Authors note: hey everyone, sorry for the lack of content yesteday, I was really busy babysiting my nephew. But now I'm totally avaiable and I've got an extra big chapter for you guys! I might not write any other chapters tomorrow, but I promise I'll at least try. Well, see you guys, hope you ejoy and keep the support coming!

Ps: if any of you would like to give a review, I'd apreciate the constructive citicism. Thank you!

"Commander Shepard of the Alliance, we hereby declare you to officially belong to the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel. Congratulations. Now, this meeting of the Council is adjourned!"-the asari councilor Tevos said as she backed away with the other two councilors into their private chambers.

Shepard was extremely uplifted. He had not only just become the first human Spectre, but he had been assigned to take down a threat to the galaxy in under a day. 'Time for some payback, Saren you ass.'- he thought, grinning inwards at the chance he'd been given to get justice for all of the innocents back on Eden Prime.

He turned back to see Kaidan and Tali standing there, like he knew they would be. Kaidan had a bit of lawyering expertise, from his early years before the Alliance. Shortly after the incident at Jump Zero, he'd spent some time exploring different career paths before the Alliance recruited him into service in a special biotic and special forces training facility in Rio. Ironically, that's where he'd met Shepard, and he had later found out that Corporal Williams, now promoted to Gunnery Chief aboard the Normandy, had also been stationed there during training. The Commander felt that having someone even a bit versed in the world of interstellar law would come in handy in this situation.

As for Tali, Shepard had felt it to be appropriate that she was there. After all, he owed her the evidence that had gotten him the biggest promotion in his life and a chance to stop a galactic scaled threat. Besides, after his talk with her on the way to the embassy and, posteriorly, to the Citadel tower, he had found it rather ironical that a quarian, a species banned from the Citadel's rule, was the one that had found the evidence that would save it. Chuckling at the thought, and noticing the young woman's enthusiasm in being a part of his mission and crew, he decided that bringing her along was probably for the best. Besides, maybe the Council would better trust someone whose altruism is evident, as is with a quarian on her Pilgrimage.

"Yup,"-Shepard thought, smiling at both of his companions as he headed towards, and then past them-"you don't get much more altruistic than that. I wonder how it even works? There's so much about my new crew I don't know. Maybe I can talk to them later?"

As he got near Anderson, he interrupted his line of thought to address the veteran. This certainly was a proud day for humanity.

"Good job Shepard. What you've just accomplished here is something humanity has been struggling with for decades. I just wanted you to know that you have the Alliance's, and all of mankind's support behind you."-Anderson said, staring meaningfully at Shepard as he remembered his own attempt at becoming a Spectre many years in the past. Deciding the Commander deserved to be told about exactly what had happened, as well as being properly informed about Saren's methods and, he then added-"I need to speak with you later, in private. Away from the curious eyes and hears around this damn tower. Too many politicians and con-men. Meet me outside, by the Normandy's docking bay. I'll be waiting."

"Thank you sir."- the Commander said. No longer being able to maintain his military cool, he flashed Anderson a contented smile as he saluted.-"But I want you to know sir, it's been an honor working with you."

Anderson smiled back at the closest thing he had to a son, and replied:

"You too, Shepard. Now go out there and give them hell. You were born to do this."

Garrus Vakarian was having a hard time adapting to the Normandy. As soon as Shepard had reached the human embassy, he had told Garrus where to find the ship and how to get there. He had also told the turian to pick up anything he might find necessary quicly, has they would probably be making an hasty departure as soon as Shepard's meeting with the Council was over.

It had been a constant shitstorm since then. First, the Normandy's crew refused to let him in, stating they didn't trust any turian aboard their ship. However, before Garrus had the time to point out there had already been a turian on their ship, and that the only reason the Normandy existed was because of an allegiance between humans and turians, Captain Anderson had radioed some human named Pressley and, after a series of confirmations and suspicious looks, he had been let inside the ship.

"Geez, if they get this worked up about a turian, I can only imagine what will happen when they see Wrex. Well, if things do turn out for the worst, at least he has blood rage to regenerate."-he thought, his wise cracking attitude already bringing forth an image of the bulky krogan getting shot at, only pissing him off even further while he went berserk. He didn't like Wrex, but he recognized that if there was some alien he wanted to be with in a fight, the krogan sure as hell would come first on the list. Well, apart from Shepard, at least.

