Me:- Phew we finally got the chapter finished...we um...both got a little side tracked ^_^'

Nathan:- 'We'? You mean you with your new Dating sim RPG's you've been playing.

*cover his mouth with my hand *

Me:- No no no...It was just a busy time of year is all...¬_¬ although you can say much you playing your he-

*nathan pulls my hand off and stuffs me in a bag*

Nathan:- we don't own anything other than the OC's and original story idea's we just mess with the Mass Effect universe.

*screaming muffles coming from bag*

Nathan:- Oh shush

Chapter 3

Meeting

Shepard lowered her gun slightly out of confusion and turned to give her two companions a look before turning back towards the man in question. "Excuse me?"

The male finished typing on the terminal and turned his chair so he could look at the new intruders. "You know the mechs which were firing at Cerberus as you came through the door?" Shepard holstered her SMG and made a signal for her companions to keep theirs out, she still didn't know if she could trust this man.

"Then why the hell were they only targeting Cerberus? You need special clearance to even get anywhere near those mech codes."

The male smirked but Shepard couldn't make out much of his features because the poor lighting from the power starting to fail,

"You'd be amazed at what you can get access to when the Administrator forgets to "Log out" of his console." The male emphasised 'log out' with air quotations, while turning into a full frontal view with his seat. Shepard had to do a double take at the man before noticing his facial features, his face was fairly human other than his nose which seemed human but had a feline likeness to it. Then there were his eyes while again human the irises were slit, but the colour is what stood out, they were a sharp ice blue which could probably be seen in total darkness. His hair was chestnut brown and quite long and shaggy. Shepard then noticed movement on his head and saw what appeared to be feline ears but rounded instead of pointed. Again Shepard noticed movement but directly behind him very close to the seat, she then noticed it shift back and forth. It was...a tail? Shepard stood there in silence for a while before Garrus broke the silence.

"What the.."

"Oh this is just great! More Cerberus secrets! First Reapers, then Collectors and now a weird mutant human hybrid, what next!?" As Shepard said this she turned around and threw her hands up in the air before turning around and pointed at the 'thing' in question.

The male then feinted being wounded, "Ouch, manners cost nothing ya' know?"

Grunt thought his would be a good time to interject, "I say we eat it." While a grin came across his face. The male threw up his arms, "And the insults just keep coming!"

He then swiveled in his chair to face the terminal again, to continue typing. Shepard stormed up to the chair and turned the male back around so she was looking at him square in the eyes, is this really the experiment the Illusive man wanted back so badly?

"Look you! You need to answer my questions right now, or it won't end well for you." Shepard said indicating her head back towards her crew mates who had there guns primed and ready on either side of the target. The male seemed rather absent minded about the whole situation before looking back at Shepard, "And those questions being...?" "First. What's so valuable about you? Second. What the hell happened here? And thirdly. What the fuck are you?" The male gave a sigh and motioned his hand towards the terminal near the Cerberus scientist, "The files on that console should answer most of your questions about me. As for what happened here, well..."

-*Flashback*-

The containers continual audible struggle echoed through the lab as the hand began to push it open fully, breaking the mechanism, the body raised from its container as he looked about the lab, the drips creating tension with his movements as they broke free from the tubing. Gabone had placed the samples into a portable container at this point and had already darted from the lab, shutting the door behind him as he went to leave the facility as quickly as possible, leaving Dr. Chilos behind with Leos having broken out of containment. He lowered himself out from within the container as Dr. Chilos stood well back from the table, her mind racing as she attempted to recall what to do in such a situation, She looked towards the terminals as they now showed obvious warnings. He groaned slightly before heading towards Gabone's terminal, leaning against the table as Leos attempted to gather himself from the disorientation of having just gained consciousness.

After a few moments he was able to trace back what Gabone had done, having sent an alert notice to the Illusive Man; this only meant that Leos will be dealing with Cerberus troops that will be here to contain him soon. He started to search through the Console for access to the mechs upon site, as he was attempting to locate the mechs command coding, Dr. Chilos was attempting to move closer, trying to sedate him while she presumed he wasn't paying attention to her.

"I wouldn't do anything aggressive if I were you... I wouldn't want to hurt ya." As he spoke this seemed to put Rebecca off slightly, as though she wasn't expecting him to speak at all.

She stumbled back slightly and lent against the examination table, in this time Leos had gotten to work on the code, altering it as quickly as possible as he'd sigh heavily upon the hasty completion.

