Author's Note: For those of you who haven't seen it, there's now a custom cover for A Fistful of Shepards, drawn by the incredibly talented Orifiel, and featuring Angela, Havok, and Polarity. She also writes, in addition to drawing awesome covers in Paint.

Angela watched the quarian shuttle lift off, her mind troubled. Veetor had been treated by Chakwas and boarded with Tali and the half of her team who were still alive, departing for points unknown. The bizarre shadows had shown up again, but still not developed into Tali's doubles, which frustrated all the Shepards to no end.

"Alright, we checked it out, and there's clearly some new enemy gunning for humanity in particular," Neville said as they walked back towards the shuttle. "The question is, do we continue to take Cerberus' money to fight them?"

"Better than constant raids on pirate bases to buy our own equipment," Victor mused. "Also, funnels money from them to us."

Angela considered it, turning over several lines of thought as they sat down and Miranda lifted off again. "Hypothetically speaking," she directed towards the two natives of her universe, "even though I destroyed what seemed to be Reaper Central Command, is there any reason that individual Reapers, far enough away from the blast zone, couldn't have survived and been behind this?"

It took Miranda a few seconds to process the convoluted question. "Whatever you did on the Citadel, it went through the entire relay network. All pieces of Reaper tech, as far away as the Hegemony, shut off. We've still been able to glean information from some of it, but the only way a Reaper survived is if it was somewhere the relay network didn't reach."

"So, it is possible?" Neville asked.

"Possible, but extremely unlikely. With the destruction of the AI on the Citadel, the Council has been pushing exploratory missions through unmapped relays. From the location of all the known relays, extrapolating mathematically, there's one every thousand light years or less." Miranda sounded extremely confident about the information, and even Jacob was nodding.

"Even if they did, it would be only a handful of Reapers," he said.

"You haven't seen what a handful of Reapers is capable of," Titus said darkly. "Twelve of them took out the combined Second and Fifth fleets at Arcturus, and then blew up the station. Just twelve. We managed to kill three of them."

Everyone in the shuttle went silent to consider it. "How bad were the losses against Sovereign, then?" Angela whispered.

Jacob shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "The Destiny Ascension was crippled, took the asari a year to rebuild. Six human cruisers and five frigates destroyed. Ten turian cruisers, nine destroyers, and fifteen frigates destroyed. A couple of salarian destroyers, too. Plus a hundred thousand or so killed on the station between the geth and the impacts from the broken ships."

"Bolzhemoi," Victor spat. "And for this, they made Anderson a Council man?"

"Something like that. Your ordering the AI to die was heard everywhere in Council space," Miranda explained. "Between that, and the Prothean VI from Ilos, the Council couldn't deny the effect humanity had. We're still treated as the FNG, but we're also getting some respect from the other species."

"The real question, is what happens now?" Angela asked, as the shuttle settled into its place in the cargo bay of the Normandy. "Is the Illusive Man really just going to let me walk away, if I so choose?"

Jacob and Miranda looked at each other, while the other Lawsons and Taylors just looked uncomfortable. "Angela, if you don't act to stop the bugs, who will?"

Titus coughed, causing everyone to look at him. "That's sort of the problem," he said. "Those bugs? The humanoid ones are a species called the Collectors. We've dealt with them in our universe, and I'd wager Ophelia has as well?" His counterpart nodded. "But they were Reaper pawns. They're what's left of the Protheans."

Angela crossed her arms, glaring at Miranda. "Suddenly, my hypothesis doesn't seem quite so far-fetched."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Miguel interrupted. "The humanoid ones were Collectors, yes. But the swarms they had with them? Those are new. Unique to your universe. So yes, there might be a Reaper out there pulling their strings. Or someone else came along, picked up Sovereign's toys, and decided to play with them."

Neville clapped his hands. "So, we're back to square one, are we? Lovely."

"Not quite," Pari countered. "We can tell you how to fight Collectors, and there's an easy way to tell if it's still a Reaper at the controls." All three Shepards, Miranda, and Jacob, all stared at her. "If one of them starts glowing, and spouting off cliché villain dialog like, 'Your end is inevitable,' or 'I will handle this personally,' then it's a Reaper behind it."

