A/N: Whoa second chapter up and on another note I'm finally off for Halloween so I can actually take some time and relax and I can write more so expect a few more updates on all my fics.
Anyway hope you guys enjoy this chapter, I did try to make it as awesome as possible but hopefully as the fic goes along I'll get use to writing more of the action scenes and be able to make better ones.
Well hope you guys like the chapter and on another note, I have not yet decided the pairings yet so if you want to make a recommendation go right ahead and I'll consider it, anyway let me know what you guys think so far and I'll catch you next time Ja Ne
Chapter 1
An Attack and an Unlikely Ally
Shepard's eyes widen looking down the barrel of the antique assault rifle, part of her mind was still trying to figure out just how the hell this armoured person got onto the Presidium, the other was already acting on instinct.
"TAKE COVER!" Diving out of the way and hitting the ground rolling Shepard avoids the bullets that slam into the guard rail where she just was, reaching behind her back, she unfolds her own Lancer Assault Rifle and fires back at the armoured enemy, the bullets slam into the armour and ping right off of it, the figure shake itself as if shaking off a blow before bringing its rifle again and aiming right at her.
It fires only a single burst, the bullets slam into Shepard and her shields ripple into life, protecting her as the bullets bounce off of them, the figure stares at her oddly and readies for another burst before its body ripples blue around it, looking to her right she sees her squad mate Kaiden Alenko glowing blue and his hand up in the air, trying to life the enemy with a biotic lift.
Smirking Shepard readies to fire her rifle but horror overcomes her, the figure is still boots on the ground and slams its foot into the ground, sending a shockwave out from impact and the blue aura around it dissipates and Kaidens head snaps back as if struck, blood leaking down from his nose, his eyes roll back into his head and he falls backward.
Shepard's heartbeat increases at that sight, her blood starts to pump and she could feel the rage filling her body as she reacts on instinct, pulling on the power within her she powers out one of the strongest biotic throws that she can, the swirling ball of glowing blue energy slams into the figure and knocks it backward across the room and into the far wall.
Shepard gets up and runs to Kaiden and starts to scan his body for any injuries, breathing a sigh of relief that he was only knocked out she turns and wonders just where the C-Sec was, the answer was up on the podium, all the officers in the room had gathered around the Councillors and were in the process of evacuating them from the Tower, she grits her teeth and looks back at the where the enemy was fused wit the wall.
She grins but that quickly fades as it shifts its arms and slams out of the wall and picks up its fallen rifle, "Psi Operative detected priority 1 engagement, exterminate with extreme force." The voice that comes out of the enemies mouth is robotic and monotone, Shepard's eyes widen in realisation, "GETH, It's a geth infiltrator Tali, shut it down!" With that Shepard dashes forward and fires off a barrage of bullets at the enemy that like before ping off of its armor, Tali following Shepard's order brings up her Omni-tool and starts shifting through to find the right program.
Shepard engages the enemy from cover, firing burst after burst to no effect, she resorts to her biotic, hitting it over and over again with throws and lifts but it just shakes off each impact getting closer and closer to her and its fire getting more and more accurate. Shepard ducks as a bullet screams past her head and buries into the pillar behind her, "Fuck this!" folding her rifle, she brings her shotgun from behind her, steps out of cover while the enemy is reloading and lets rip with a shotgun blast.
The blast connects dead centre on the target and pushes it backward, stumbling and losing its footing, Shepard smirks and unloads on it, firing blast after blast at it, making it reel backwards with each hit, inspiration hits her and she charges a Carnage shot and fires.
The shot impacts hard against its armour and sends it sprawling to the ground, Shepard takes advantage and uses a biotic lift to make it an easy target hoisting it into the air, "TALI NOW!" Not wasting a second Tali activates her Overload program and sends it toward the enemy, it connects.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHRAGGGGGHHHH!"
A scream tears through the silence as the enemy is hit by the Overload, the simple electric shock seems to have become infinitely more powerful than before as the armor it is wearing seems to be conducting it over and over as it ripples through the enemy who is struggling and jerking and screaming in pain, after several minutes it goes limp and Shepard drops it on the ground a look of confusion on her face.
She cautiously approaches the fallen foe and looks around, the swirling vortex is still just hovering there, she looks over at the helmet on the thing and sees that the reds eyes have lost their glow and look dead, Shepard decides to be better safe than sorry and raises her pistol to level with the top of the helmet intent on putting a bullet in the head just to make sure that it was dead.
Just then however something happened that drew her attention, the vortex started to make the same high pitched screaming sound that it had when the first armoured enemy had come through, snapping her attention and aiming at the portal, she raises an eyebrow in confusion.