"That'll do for now..." He mutter to himself as he quickly set up the code to be placed within the systems input for the mechs. He then turned away from the terminal to see a rather scared looking Dr. Chilos, he would sigh heavily before walking towards the lab entrance. "There is nothing to worry about... you can leave if you want." He uttered as he opened the door, only to have the sound of gunshots and a body of a scientist fall in front of him. He blinked a few times before looking back towards Rebecca, carrying a rather sheepish grin upon his face. "Or maybe not..." he pressed the button to close the door again and turned back towards the Terminal.

"Its okay! I can fix it, just gonna need some time-" more gunshots were heard as spoke up. "Fix it!? There are people being killed out there! What did you do!?" Leos sighed heavily as he continued to try and edit the code, fingers rapidly rushing across the keys as he would answer. "I did what I needed to, I'm not being stuck in those bloody tubes any longer, heck I don't even know what year this is any more..." With this, Dr. Chilos stepped back from Leos and bumped into the table once more, falling to her knee's as she tried to think about what to do. "This isn't happening... this whole things just a horrible nightmare..." "If this is the nightmare I'd hate to know what I have been having for the past number of years!" Leos chuckled slightly nervously as he continued to relentlessly attack the keyboard, entering line after line of code, bringing up and searching for record files of the staff upon the site.

-*End Flashback*-

"Then not long after you and your 'company' came in." Shepard still was giving the male a look which meant she was sceptical about the story, Shepard shifted slightly to look beyond Leos and looked at the last remaining scientist who appeared to be in shock, "Keep an eye on him while I see what this person knows." Garrus gave her a nod before allowing Grunt to switch positions with Shepard. "And no trying to eat him Grunt." Shepard said before making her way to the scientist.

Leos looked at Grunt, then his shotgun then back at Grunt. He gave a sheepish smile towards him, "So...Compensating for something?" Grunt gave a growl while Garrus shook his head slightly, ~This guy isn't acting very much like an experiment, very unlike the one's from 2 years ago~ Garrus thought before turning his full attention back to Leo's hoping Shepard wouldn't take very long; otherwise there would be a dead experiment to hand back.

As Shepard approached the scientist she seemed in a trance and didn't really acknowledge Shepard's presence, she knelt down to the scientist's level and tried to look her in the eyes. "I'm Commander Shepard, I'm here to help you. Can you tell me your name miss?"

The scientist looked up and Shepard could see streaks down her face from when she had been crying. "Chilos...Dr. Rebecca Chilos."

"Rebecca, I just spoke to that...man...over there and he told me what happened here, I need to make sure his story matches up so I need you to remember what happened." Rebecca took a shuddering breath and shook her head slightly,

"I...I'm not sure...I don't think I..." Shepard placed a comforting hand on her shoulder,

"I know it's not easy but you will help everything come full circle. We need the full story so we know how to go ahead in this situation."

Chilos gave a hesitant nod before giving her version of events which seemed to have started before Leos was conscious. She recalled the lab scene and Leos events almost word for word. "I...I warned him...but still he...he..." Shepard helped Rebecca stand up. "It's not your fault, don't blame yourself." Rebecca nodded before Shepard told her to wait until she filled in her squad.

As Shepard made her way back over she noticed Grunt looked like he was ready to rip the experiments head off. "Garrus, Grunt go and wait near the entrance, just need to tie up a few loose ends and I'll meet you there." "You sure Shepard?" Garrus asked with concern in his voice, "I'll be fine, just make sure the shuttle's ready to go." Garrus nodded his head and took a reluctant Grunt with him.

"It seems your story checks out, but that still leaves the problem of what to do with you."

Shepard said while moving to stand in front of Leos. "From what I can see you have three choices, the first is I hand you over to the Illusive man and carry on with my mission as planned. Second is I can leave you here and you can be a hermit for the rest of your days here until you run out of resources. Or thirdly you can join me on my quest to stop the Collectors, I could always use another tech on board...So...What will it be?"

Shepard crossed her arms awaiting his answer. Leos thought it over for a moment before looking at Shepard, "Hm...well I want to stick it to the Illusive man for having me here all this time, although staying here would only cause more deaths. So I guess that means I'm going with you, as long as I don't end up on that lizards menu."

He finished with a big grin as he was finally allowed to leave his seat, "Well you know my name what do I call you?" Rebecca had slowly made her way towards Shepard and Leos before saying "Leos...his name is Leos."

The man wrinkled up his face with the statement Rebecca had just made, "I'd rather not be given the label of easy reference for your logs. Just call me Sedrick." Shepard nodded her head and shook his hand, "Welcome aboard." She said before she motioned for both of them to follow, with Sedrick in the front and Rebecca in the back. They headed for the shuttle and went back to the Normandy so Shepard could give her debrief to the Illusive man, a small grin came across her facing knowing he would be less than pleased with her plan.