly to my onslaught, fast enough that I was able to catch one trying to get the jump on Vega. I focused on lifting him into the air and as I did, he dropped his rifle and cried out. Vega spun around after the last man in front of him fell, witnessing the full effect of my ability as I brought the man slamming down with such force that his head almost exploded within his helmet.

Vega looked at me indignantly as I let my biotic power die off. A smile crept across his face. "Little miss Lola's pretty ruthless," he observed.

"I can hold my own," I said, re-holstering my pistol that I didn't even fire.

"All that without even breaking a sweat," he said, traversing the littering of bodies toward me, Liara copying him on the outskirts of my vision. "I have to say I'm slightly impressed."

"Slightly?" Liara had a tone of disbelief. "It's nothing short of incredible that she has such control of her power. And the extent of it," she looked off at the remnants of the exploded Atlas, "amazing."

"Clearly they already outfitted her with an L5x implant," Kaidan strode up next to me. "The shuttle's almost here. Come on."

I nodded and followed him as he turned toward the area clear of crates. I heard the shuttle approaching and looked in the direction of the noise. What I saw was something similar to a flying car. I stopped dead in my tracks as I watched it piloted gracefully in to land on the small clearing. The large side door opened upward and Kaidan hopped up inside, shouting commands to the pilot that I couldn't see from my vantage. I felt so oddly out of place. Liara strode up and hopped in gracefully, taking a seat on the bench across from the open door.

"Go on, Lola," Vega nudged me gently. I turned and looked at him over my shoulder. "We planted explosives in the complex. This place is about to go up so we need to get out of here."

I nodded, but my brain was still trying to comprehend the things around me. I turned back in time to see Kaiden turn to me. He held on to something above him with on hand and reached down to me with the other. After a moment of thought, I took it and he helped to hoist me up into the craft. I took a seat next to Liara as Vega hopped in and the door closed. I felt the light pitch as we ascended into the sky and swallowed hard. I could tell it was about to be a long day for me. Hell, every day was going to be long for a while as I tried to adjust to this new world I'd been re-born into.