By the time he had gotten to the Normandy's cafeteria, he had found that there was no dextro food. Pparently, since Nihlus had died, everyone had just conveniently gotten rid of all dextro supplies on the ship.

"Oh, the quarian is going to looove this"-he thought, thinking of his new squadmate and of her ridiculous needs. He still hadn't wraped his head around why the Commander had recruited her. She had no combat experience, they had no idea if she was as skilled against the geth has he claimed, and she was a quarian. She could die of virtually anything outside of her suit! She would be needy, always complaining about special items and requisites she'd need to survive, when if her species hadn't even invented the geth, they wouldn't be in this mess in the first place!

Still, he was ready to keep an open mind about the individual. Maybe her thieving skills would come in handy. Everyone at C-sec was told they were pretty good thieves, so maybe she was as technically skilled as she claimed to be. And she didn't seem to be too much of a bad person from what he'd seen, but he still feared she might betray them. Maybe it was all a part of a scheme to steal the Normandy's plans for her Pilmgrimage!

He sighed, and then thought to himself: 'Well, at least the krogan is too dumb to just outright play us. I'll have to keep an eye on my dextro counterpart though."

Moving along, he had hurried to his apartment and, after gathering enough supplies and packing a few weapons mods, he ran back to his old C-sec boss' office. When he arrived, he burst through the front door, threw him his badge, ID card and gun and loudly proclaimed something he meant to do for a very, very long time:

"I quit this shitty job!"

Wrex was not happy. He had gotten a long boring speech about 'integrity' and 'dignity' by Shepard after killing Fist, and he'd been dispensed from duty as soon as the group neared the Citadel tower. 'A krogan shouldn't be in the Council chambers' Udina had said, 'he might try to harm the Councilors!'. At that point, the only thing that had kept Wrex from lashing out had been Shepard's firm, unflinching stare.

After that, Wrex decided to spend some time cutting off loose ends. A few mercs he'd threatened, a few debts to pay, and of course, for a new, big mission, a newer, even bigger shotgun. He'd swipe the smug look of that turian with a single flash of this bad boy. Or so he thought. He knew the quarian they'd rescued a while back had something that packed quite a punch. Maybe he could find a way to coherse her into letting him in on her mods. Or he could just take them, as long as she didn't tell and Shepard didn't know. But even though he was krogan, and valued strength and courage, he failed to see where the courage and strength would be in taking a shotgun from a quarian who hadn't even done true battle before, so he quickly gave up on the idea.

Instead, he went out looking for Garrus. If the turian was going to come along with them for the next few weeks, or maybe even months of mission, then he might as well teach him a few things about shooting. Seven hundred years had given Wrex plenty of time to learn how to shoot pretty much anything, except for those small, horrible sniper rifles. Still, he'd mop the floor with Vakarian's lower rear plates any day.

"Hehehe, this is gonna be fun…"

Tali was amazed at what she saw. The Normandy's design was like nothing she'd ever seen in her whole life. It was just so… different from everything in the flotilla! The sleek design, the quadruple tail wings, the powerful engines… being a tech expert, this was as good as it could get.

"Admiring the ship, hey?"

She turned back to watch Shepard arriving with a hard, metal case in his hands. She was looking for a response when he handed her the case.

"Here, I got this for you."-he said with a polite smile. She took the case and opened it. She looked in awe as she found a stock of plutonium rounds for her shotgun and a new pistol. She quickly turned to him and asked:

"Why did you do this?"-he looked at her, giving her a confused look. She noticed how, even though she never saw anyone's face in the flotilla nowadays, she could still recognize his expression from all the times she had seen it from her mother. She desperately missed those days.

"Well, I thought you'd like it. You know, I need my crew to be as well equipped as they can be, and you only had a standard model…Is that an offense to quarians? I'm sorry if it is, you're the first one I've ever talked to… Well, actually, you're the first quarian I've ever even seen."

