Shepard sat in the seat of the shuttle, awaiting his destination. He sat in between Ashley who was on his right and Tali who was on his left. He was dressed in his new N7 armor, which was almost the same as his old pair that was burned to a crisp by Harbinger's beam, but with a=some slight upgrades in durability and flexibility. The N7 logo was still a bright and clear white along with the red insignia next to it. Ashley was wearing her dark blue armor as usual, the symbol of S1 still on it. Tali was wearing her suit, the purple and black cloth still lining it.

Across from them sat Wrex, Garrus, and Liara. Wrex wore his large, red, and scarred armor. Garrus wore his metallic armor he had wore during the events of The Reaper War. Liara was dressed in her white armor, the neck of her lab coat sticking somewhat out of the top of it. The all sat in silence, simply prepping weapons or counting the seconds.

They had just learned the location of several Cerberus bases from data they recovered from a dead body. While given the several locations, they chose to head to the largest of the bases, extrapolating that it was the main base of Cerberus's recent actions.

"Liara, have you dug up any new information on this base," asked Shepard as he broke the silence of the shuttle.

Liara pulled open her Omni-tool and began to go through the new data. "Well, from what we could tell, this one of Cerberus's earliest bases."

"Why didn't we know about this during The Reaper War?" asked Ashley.

"From what I can speculate, the base was a backup for the one we destroyed while rescuing Vendetta from Cerberus," Liara said, "The base is mainly underground on this planet, going about a mile down into the earth."

"What are we going to find there?" Garrus asked, "Weapons, Ships, Troops?"

"From what we can tell, it appears to be a large R&D department for Cerberus," said Liara, "Although, it has the capacity to be the center of operations for Cerberus."

Cortex interjected in the conversation, "We're just outside the LZ Captain."

Shepard looked over to him, "Okay," he looked at his team, "Let's get ready."

The shuttle landed on the planet. A small jerk signified it touching the ground. The crew tool their guns out, holding them at the ready position as the shuttle doors began to open. The light poured into the dim insides of the shuttle. The crew stepped out, one at a time, into the light.

The planet itself was not unlike Mars, except the texture had a greenish color to it. There was little source of fauna on the surface, a few dead shrubberies spotted the canvas around them. The sun peered slightly over the horizon, the bright orange contrasting the dimness of the green rocks. The terrain was graced with several mountains in the foreground, standing tall above the plateau they landed on.

About fifty feet in front of them, stood a gray cylindrical building. It must have had a diameter of about five hundred feet long and stood about twenty feet tall. The top was flat, several smaller circles were surrounding the outside of the building, more than likely exits for ships. There was a large antenna that stood on the top of the building, extending another ten feet up.

Shepard looked ahead, a few small doorways lined the perimeter of the building. They each had a small keypad next to them, with the common circular button to open the door in the center. The button was red, signifying that the door was locked. The doors also were extremely hard to see, showing their secrecy to the base.

Shepard looked at the building with the others, "How did we not notice this place?"

Liara answered, "Initially, we thought it was n abandoned weather station." Liara looked at the buildings antenna as well, "I guess it wasn't important while we were looking for The Catalyst."

The crew looked immediately to their left, the sound of several more Alliance shuttles appeared from out of the clouds. They zoomed towards the crew, slowing down as they descended to the ground. The doors slide open, the light illuminating each of the shuttles. Several squads of marines popped out, each of them designated with their own symbol and color. They were three human squads, one Salarian squad, one Turian squad, and one Asari squad.

A man approached Shepard as the others began to take position by the doors. "Captain Shepard, Lieutenant Green." He briefly saluted Shepard. "We have orders to take the base by storm, we'll lead the charge while you stay in the back."

"The back?" Wrex proclaimed, "I didn't come here to watch you rookies fight!"

The Lieutenant looked at Wrex, "This base is a giant maze of tunnels and chambers," said the Lieutenant, "You'll be able to diverge troops coming to flank us as we carve a path through one of the bases main paths." "Also, we suspect the leader of Cerberus is in here."

