"Nate what the hell took so…oh." At seeing my disheveled state of affairs, Mitch started chuckling to himself very slowly, picking up momentum as he went along. Ashley just kinda stared at Miranda who, while still looking a bit ruffled was much more cleaned up looking than I was, her expression seemingly caught between shock and a sort of pity for the woman, which I did not appreciate at all. I'm not that bad looking, especially when you take into account the scars I've got to overcome.

Liara meanwhile, just looked a bit confused. "I am afraid I do not understand what is going on here. Did your business deal go well Nathan?"

"It did, thanks Liara." I smiled at the asari sheepishly as I tried to fix my tousled stripe of hair that was supposed to run down the center of my head. Right now it had a bit of a lean to it that was the end result of what had just went down, so to speak.

As Miranda touched my shoulder and made her way out, mouthing, "I'll be in touch," as she exited, Ashley kicked the proverbial door in. "For God's sake." She covered her face with her hand and sighed exasperatedly. "They had sex T'Soni." As the maiden finally understood what had happened, a violet blush spread across her cheeks. "See how his face is still all red, plus his hair right there is pretty messed up and tousled?" She nodded and began to analyze me as if I was some newfound archeological find. "Those are all telltale signs that one of us humans has been getting busy."

"I see."

Since Mitch was still too busy laughing to himself to take control of the situation, I decided it was up to me. "So uh, did Daxy set you up with everything you need Liara?"

"Yes." She stared at her newfound armor. An interlocked pattern of black, grey and white spattered camo that I easily recognized from the pattern as Titan armor, probably of the light variety considering the asari's lithe build. "Your co-workers were extremely knowledgeable and helped a great deal in helping me select armor and weapons with which to defend myself."

"Good. I'm glad to see they haven't completely lost their touch since I left the place." I turned to the blonde and slugged him in the shoulder. "You done having fun at my expense short stuff or can we get a move on now?"

"I'm sorry, I just completely was not expecting you to be that uh…successful with your business ventures." He slammed his fist right into my chest, not realizing that my jacket was lightly plated thanks to Daxy's perfect work. "Shit Wolf, I didn't realize you were still so paranoid. You're with one N7 Infiltrator, an Alliance Marine and a powerful biotic, what do you even have to worry about?"

"Oh you know, just stuff like the fact that I still have a million or so credit price tag on my head after what happened back on Torfan? It's either this or keeping my Barriers up at all times so you can take your pick of the two buddy." I gave a quick, heartfelt goodbye to my two housemates before rejoining my team. "I'm pretty sure there's some saying about your greatest strength being just a hair away from your greatest weakness so practicality and paranoia are just part of the total package when it comes to dealing with me."

"Fair enough." He indicated for me to lead the way. "You take point and watch for any danger then since I know you're going to anyway."

"Roger roger First Lieutenant Woley, former Service Chief Nathaniel Wolfert taking the point!"

I stepped outside the armory only to stop dead in my tracks. "What's the problem Wolf?"

"I uh, I don't have any clue where we're going."

"I hate you Wolf." The sniper sighed and covered his face. "Just go back to the Normandy alright?"

As the four of us made the trek back to rejoin the team, I discreetly did a quick search for the term, "Dolos," just to satisfy my own curiosity. It only took a few seconds for me to do a quick little read of the page and rip the most important info out, those multi-page mission debriefings tend to make a person good at that, and when I did I chuckled a little bit to myself. It shouldn't have surprised me considering it was Cerberus I was dealing with here, but apparently Dolos was some sort of Greek mythological figure who was the personification of trickery and guile which fit my situation quite nicely. Oh and he was also a child of Nyx which probably made her chuckle a bit to herself when she picked it.

Well, it looks like Miranda or Nyx or whatever she wants to be called does have a bit of a sense of humor. A rather dry, biting one but still, I could see that she didn't just pick my alias at random.

I quickly typed out a message to my Cerberus supervisor. "Just looked up my codename…how much time did you waste trying to find a random-ass figure that fit the situation so perfectly?"

It only took a few seconds for a ding that signified I had a new message to sound and I probably should have figured but she didn't even really answer my question. "I figured you'd like it. It fits in a rather ironic way doesn't it?"

After that I didn't even bother responding, I just let the orange glow fade away and sighed loudly as I worked my way back to the ship. Once again, that woman is a lot more than I can handle.

LINE BREAK

"Alrighty." Chelsea looked around the circular meeting room from her standing position. "Looks like everyone's here so let's get this boring official shit out of the way so we can get to the fun stuff." She took a seat and gestured to her younger twin. "That's your cue bro. Make it quick because I really need to get down there and test out my new toys."

"Thanks…lieutenant commander." I could just see him trying to hold in the frustration right now. "We received word from Admiral Hackett that a VI in charge of a training facility on Luna went rogue and is now attacking anything that moves with the army of drones that it now has under its control. Our job is to go down there and stop it."

From my heavily reclined position, I raised a hand slightly before speaking anyway. "I'm assuming this is standard Alliance protocol? Get in there and wreck shop but make sure not to completely destroy the thing itself so all those taxpayer credits and research hours don't go to waste?"

"Usually you'd be correct Wolf but this time things are different, they just want it destroyed." Well that makes it much easier. "However, there is a complication."

Ashley grunted. "When is there not?"

I just smiled at that undeniable truth as the Lion of Elysium continued. "There are two separate conduits under the program's control and they will both need to be disabled before we can move to the VI core itself and deactivate it completely."