"No, not that, you haven't offended me at all. And thank you for the worrying and all. But why? Why are you being nice to me? Aren't you afraid I'll just steal your things, or angry that we created the geth?"-she was having a hard time understanding this human. What was he up to? She felt a strange feeling in her gut as he spoke once again:

"Ah. That's what this is about."-he added, before staring at her blankly in silence for a few seconds. He then continued.-"You know what? I'll tell you a little story. I grew up in the midst of the Alliance. Both my parents were military. I'll spare you the details, but I'll tell you this: they fought batarians. A lot of batarians in fact. Whenever my parents went into battle, I was left behind. My only family, the only people that cared for me, were out there risking their lives against this unknown monster that I couldn't do anything to stop.

When I was too young, I didn't know a lot about what was really happening, so I just thought of mom and dad as heroes. But when my parents started to return with gunshot wounds I started to realize what was going on. I noticed that every time their squad went out, someone didn't come back. And I was scared. It didn't help when they showed me an image of an actual batarian, which I saw as a four eyed beast trying to kill everyone." –he paused a little bit afterwards, turned his back to her and stared blankly into the beautiful firmament beyond the reach of the Citadel arms. He then continued his story:

"For a long time after that, I hated the batarians. A lot of things happened… Some of them I'm not yet comfortable talking about. But one day, after I'd joined the Alliance, I was on shore leave with a few very close friends, on a human colony called Elysium. That was the day of the Skillyan Blitz. The biggest batarian raider armada ever seen. The slavers butchered everyone they came across. I lost many good friends that day."-he said in a sad tone. Tali could feel the emotion on his voice, and knew he wasn't faking it. She didn't know how she knew, she just did. Suddenly, a feeling of enormous empathy overflowed her, and she thought it right to say something.

"I'm so sorry, Shepard. It must have been hard."-she felt stupid has soon as she had said it. How was this supposed to make him feel better? But surprisingly, he turned back to her, not with anger, or depression, but with a simple, sad smile on his face.

"Don't be. You weren't there. Besides, I get the feeling your life is harder than mine, if what I read about your flotilla is true. I've actually been curious to talk with you about that, but we'll leave that for later.

So where was I? Elisyum, right? Well, believe it or not, I'm one of the few survivors of my squad. Guess it's a family curse…"-she noticed his words were not intentional, so she didn't inquire about what he meant. Still, he noticed her slight unease in her body language and quicly added-"Sorry, I didn't mean to circumspect. Anyway, remember me saying they were butchering everyone? Well, I meant it. After the initial assault, the raiders filled the streets, killing every civilian they could find. I lost a third of my squad to a couple of airships that were on the original attack, but the rest of us managed to get away and hide in a house on the outskirts of the colony.

You can imagine our surprise when, as we searched the house, we were attacked by a batarian. He came at me with a knife, but before he could get me, a member of my squad… jumped in front of the blade. She saved my life right then and there. She'd live the injury, but I was just so… pissed. So I lunged at him. But before I could kill the batarian, a large group of kids came into the room. Asari, human, turian, batarian, even a vorcha, they all come into the room and start screaming at us, telling us not to hurt him.

Turns out, we had stepped into an orphanage. The batarian was a teacher there. He'd thought we were human pillagers and attacked us while the children ran away. One of the kids had gone back, and the others followed him. I had been this close…-he said, doing a pinching movement with his fingers-… to killing an innocent man. But I still couldn't trust a batarian. Not after my previous experiences with them. I just couldn't be there, with him, with that monster. And people were still dying outside, so I took action. I took a large part of my squad, and left the rest guarding the kids and my injured squad mate."

"I'm glad to hear it all went alright. It wasn't your fault your friend got hurt. And everything turned out for the best, right?"-Tali said as she gave him a hopeful smile. She knew deep down he wouldn't be telling her this story if there wasn't more to it.

"For a while, yes. It took us a while to get to our destination, a nearby police station. There was a weapon cache in the cellar, ripe for picking. We figured that if the guns were still there, the batarians hadn't gotten to the neighborhood yet, so we grabbed a bunch of assault rifles and took up vantage points. Sure enough, a large group of them, with a bunch of chained humans and the occasional asari, came through about an hour later. We killed the slavers in a surprise attack. Didn't lose a single civilian."

"What about your squad?"-Tali asked, a sense of dread filling her, as she already knew the answer.