"Mikhail," proclaimed Ashley, "We got that bastard now!"

"Indeed," said Liara as they all got into position as charges were planted on the doors. Several troops signaled to one another that they were ready to blow the doors. The other troops made sure their guns were ready and that they were ready to burst through the door.

Then, in a sudden moment of pure adrenaline, several blasts pierced the shell of the building. The troops blew into the building, immediately erupting in a storm of gunfire. Shepard ran into the building, taking cover by a crate that was just outside the smoke of the chaos. He looked from the crate, firing several shots into the scattered troops of Cerberus.

The room was clearly a shuttle bay, several fighters and transport shuttles lay throughout the building. The troops were caught completely off guard, disregarding the perimeter breach signals as a glitch in the system. The managed to get into some defense, but the pure tactical and organized advantage that the invading troops overwhelmed Cerberus's troops. Shepard fired several more shots as he saw Wrex grab a Nemesis sniper with his hands and threw her towards another Nemesis, killing them both in a single shot from his shotgun. Liara threw a warp blast at an engineer, causing a large explosion from the turret he had on his back. The troops retreated to several small service elevators and some more doors on the interior of the building.

"Any casualties?" yelled Lieutenant Green at the others. All of them signified that they lost no troops at all. They reorganized and reloaded as they planned to go deeper into the base.

"Shepard," said Lieutenant Green as he reloaded his assault rifle, "We are heading down these few doors here, but we need you to head down this path," he said as he signified the door.

"Why?" asked Shepard

"The main path way is a large, spiral pathway that heads down to the main areas of the base," said Green, "However, we need you to cut the power so we can advance past their automatic defenses." "You'll need to go through these several laboratories to reach an exposed portion of the power conduits."

"Got it," said Shepard as he signaled his team to meet up at the door. They reached the door, looking as the others began to hack the other doors to the main pathway.

"Good luck Captain," said Green as they positioned themselves by the door. Shepard opened the door as they left for the power conduits. They entered a small hallway, no windows or anything towards the other door. Then, a small green light pierced through the darkness of the hallway, followed by an electronic voice.

"Decontamination in process, please hold still," said the voice as purification vapors entered the room.

"Great," said Tali, "The enemies gonna get the drop on us while we sit in the decontamination chamber."

"Just be ready," said Garrus as he positioned his sniper rifle at the door.

The door opened, the crew got ready for an ambush. However, there appeared to be no troops on the other side of the door. The slowly entered the lab, expecting a large ambush from Cerberus forces.

"This doesn't make any sense," said Liara, "You would expect that they would have prepared for a raid on their labs."

"They were caught off guard," said Shepard, "They are more than likely on their way already."

Shepard looked around for any useful data in the room. The data had about five different tables, each lined with microscopes, beakers, and instruments of dissection.

"Oh my god!" Ashley gasped as she looked at one of the tables, "These... these are babies!"

"I'm sorry?" Shepard said as he approached the table she was at, "Did you just say that they were dissecting babies?"

"Yeah," she still said with little breath in her voice, "They are human babies, but look at the cybernetic alteration in their bodies." She pointed at the heart, which had large amounts of nano-technology in it. The eyeballs, which were completely removed from the dissected head of the child.

"My god," said Shepard, "What the hell did they do to these kids?"

"Um, Shepard," Liara said as she approached a small group of machines on the other wall. Shepard and the crew approached as they looked down towards the machines, which appeared to be tanks of some-sort. Inside, were large groups of human embryos. There must have been thousands upon thousands that were inside the tanks.

"What the hell?" asked Ashley, "Is Cerberus growing troops?"

"Check this out," said Tali as she managed to activate a terminal near the tank. A large video screen projected upward, revealing a video log. In the log, Mikhail was standing near Claire Medford, the head of Cerberus's Phantom department and a known 'personal contact' of Mikhail, along with a couple other Scientists.