Standing there was a man with long black hair, dark black sunglasses that made it impossible to see his eyes at all and was wearing an ornate red Chinese overcoat with black pants and gloves with a rather expensive cane in his hands and he was smirking.
He was also flanked by two guards who were wearing light armour and had the same glowing red eyes except their masks looked more like gas masks and in their arms were antiquated sub machine guns. The man in the suit starts to clap his hands.
"Well done, you managed to take down my little pet, he was such a bad boy he managed to escape. Now I must ask you to give him back to me, young lady if you would be so kind." The way he was talking was sending shivers up Shepard's back and her grip tightens on the grip of her gun as soon as he started to make the reference to the dead enemy behind her being some kind of pet to him, Shepard grits her teeth her answer already obvious by her facial expression, "Fuck you."
Before she can even get a full sentence out the man holds up a gloved hand and smirks, "I don't think you know what or who your dealing with here little girl, I would highly recommend handing over that subject or I'll just have to take him by force if necessary." Shepard aims right at his head, judging from his clothing it was obvious that he had no barriers or shields so one bullet and he would be finished, confidently Shepard stands in the way between him and the body.
The smirk doesn't fade from the mans face, "Clearly you have no idea what you are dealing with here but no matter, I guess it is up to me to teach you a lesson, little girl!" The mans hands snap up to his glasses and removes them to reveal that he has no eyes at all, just empty sockets, his smile widens as he hears Shepard's gasp of horror and holds up a hand toward her, before Shepard can think to move, she is forcibly shoved out of the way… from behind.
Shepard hits the deck and looks up to see the same thing that she had thought dead caught in some kind of red beam coming from the other mans hand, if it were possible the mans smile widens to Cheshire cat level and he speaks in a self satisfied tone, "Ever the hero aren't you Subject Zero well no matter, your mine now, I command you kill this woman and come back through the portal!"
The previously thought dead enemy hand glides down to its hip where a side arm dangles in its holster, its hand shaking, takes the gun and like a puppet being commanded by a bad puppeteer turns shaking as it was resisting some kind of force and points the gun at Shepard's head, Shepard looks down the barrel of a gun for seemly the last time before her instincts kick in and she rolls out of the way of the shot.
Snapping up into a knee she levels her sights on the two guards and buries a pistol shoot in each of their heads in the span of a few seconds, the man looks down at the two dead guards and rages, "KILL HER!" The red beam coming from his hand expands and brightens and the figure on the other end struggles to point the gun at Shepard, she looks back confused and a small whisper crosses the distance.
"Go… to… hell!" In what seems like a great effort the figure snaps the gun sights onto the man and fires at him, the bullet tears right through his chest and he looks down in shock at the figure in armour as if it was impossible.
Shepard looks on in shock as the figure starts to glow blue and raises a hand at the man, who slowly raises in the air against his will, the figure brings both hands together and makes a motion like it was grabbing something in the air, The man screams as his arms stretch out to the sides against his will, Shepard feels a cold chill of foreboding creep up her spine as she watches transfixed.
"GO TO HELL YOU SONOFABITCH!" With that last shout the armoured being snaps his hands and pulls them apart seemingly with a great effort, while it didn't look impressive what happened to the man in his grasp was, for a second nothing happened except his face was contorted with strain, then he started to yell out in pain and it increased every second the figures hands got further apart, the sounds of snapping bones fills the air, until with that final yell the figure snaps his hands apart.
AHHHHHHHAAAA! SPLETCH!
Shepard cant believe her eyes, two half's of the man are floating in the air, he was just torn in half while in mid air and both parts are just floating there, blood and guts leaking out onto the clear floor below, bile rises in her throat at the sight but she forces it back down and focuses her attention on the thing that had caused this, currently it was just staring at the float carcass and just drops its arms to its side, as soon as it did that both parts of the man drop to the floor with a splat.
The figure drops to a knee and holds its hand above its hip, twisting its head to look at Shepard it speaks, "If it ain't too much trouble can you help me get this damn armour off?" Amanda Shepard blinks owlishly but holsters her side arm and looks around the helmet for a clasp, finding it near the side of the neck she unclasps it and does the same on the other side before lifting the helmet off.
The former foe and armoured being wasn't alien at all, he was human and he was handsome, sandy brown hair that hung low around his fringe and his ears, a pale face with a few scars around his cheeks and one across his left eyebrow, his eyes were azure blue but seemed to be dull. Shepard fights down a blush but looks at him confused, the man speaks to her.
"There'll be time for gawking later lady right now I'm bleeding out in this armour and I need to get it off!" That grabs her attention, she carefully starts to undo all the clasps holding the armour together from the top up, the man speaks again, "I'm sorry for attacking you before, I could see what I has doing but I couldn't stop myself." Shepard nods her head as the final clasp on the chest armour is released and it falls to the floor.
