I hope last chapter's 'Unexpected Revelation' wasn't to jarring for you all. The original plan was to wait and reveal N's identity much later but then I got an idea that quite frankly works better. Hope you enjoy.

Kaidan looked blankly at me for just a minute before he lifted his hands to his head and rubbed soothing circles on his temples.

"Great," Kaidan said. "So I wasn't imagining it." her shook his head still gripping it in his hands. "Has he always been like that?" I nodded solemnly.

"To a point yes," I replied. "It wasn't always as bad as it was the last time I saw him, but a fair few of his quirks have always been there." I tried not to think about Nathan too much. It had a way of giving me a headache. "For example he hates using people's real names, it's too boring apparently, so he makes up nicknames like N, The Adept, or The Doctor. He's been doing that since he was seven."

The memories were pleasant in their own special way. I didn't think about my past very often, so nostalgia was a fairly foreign experience to me.

For an instant I allowed myself to be swept up in the current. Memories of childhood adventures floated to the forefront of my mind. Flashes of an easier time when Nathan wasn't nearly so difficult to deal with or understand.

"What about the hair and eyes?" Kaidan asked. "They didn't look synthetic." It was very strange to have someone asking questions about Nathan. Most people either barely knew he existed, or didn't know about him at all. Even the ones who did rarely asked questions.

"That's natural, or at least I think it is. His hair used to the same black as mine, and his eyes were blue in kind. We're twins you see, besides the hair and eyes we're mostly identical even. We were fourteen or fifteen when his hair started growing in white and his irises turned silver. He never told me why."

"And the stopping time thing?"

"Started at about the same time. I asked him about it once. He told me, and I quote, 'Learned it from a tome of tricks long forgotten.' He rarely told me more. All I know is that it isn't a biotic technique of some bizzare nature, and that he calls it a Spell." I shrugged at Kaidan as I said that last word. It sounded like nonsense and I knew it.

"Do you believe him?" The inquiry startled me a bit. No one had ever asked me that before.

"I think I do," I watched Kaidan's facial features carefully searching for some sign to give me a clue about what he was thinking. I didn't find one. "There really isn't any other reasonable explanation. Time just can't be stopped like that." I paused to consider whether to say anything else. "He does other stuff too. More confusing stuff, like appearing out of nowhere without explanation, or lighting a fire by snapping his fingers. Magic is the only thing that makes sense."

Kaidan looked like he wasn't sure what to do with that information. A silence hung over us for just a hair too long to remain comfortable.

"You should knows that I believe you," Kaidan began. "I agree that the term magic is applicable, but I don't believe that it's nearly so clean an answer." I released a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. "He said you'd die if I didn't come on 'The Adventure Of The Warrior-Maid' as he called it. Could he have been lying?" I didn't think for even a moment before responding.

"I doubt it," My voice was deadly serious. "Nathan doesn't lie, or at least not directly. He may tell a half truth, or not tell you something, but he has never outright spoken a falsehood. He can't, I've seen him try, the words just won't come. He told me once it was one of the reasons he chooses to speak the way he does. It makes it harder to figure out what he really means. I have a hard time with it too." Kaidan was obviously listening intently. "He also tends to know about things like that, the future I mean. Usually not very much, but enough that he'll drop in and give me some advice now and then."

"Sounds useful," Kaidan commented, "And risky." He gave me a curious look after he said that. "What about promises? Breaking a promise is kind of like a retroactive lie isn't it?" I hadn't expected that level of insight from Kaidan. Not to say that I thought he was an idiot, but it was rare for people to pick up on that detail.

"I've never known him to break his given word." I considered following that statement with something, but I felt it had the desired effect.

"Thank you Will," Kaidan said. "It means a lot to know I'm not crazy." I detected a lot of subtext in those words, but I couldn't quite pick up on the hidden meaning.

I'd been about to respond when a giggle to the right of me put me on guard. One of the other things I shared with Nathan was a large part of his skill set.

Nathan is a master at manipulating people. He always has been. When we were teenagers he gave me a lessons on reading people and using what I learned to manipulate them. It ended up being an invaluable skill in my line of work so I kept it up. A part of those lessons was controlling how you reacted to something. While instinct told me to react to the presence of an intruder, reflexes drilled into me by Nathan both told me not to show my hand so quickly, and gave me the tools I needed to follow that advice.

I knew from experience that I hadn't even slightly reacted to that giggle. I knew from the tone that the voice was female so it couldn't have been Nathan.

I'd heard some rumors of biotics who'd learned to alter the mass of themselves and the light around them so that they could be practically invisible, but that seemed unlikely. The Element Zero nodules embedded in my nervous system that enabled me to use biotics in the first place would probably react to any Mass Effect fields that were either powerful enough to generate an effect like that, or that were so close to me.

That only left the possibility of technological measures. I don't really know all that much about high technology that doesn't have to do with space crafts, but I had heard of specialized shielding technology that affected light in a person's general area.

But as far as countering it went I really only had one option. Biotics. Most people who had biotic abilities were taught to control them by using physical mnemonics, or certain patterns of physical activity that trigger a certain reaction of the Mass Effect nodules in their body to perform a specific biotic action. Grissom Academy had taught me differently.

My biotics have always been uniquely powerful. The problem was that I have a serious lack of control. My biotics tend to get away from me, and I can't always shut them down. As an experimental method of trying to teach me more control my instructors had taught me to use mental mnemonics instead of physical ones. This meant that instead of using a series of physical movements to trigger my biotics, I use certain patterns of mental or emotional stimulus to use my biotics. Things like I think of memory A and I use my biotics one way, whole memory B makes me use them another way. It isn't nearly so clean cut as that, but you get the gist. It didn't actual help much with my control, but it did train me to use my biotics without moving as well as much more quickly than normally since mental activity happens so much faster than physical responses. Both were advantages that I had found invaluable.

Without moving I formed a kinetic bubble around us and turned to face the room. I created another one around the door to lock it down.

"I'm going to give you to the count of ten to show yourself before I start trying to find you." My voice was cold and without compassion.

The air in front of me rippled and flickered until a short woman wearing dark clothes and a hood concealing a large portion of her features appeared in front of me.

"Alright alright don't get your trousers in a twist," She said in a voice that sounded like it was eastern in origin. "I am Kasumi Goto, you haven't heard of me, and you are Doctor William Crystilyn and Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko." Her expressions and body language were extravagant in a way that reminded me of Nathan.

"And you're in our room because?" Kaidan asked letting the question hang in the air for a while. Kasumi's head perked up as if she had been reminded of something.

"Oh yeah!" She exclaimed. "Shepard told me to tell you that we're approaching Illium, and that she wants you two to accompany her."

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I liked the chance to round out Will's character a bit more. Enjoy your day dearies.