"Commander," said one of the scientist to Mikhail, "This is our breeding tanks," said the scientists as he showed off the tanks, "The DNA is designed to create ideal phantom soldiers for our army," he said, "They are all female, all of them designed to be fast and endure extreme amounts of pain?"

"Good," he said, "And as for the synthetic implementation?"

"We implant them after about the fetus grows to about seven months old, a feat which is possible in a week's time," said the other scientist to Mikhail, "The results are pleasing, we soon may not need those adult slaves for the phantom consortium."

"Perhaps," Claire said, "However, I expect many issues with the clones..."

The video ended there, the crew looked at each other.

"So?" Garrus said, "Cerberus is building a better human."

"It seems so," said Shepard, "It's just as bad, if not worse, than what they did at Sanctuary."

Just then, the door at the other end of the lab opened, a female figure stumbled out of the door. She was naked, covered head to toe in a clear gel that glistened with her synthetic skin. She was holding a pistol, pointing it at the crew. They pointed their guns up at her, hesitant to shoot her.

"Hello?" Shepard asked as she stumbled foreword. She had no response, only a small clump of goo fell out of her mouth. She stumbled forward some more, her body shaking from the cold of the room.

Just then, Wrex fired a shot, bowing the body across the room. It hit the wall, leaving a large blood splatter behind her.

"Wrex!" Shepard yelled, " We don't kill innocents!"

"She was about to kill you!" said Wrex, "You should be thanking me for saving your quad!"

"Whatever," he said, still frustrated over Wrex's actions, "We need to get to the power." Shepard and the crew headed towards the other door, going thorough to another laboratory. The room was similar to the other, except there were several pods, each containing women just like the one they just shot. One of the pods was drained, several small consoles beeping at the failure of the pod.

"Shepard," Garrus said, "It's another video log," he pulled up the selection of videos. "What are these... case studies?"

"Apparently," said Shepard, "play it."

The video popped up, in it sat a scientist between a table and one of the women who was dressed in phantom armor.

"Case number 237-1: word formation," said the man as he turned to the women, "Okay number 237, we are going to do a simple activity, okay," he said in a slow voice to the woman who was distracted by her hands as she moved the fingers between one another.

"Okay, look at the words," he said as he directed her towards the words," Can you tell me how you feel in a word please?" The word were in small little cards, each with a single letter one them. She picked up a single card, putting it down in front of her. She managed to slowly put a word together for the man.

He looked over at it, "hmmm... ubset?" he said as he pondered the word, "DO you mean upset?" she nodded as she played with a card that had an 'r' on it. "Why are you upset?" She looked down at her hands, slowly pulling the gloves off of her hands. Her hands were covered in blisters, blood still on the wounds.

"hart!" she managed to exclaim in yelp as she looked at more of the letters.

The man pulled up a data pad and recorded for it, "Case notes: Tell Claire to ease off of the sword training, they are having higher psychological breakdowns," said the man, "They are already tough enough to teach to with their mental degradation."

The video ended; another one popping up with both Mikhail, Claire, and the two scientists again.

"The clones aren't viable," said Claire to one of the scientists, "I can barely teach them anything! they just drool and goof around while I try to teach!"

"Is this always an issue with the clones?" Mikhail asked.

"Yes," one of the scientists said, "Human clones are much tougher to replicate than Krogan or any other alien." "The two main issues are the decreased Intelligence Quota." "The average human has anywhere from 100-120, while they barely can get a fifty on the test!"

"Can we overcome it?" Mikhail asked.

"Maybe," said the other scientists, "We are trying, but these aren't husks or simple minded organisms, we can't tank breed them like Krogan either, our genetic coding and mental capacities create issues with the nervous system, mainly a large lack of chemicals and hormones within the body." "We try and overcompensate for it or replace it, but it's too far up the evolutionary chain for a human to function or even maintain homeostasis in."

"Claire, what about the slave subjects," said Mikhail.

"Promising, but there is an issue of loyalty and ability," said Claire, "They don't want to learn or work, they'd rather die than work for us." "If The Crucible would not have destroyed all existing Reaper Technology, the breakthrough on indoctrination could be viable, but it's millions of years away!"