The man was right, multiple bullet wounds litter his chest and all of them are bleeding, red blood just leaking out of the holes and onto the floor, Shepard acts fast and applies a healthy dose of medi-gel to each of the wounds, the liquid seals the holes and begins to work its scientific magic on the wounds, "So what where you doing to end up coming through that vortex?"
The man looks down his face contorted in pain, his eyes just reflect all the pain and Shepard regrets asking the question, she claps him on the arm, "Never mind right now we have to get you looked at and for that matter to get you out of here before C-Sec finally gets its act together." The man looks confused but nods his head, taking her outstretched hand he struggles to get up, in an obvious amount of pain even with the medi-gel.
Shepard gathers her team, "Tali can you help him, I'll carry Alenko and we'll take Rapid Transit to Doctor Michel's clinic and get them both looked at." The ride to the clinic was a quiet one until the unnamed man spoke to Tali, "You're the one that hit me with that electric attack aren't you?" Tali shifted uncomfortably in her seat and nods The mans smiles kindly, "Thank you Miss you saved my life by doing that, I am in your debt." Tali stutters, "My name is Tali, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, what's yours?"
The man smiles but frowns, he could understand any of that it just sounded like chirps to him but judging by the way the conversation was going he decided to take a guess at what she was saying, "My name is Mason Holmes, pleasure to meet you." With that his eyes closed and he drifted into unconsciousness. Shepard smiles a little at the idle conversation, before she can say anything the taxi arrives at the destination and both woman grab their respective charges and drag them into the clinic, the red headed French doctor was standing their checking the First Aid station, turns and sees Commander Shepard with the Quarian girl that she had patched up before dragging one of Shepard's crew in and an unknown man wearing ancient clothes, "Oh my god, put them on the tables and I'll get to work right away."
Shepard and Tali set both men down gently on the tables and stepped out of the room to let the Doctor work.
About half an hour later Doctor Michel came back and snapped off her white gloves and threw them in a nearby bin, "Well Mr Alenko is only unconscious he overused his biotics so he'll have a migraine when he wakes up, that other man however is on of the strangest patients I have ever encountered, his body is littered with old wounds that with current medical technology should have never scared and when I did an in-depth scan on him, it came back that he has had none of the usual gene therapy and implants nor any of the standard immunisations that given to every child as soon as they are born."
Doctor Michel looked a little nervous before continuing, "That's not all, the scan showed that he is using a lot more of his brain power than a normal human is capable of even when unconscious he is using more than 50% of his brain power, it shouldn't even be possible, what is more troubling however is that the scan picked up something else, a chip."
Shepard interrupts her, "What kind of chip?" Doctor Michel smiles sadly, "I have no idea, all I know is that it is implanted in his brain, specifically the part that controls behaviour and movement, judging from where it is placed I would hazard a guess that it is a control chip of some sort, it is disabled right now however it seems that a large electric shock has fried it, it needs to be removed right away but I don't have the skills to do so."
Shepard's fist clenches at that particular information, the pieces were starting to come together, a man call Mason a pet, a control chip in the brain, "I could see what I was doing but I could stop, I'm sorry." Mason Holmes was being controlled by somebody, most likely the man that he had torn apart back in the Council Tower, but where does the swirling vortex and the armoured goons come in and his power no biotic could do something like that without blowing an amp.
Shepard makes a decision, "Dr Chakwas on the Normandy can remove the chip and she can give him the treatment and the immunisations that he needs, how much do I owe you for the treatment Doctor Michel?" The French doctor laughs, "After you saved my life and my clinic Commander this one is on the house and don't forget Commander you have a discount at this clinic so if you need any supplies just ask."
Shepard smiles at her, "Thank you Doctor Michel, can you wake these two up?" Doctor Michel nods and injects the two men with something, soon enough both of them start to wake up, Kaiden Alenko raises his hand to his head, "Oh my head, I'm gona have one killer migraine later I can just feel it." Mason on the other hand looks around and shakes his head, "Where am I?"
Shepard clears her throat loudly to get their attention, "You two are in Doctor Michel's clinic, had to get you checked out, Kaiden you are going to have a migraine after overusing your biotics and Mason you have an appointment with my ships doctor once we get you outfitted." Mason blinks a few times, "Ehh care to explain what's going on?"
Shepard smiles, "You just got recruited, you have several things wrong with you that my ships doctor can take care of most of all taking out that control chip in your brain, and I could use a man of your skills, you took on me and my team with antiquated armour and weapons and still had the balls to ignore your injuries to kill the man that was controlling you, that takes guts and your exactly the kind of man that I need on my crew, the alternative would be to hand you over to C-Sec and all that would waiting for you there is a nice 6 by 6 jail cell."