All three Shepards stared at each other. "Who the fuck wrote their dialog, Mystery Science Theater?" Angela muttered. "Gah, forget it. Let's get moving. I'm not doing anything until I talk to Anderson."

"Commander, the Illusive Man is waiting to speak to you," EDI suddenly said from the holo display next to the elevator. "The engines will not engage until you have spoken to him."

"Oh for crying out loud! Can't we fly to our destination while I talk with him?" Angela muttered, stomping into the elevator, Neville and Victor flanking her.

"Is yours as bad about micromanaging some projects while completely ignoring others?" Titus asked.

"You have no idea," Miranda said, before pausing and looking at him more critically. "Actually, you might. Never mind."

"Something just occurred to me," Jacob said as they waited for the elevator to return. "There's enough living space, barely, for the crew and twenty-six Shepards. But if there's three of every single one of us, with the possibility of more, will we be able to fit everyone on board?"

"Shepards. I already received Miranda's preliminary report. Good job down there." He paused to take a drag on his cigarette, while the three Shepards glared at him. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you couldn't convince Tali to join you. She would have been a valuable asset."

"Can it," Angela growled. "I'm willing, possibly, to be convinced that accepting your blood money to stop the Collectors is the best option. But not before I talk to Anderson."

"The Normandy is yours, Shepard. I'm not going to second guess how you protect humanity. But you might want to look at these files first, before you go running off to the Citadel." Her omni-tool beeped, along with Neville's and Victor's. "One of them is extremely time sensitive, and I know you'd hate to leave someone in the lurch if you can help it."

She stared at him through narrowed eyes, fighting the urge to tap her feet, or cross her arms any tighter than they already were. She thought she could hear the tendons in Victor's hand creak behind her. "I'll look them over. But if you wanted me back to be Shepard, then I'm going to be Shepard."

"Commander Shepard, whether three or twenty-six of you, is humanity's best hope," TIM said before putting the cigarette to his mouth again. "Whatever you might think about my methods, never doubt my motives."

Oh, I've got a pretty damn good idea of what your motives really are, Angela thought darkly as the holo projection cut off.

"So, let's see," Neville said to himself, opening up the files. "A convict on ice; a daft krogan scientist, of all things; a salarian doctor," he trailed off as he stopped skimming the last one and actually studied it. "A vigilante on Omega. Isn't that a surprise. And he's managed to piss off all of the three largest mercenary groups in the Terminus systems at the same time. He sounds like a jolly chap."

"This must be time sensitive," Victor said. "Rescue him before three merc groups decide to draw and quarter him with aircars."

Angela sighed. "Yeah, but, Omega? We can't set foot on the station without it coming to the attention of the Bitch Queen of the Terminus Systems." She covered her face with one hand. "Something tells me that Cerberus has probably already told her we're coming."

"Nichevo," Victor said. "If she knows, she knows, we deal with it. We dealt with Saren, we dealt with Reapers, what is one asari compared to that?"

"You had to go and tempt fate, didn't you," Neville joked as he left the meeting room, heading towards the armory. "When everything goes wrong on this mission, remember it's all your fault!"

"I am Russian. Everything goes wrong no matter whose fault belongs to," Victor muttered in confusion, following him.

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us," Angela said to the empty room.

Omega was a dark, smelly, shithole of a place. All in all, it was almost exactly what Angela had expected. They had hardly stepped off the ship before being confronted by a batarian. "Aria wants to see you," he informed them.

"See?" Angela said to Victor. "What did I tell you?"

"We see her soon," Victor told the batarian calmly, moving to step past him, only to have one armored hand slap into his chest.

"You'll see her now," the batarian threatened.

Half a second later, the unfortunate messenger was on his knees, arm bent back behind him painfully with two fingers already broken. "Getting sloppy there, Vic," Neville said calmly. "Didn't you use that same move on a pirate to try and impress Williams?"