"Continue the research," said Mikhail to both of them, "I want to see some results soon." The video ended after. The crew looked around the room, trying to take in what was going on.

"Cerberus is crazy," said Tali, "They are creating living beings to be slaves, they are just as worse as The Reapers!"

Ashley was at a nearby terminal, looking through the database. "I can't find my sister, nothing to indicate if she's still even alive."

"Do you think she is?" asked Shepard.

"I hope so," said Ashley, "Either way, Mikhail dies..."

Shepard briefly left the room, running back in as a large explosion flew in from the hallway. The power went out, covering the entire room in darkness. The pods, began to drain, followed by the bodies slamming into the ground as the regained conscience.

"Shepard?" Liara asked, "What should we do?"

"I... I don't want to kill them," he said, "But I don't see much option here?"

"Just leave them," Garrus said, "They can't do any harm to us."

The crew moved outward as the clones sat up and cried in the darkness. The hollow screeches and sobs pierced Shepard's eardrums as he closed the door, making him shutter in his armor. They had their flash lights turned on, following a large metal pathway above a room filled with cords, that had burned up.

"What did you do in here Shepard?" Ashley asked.

"Tossed a grenade down there," he said.

"Good," Wrex said, "A grenade always solves the issue.

The crew eventually reached an maintenance elevator that lead to the main chambers at the bottom of the base.

"Looks like this will take us right towards the other squads location," said Garrus, "The radio jammer along with the solid concrete and earth is blocking our communication." The crew piled into the elevator, pressing the button as it started up. They jerked slightly as it took them down towards the center of the base. They saw various levels of the base, many including offices and gyms and even a sauna.

Eventually, they reached the end of the ride, stopping at a large circular area of the base. The power was still on, showing that they must have had a substation for the lower parts of the base. The room was a large reception area for the base, signs hanging around showing where everything was. Shepard and the crew walked forward as they looked around for Cerberus troops or their allies.

Then, out of nowhere, a voice rung out from the room. "Congratulations, Captain!" Shepard turned to see Mikhail, who was standing behind a force field at the edge of the room.

"To cowardly to fight us head on?" asked Ashley.

"No," he replied, "I'm just that smart."

"We saw your experiments," Shepard griped at him, "You made innocent people suffer!"

"I wouldn't call those mouth breathers people," said Mikhail, "They can't even count to five!"

"There still alive!" Liara yelled at him, "You are a monster! Worse than The Illusive Man!"

Mikhail chuckled, "No, he was a fool, chasing his dream of control until it cost him his life, but I knew better."

"What's your plan?" asked Shepard.

"To kill you all, nice and slowly," he said.

"Funny, but I'm referring to the reason you were looking for The Mars data," said Shepard.

"Well... that would be telling," he said, "You'll know, eventually," he pulled a cigarette out of his coat pocket, lighting it as he inhaled a puff of it into his lungs and exhaling it out his nose.

"I don't have time for this," Ashley exclaimed, "What did you do with my sister?"

"Your sister," Mikhail said, "I don't know, you'd have to ask Claire."

Ashley fired several shots, all of them absorbed by the energy of the force field.

"Anyway," said Mikhail, "I am impressed you got this far, but I'm afraid you're going to have to die now." "Your little invasion squad is still on its way down, so that gives us time to play."

"Just surrender now and you don't have to die," said Shepard.

"I'd rather die than be forced to go with your Alliance forces and be tortured by you brutes," he said as he smoked, "But like I said, you will die here, at least on the inside."

"Funny, I expect to kick your ass, then have you run off in pain again," said Shepard, "Just like Kai Leng did a million times."

"Don't compare me to that imbecile!" Mikhail proclaimed, "He literally was the most pompous asshole you'd ever meet." "The man has the stupidest idea of fun I've ever seen." Mikhail chuckled, "I mean... we're talking about a man who ate a bowl of cereal while wire tapping an apartment because he thought it was edgy!"