Mason deadpans at her, "Really your giving me the choice between joining your crew and a jail cell, that's cold, for starters I don't even know you." Shepard smiles, "I'm Commander Shepard with the Alliance Navy and also the first Human Spectre." Mason blinks a few times, "Ok judging by the tech and the few creatures that I have seen before the fire fight started, I'm gona take a guess and say that I ain't in Kansas anymore."
Alenko snorts and Shepard raises an eyebrow, seeing his commander's confusion Kaiden decides to enlighten her, "It's a reference from an old human vid Shepard, "Wizard of Oz." Shepard takes a few calming breaths, "Answer me clearly what year do you think it is?" 'Time to see if my hunch is right.' Mason frowns before answering, "2001 why?" Shepard, Alenko and Tali all let out a gasp of shock, Shepard shakes her head, "I'm sorry to tell you this but whatever that vortex was it transported you here, this is the Citadel and the year is 2183."
Mason is floored by that information his face goes even paler if that were possible and his eyes go wide and his jaw hangs low, "How is that possible?" Shepard frowns, "I don't know, what where you doing before that vortex opened." Mason looks down at the floor, "I was ordered to infiltrate a rising terrorist cell calling themselves The Movement, they were led by some of my former comrades and my former boss "The General". Mason looks down at the floor, "I managed to find their base but I got caught and knocked out, they tried to interrogate me but I wouldn't break, then they tried to get Jon Lenovo the man that I killed back there to use his abilities to control me."
Shepard interrupts, "What kind of ability are we talking about here, it didn't look like biotics and even if it was, humans aren't natural biotics it takes exposure to eezo for that to happen." Mason frowns, "First I have no idea what you mean by biotics or eezo, never heard of it, I am talking about Psi abilities, Jon's was Mind Control, he could literally take over your mind and make you into a walking puppet with him being the puppeteer."
Shepard's eyes widen and Mason carries on, "I resisted everything they tried to do but one day they knocked me out and then the next thing I knew I was looking through my own eyes as my body was doing things against my will, I was trapped in my own mind." Mason looks down, "It isn't just a control chip in my brain they inserted an A.I into my brain to control me and to make sure that I was kept under their control, I was their puppet and their new favourite weapon, they couldn't force me to use my abilities but they didn't need to, they just slapped on the heaviest armour they had on me, that coupled with my resistance to psi abilities was all they needed to carry out their plans."
A few tears roll down his face, "They ordered me to attack Project MindGate HQ, my home, I was forced to watch as my body killed my old friends and comrades, not even the scientists or civilians were spared, all they cared about was wiping out MindGate and obtaining the artefacts that they had in storage, once the slaughter was over one of the artefacts activated, it sent some kind of energy into me and it overloaded and reprogrammed the A.I in my brain then that vortex opened and you know the rest."
Shepard is still and doesn't talk for a few moments before clapping Mason on the shoulder, "I'll talk to Captain Anderson and see about getting you on my team, maybe he can find something out by looking in the Alliance records about what happened to The Movement and if need be I'll use my Spectre status to recruit you to my crew."
Mason looks up in shock, "Why would you do all that for me?" Shepard grins, "If you can go through all that and still fight as hard as you did then you are exactly the type of person I want on my crew and your abilities will come in handy if that demonstration in the Tower was anything to go by, I need a strong team if I am to go after Saren and his Geth and from what I saw you defiantly qualify, Besides it would be a waste of your abilities to be locked up in a cell or in a lab somewhere, I can protect you from both if you join my crew."
Mason looks up and smiles, "As I said before Commander I don't really have a choice here, I'll join you but I'll need to get acquainted with the tech here if I am going to be of any use to you." Shepard's grin widens, "Chief Williams will outfit you with weapons and armour as well as teach you to use them and I'm sure that Tali here or Garrus will teach you all you need to know about the tech, you wait here and take this Omni-Tool, it comes with a translator built into it, its not the best but it will have to do until we can fit you with a permanent one, Tali here will stay with you and will teach you how to use it, if you don't mind Tali."
Tali shakes her head, "No not at all Commander I don't mind." Shepard smiles, "Its Shepard when we're on duty, just call me Amanda when we're off duty ok Tali?" Tali nods her voice stuttering a little, "O-Okay S-Shepard." Shepard laughs and turns to Mason and Alenko, "I'm going to go talk to Udina and Captain Anderson and see about getting you added to my crew Mason, stay here, rest and learn while I handle it, I'll message Kaiden when I'm done."
Mason looks at the orange glowing interface now on his left arm with interest sparkling in his eyes and looks up at Tali, "Well then I guess we better get started."