"Pirate was less annoying than batarian," Victor said calmly, leaning over the batarian and using the leverage to force his face into the grimy floor. "Tell Aria, we get there when we get there."

"I surrender, I surrender!" the unfortunate messenger whimpered. Victor released him, and the nine members of the Normandy crew marched into the station.

"Ironically, seeing Aria is probably our best bet to find this Archangel," Pari said as they walked past Afterlife and towards the markets.

"What do you know about Aria?" Titus asked.

"She managed to escape Omega when the station was overrun by Collectors," Pari said. "She worked with us for a while, before taking an assortment of mercs and trying to retake the station."

"That would have been six months ago, in our universe," Ophelia expounded. "We know she failed, but not her final fate."

"Have I mentioned how much our universes seem to completely and utterly suck? Angela, I'm moving in for good," Neville declared as they started browsing the merchant stalls.

An hour of shopping later, an elcor threatened and a quarian gifted, they finally stopped by Afterlife. They strode through the front door in ranks, three by three, and people moved out of their way by sheer dint of their personal force. At least, until they hit the main floor of the club. The noise, the flashing lights, and the sheer number of people made that less practical, so they broke up, weaving through the throng towards the balcony on the far side of the room where Aria sat, watching their approach.

When they finally reached Aria, another batarian stepped forward to scan them, starting with Angela. The lead Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Your bodyguards seem a little blind today," she said, tapping a finger on her pistol.

"He's not checking for weapons, he's checking to see if you're the real thing," Aria said, sipping from her cup and staring at Angela through slitted eyes.

"Worried I'm actually my evil twin? Because Sachiko's not here, that I've seen." Angela pushed the batarian to the side and sat down, Victor next to her and Neville flanking Aria. "So, we're here. Now what?"

"It's not every day that humanity's best and brightest comes back from the dead. Aren't I allowed a little curiosity?" Aria jerked her head in the direction of the Lawsons. "And your effect is spreading. So, what the hell do you want, and make it quick. The faster I can get you the hell off my station, the better."

"Afraid your competition is about to get more numerous?" Neville asked, leaning back on the couch.

"I don't want to get drawn into your little freak show. I don't share with anyone else, I'm sure not going to share with myself."

"We're here to recruit two people. And if I can help it, we won't be coming back here, either," Angela said, fighting the urge to grind her teeth.

"Which two people? I'll have them gift wrapped and delivered to your airlock."

"Archangel and Doctor Solus."

Silence, or as close as Afterlife came to it, reigned in the balcony. "Have fun recruiting them, then. Archangel is holed up in a bunker in the upper levels, and he's been tearing apart the mercenaries. You might be able to get in if you sign up with them, down there." She gestured with her glass towards a pair of armored men flanking one of the private rooms. "As for Solus, the entire section around his clinic is under quarantine. Humans aren't affected by it, but since he's salarian, he might already be dead."

"That's not exactly helpful," Miranda said.

Aria immediately turned on her. "I'm not here to be fucking helpful. I'm here to run this station, enjoy every luxury the Terminus has to offer, and indulge my whims whenever I feel like it. I'm giving you information because I'd rather not be in the path of hurricane Shepard. Now take it and get out, before I decide to throw you off the balcony."

As they filed out, Pari looked back and gave a startled Aria a very lavicious wink and lick of the lips, before mouthing, Call me. Down on the main floor, Jacob shoved aside an inebriated turian to reach Angela's side. "Did you have the feeling that if your doubles are you, then you must really, really hate yourself?" Angela just nodded as Jacob shuddered. "I mean, I get the appeal of asari, just not that one."

"Trust me, Jacob. Don't ask. Because then you'll be stuck with knowing for the rest of your life." Sighing, she shoved her way through the crowd to the recruitment station. "This is where we sign up to find Archangel, right?"

As the Blue Suns man jerked a thumb at the door, she grinned. She might not be able to smite the original bastard who got her into this situation, but she could do the next best thing and turn lots and lots of bloodthirsty mercenaries into human popsicles.