Shepard and the crew began to laugh, "That is stupid." That moment of laughter completely went against the entire conflict at hand, but managed to somehow bring the two groups together in a peaceful activity.

Mikhail stopped chuckling, "BUT!" "The reason why we are here isn't to laugh about Kai Leng, but rather this," he stopped and pointed to a door that opened. A woman popped out of the room, dressed head to toe in phantom armor. The armor was a pure black, along with a white Cerberus insignia on it. She had a large sword in her right hand, the blade deflecting light off of its tip. She had a small red cape attached to the back of her neck and shoulders, drifting downward towards the ground. Several small tubes lined the suit, appearing to connect major blood vessels of the body.

"ABBY!" exclaimed Ashley as she looked in horror at her sister. Abby's face was covered in black veins, her skin was as white as a ghost. Her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils were also dilated. Her hair was black, just like Ashley's, but was un-groomed and short. Her hair looked greasy, clearly have not been washed for days or even months. The smell of ammonia was all over her body, filling the entire room and the crew's mouths.

"Abby," Ashley said as she slowly walked towards her, tears forming in her eyes, "Abby, it's me, Ash." Abby yielded no response, only gazing into nothingness as Ashley approached.

"Sorry to break up the reunion, but Abby is with us now," said Mikhail, "It wasn't easy convincing her, but a heavily sedated state of Red Sand and other Hallucinogens provided the best results." "She can't tell who you are or where she even is." Mikhail smiled as he tossed the butt of the cigarette on the ground and pulled up his Omni-tool, "However, when induced, she kills all in sight with no remorse."

He pressed a few buttons, starting the mechanics of her suit up. The red liquid began flowing through her body as her mouth began to foam a little. She growled , looking directly at Ashley with her sword cocked.

Ashley pulled her gun up, "Please Abby, please don't make me do this..." she whispered as she backed off of her sister. Abby cried out, running towards Ashley with her sword ready to strike. Just at the last moment, Ashley was pulled out of the way as Shepard took the hit from Abby.

The sword cut into his shoulder, the one that had just been wounded from before. Shepard yelled out in pain as he tackled her to the ground. He pushed the sword out of his shoulder as he began to punch her in the head. She jerked up, throwing Shepard off of her as she ran back for her sword. Ashley ran up and tackled her as she got near her sword.

"I hope you can forgive me for this," she said as she punched with all her might into her sister's head. The blow knocked her out cold, allowing for Ashley to check her sister's vitals.

"It's rigged to overdose," Mikhail said, "So you better hurry if you want to save her."

"Ashley, get your sister to safety," said Shepard, "We'll handle Mikhail."

"I think not," he said as he typed something into his Omni-tool, "I'll be leaving." Just then, the floor beneath him began to lower as he waved goodbye to the crew. The force field remained active to ensure he could get away.

"Go get him," Shepard said to the others as he helped Ashley pick up Abby .

"He's gone Shepard!" Liara said, "The schematics show that he's headed to an emergency shuttle exit. The other entrance is too far away to get to in time."

Just then, a large blast opened a large shut door on the other side of the room. The other troops poured in as they met up with Shepard.

"Shepard!" Green said, "It was a mess in there! Cerberus must have put every troop into fortifying that hallway." "There were turrets and mechs and phantoms... it was amazing."

"As much as I'd like to hear about it, I've got to get this woman medical treatment now," Shepard said.

"Roger," said Green, "Looks like you could use some bandages too."

"I can wait," said Shepard.

Crew met up with several other troops, who took Abby with them as they ran back up to the top. Ashley stayed close to Abby as they left for a hospital. Shepard looked around at the room, hoping to find some trace of Mikhail.

"Damn it," he said, "Mikhail got away on us... again."

"It' okay," said Green, "Bastards like him slither up again sooner or later." He looked at Shepard's shoulder, "That's a bad wound, let's see if we can't fix that up."

Shepard walked away from the room, knowing he'd find Mikhail sooner or later.