"I lost two men. Corporal Kyle, and my best friend, Ramirez. Ha, that Ramirez sure was a pain sometimes, but you could count on him to do anything. Took half of the batarians by himself while the rest of us secured the civilians. And then he got hit with a stray bullet, straight through his throat. Drowned in his own blood in a minute."-Shepard's face had turned in to a grim, depressed version of his usual, cheerful look. She couldn't even imagine what it was like to lose someone under your command, especially a friend.

"Shepard… I don't know what to say…"

"It's ok. We all knew what we had signed up for when we joined the military. He died a hero. And after we'd secured the civilians, we carried his body back to the orphanage to get him a proper burial. As we approached the building, something felt wrong. No one had come out to greet us. I then heard a single shot, and ran into the complex. But it was too late.

They'd killed everyone. Every kid, all the marines, everyone. There were so many batarian corpses… for every marine dead, they must have killed five or six slavers. But even that wasn't enough. Some kids were hugging, even in death. They'd been executed while comforting each others. They didn't care what species they were, they cared that they were children. My injured friend's corpse, still holding on to a locket I'd given her. Then I found the teachers corpse. He had three bullets on his back, and was facing a door. There were a few more corpses up ahead. He'd tried to shield the kids and the marines from the bullets with his own body while they ran! AND I THOUGHT HE WAS A MONSTER! THEY WERE ALL DEAD BECAUSE OF ME!"-Shepard screamed, tears now running down his face, remembering every detail, every child's face, every marine's dogtag. He didn't want her to see him like that, but she was comprehensive. She came near him, and to his surprise, hugged him.

"It's okay. You're going to be okay. It wasn't your fault… you couldn't have stopped them Shepard…"

He was just stunned there for what felt like hours. Then, he raised his arms and hugged her back. After a while, they finally let go and he continued to talk:

"Thank you. I'm sorry you had to see me like that. That day… that day will haunt me to the day I die. But it was also the day I changed. I've never judged anyone for their species ever since. Not after seeing what those kids had done. Not after I saw what had happened to that batarian teacher. And it taught me about the horrors of war.

Right then and there, I felt an urge to kill every slaver I could find. I'd lost everyone I cared about except my mother to those slavers. It was time they paid. Only half of my squad was left, and there was no way they could survive a full on assault on the batarian forces. So I told them to take the civilians, go back to the police station, and hide. Then I ran into the middle of town.

I don't remember much of what happened next. Most of it is blurry. I remember the smell of death and blood everywhere I went. But not my blood. Never my blood. I shot more bullets that day than in all of my career. When my rifle jammed, I pistol wiped them. Until eventually reinforcements arrived and took back the colony. Apparently, my killing spree had stopped the batarians from reaching a radio tower, and some of my teammates had managed to get to it and send a distress call.

They say I killed more than two thousand batarians that day. They called me a hero. I say I killed more than two thousand monsters that day. But they were also people. They had wives, kids. I had to stop them, stop the bloodshed, but I still remember how I felt when I lost people that were dear to me. I'm no hero, Tali. I'm just a murderer for the right reasons."

Tali looked at him as he just stood there. She had no idea what to say. She just looked at him until he turned his eyes directly onto hers. Then he spoke again:

"I'm being nice to you because I learned that even batarians can be nice. That's why I'm usually a friendly guy to all species. Not one of us, not a single one, is better than the others. I learned that the hard way. So I couldn't give less of a crap about your people's reputation. I judge you for your character. And if I can grow to like and respect a batarian, I can certainly grow to like and respect you. And up until now, I have only respect for your actions."

After that, he just turned away from her and went into the ships docking tube. She knew, right then and there, she would always respect the man that she had just talked to. He wasn't playing her, or trying to get an angle. He just was that way, and Tali felt an admiration and empathy towards him that she hadn't felt ever before. She liked the human… No, she liked Shepard already.

But he wasn't quite done yet. Before reaching the airlock, he still turned back and said:

"You're one of the few people I've ever told this story. Thank you for listening. If you need something, or have a problem with the ship, just let me know. And if you want to lighten up after this story, ask for engineer Adams in the lower deck. He'll fill you in on the Tantalus core that keeps this baby running. He's almost as good a tech freak has me."-he said with a smile before entering the ship's airlock.

'Wait, he's a tech expert?!', Tali thought to herself, barely holding her emotions together after his story and knowledge of his trust on her.

'I like him already.'