"Which means that we'll have to split up into teams of three, cut off its external power sources and then join back together to crush it for good." If there was a face of immediate regret, Caleb wore it now as his sister talked. "We'll be taking the Mako down first and after that, we'll divide our forces."

"I will be sitting this one out and coordinating things from the Normandy so team one will be led by my sister and she'll be taking Tali and Wrex, the other will be under the command of Gunnery Chief Williams and under her will be Mr. Vakarian and Wolfert."

Oh fuck me. I leaned over to Chelsea and whispered. "Well at least not everyone on the ground team hates me. That's a plus."

"Yeah you're right," she threw a quick little grin, "I don't think Tali and Wrex dislike you all that much."

"Oh wow, that's a good one Chelsea."

I shook my head as I focused back on the commander who looked like he was wrapping things up. "…Chelsea's team will drop the other first before heading to control node two which means that the first team will most likely have quite a bit of waiting on their hands." Fucking swell. Not only do I get paired up with the two members of the crew that hate my guts but now I've gotta wait around and chit-chat with them about God knows what for who even knows how long. The only thing that could make this worse is if Cerberus leaves another message for me…and I probably just jinxed myself. "Once both nodes are disabled, Mako team will return to node one and pick you three back up and from there you will assault the main control cluster together. If this VI was clever enough to overturn whatever safety systems they had in place then I'm guessing it also has enough programming to protect the main hub with some extreme defenses which is why we're trying to cut off its power supply flow before moving in for the kill."

As the commander took a seat in the empty chair behind him, Chelsea looked around at everyone in the room. "Anybody have any questions?" Without even waiting for a response she slammed the door shut. "No? Good. We will be exiting via Mako at zero five-hundred so for the five of you coming down with me, be ready." Which gives me just over twenty minutes to run a final check on everything which was more than enough time. "Dismissed!"

Getting up from my seat, I gave a leisurely yawn as I made my way down to the armory with the rest of the team. Well, that was my intention at least. "Wolf hold up." The voice of Caleb Shepard interrupted my attempted exit. "We need to talk in private."

I looked over to Chelsea for help but the door was already closing behind her, the last thing I ended up seeing from the female Spectre was a wink. "Can't believe she'd betray me like that." I mumbled to myself as I took a seat across from my boss while trying to look casual, which was rather hard when my mind was just screaming over and over, "he knows about Cerberus!" "What's going on Shepard?"

"I hate asking for help since I know you're no longer Alliance but I need you to do something for me, or at least try."

"Yeah sure, I mean I'll do my best."

Now I was more confused than anything else, I have legitimately no clue what he needs. "It's about the chief. Now I know you two haven't exactly...seen eye to eye."

I held my hands up. "Hey it's tough to be friendly with someone when-"

"This isn't about placing blame right now, this is about combat effectiveness as a team." He swiftly cut down my attempt at putting the blame on her. "Right now Williams is suffering from a severe lack of confidence due to what happened to her platoon back on Eden Prime. She's hesitating and with as slim a margin of error as we operate on, that's unacceptable."

Now it makes sense. "So you're trying to give her a little shot in the arm by putting her as team leader on a mission that is not quite as dangerous as some other ones that are most likely coming in the future."

The blonde man nodded. "That's also why I'm isolating her with two of my squad members in you and Garrus who I know I can count on to get the job done while also letting her feel like this is something she's doing on her own."

"Which is also why you're not coming down…"

"Correct. As I said, she needs to feel like this is something she's accomplishing without somebody like me looking over her shoulder." He stood up and ran a hand through his hair. "What she doesn't need to know is that I'll be sitting just overhead, ready to join in if anything goes wrong. Can I count on you to make sure I don't need to do that?"

I gave a cheeky little salute. "You can count on me commander. We got this shit locked down."

"That's what I like to hear." He gave a little sigh and covered his face.

"Trouble in paradise sir?" A teasing grin crossed my face.

His hand dropped and his mouth tugged upwards ever so slightly, making the harshness of his words pretty much disappear. "Just get out of here and get suited up Wolfert, I have nowhere near the amount of patience verbally sparring with you requires."

"Bummer, just let me know if you change your mind." With that out of the way, I took the elevator down to rejoin the rest of the team. As soon as the doors opened, I scanned the room, looking for a certain raven-haired Marine. "Hey chief!" I gave her a little nod. "We're gonna kill it down there alright? Garrus has got your back and I've got your front so there's not a damn thing to worry about. We'll kick some ass, disable this computer and be back in time for breakfast."

She actually perked up considerably at that. Good. "Roger that Wolfert."

I walked leisurely back to my room, quickly changing into the tight fitting Alliance PT gear I wore under my armor. Letting loose a sigh as I saw another datapad in the same spot as before, I pulled it out and let the ID scanner go to work. "My big fucking mouth."

It only took a second for me to read the contents but basically Cerberus wanted me to make sure that I salvaged some data from the VI conduits before they were destroyed by my Alliance cohorts. If I was successful in that I would apparently be receiving some kind of prototype armor modification they called, "eezo vision," which would allow me to trace the element's flow in a body along with a few credits just for good measure. Along with that there was a brief article that I skimmed about how an Alliance-tied doctor by the last name Perri had been released from custody thanks to a certain oversight on the part of the people bringing him in which brought me a pretty big smile I'm not gonna lie. Guess this whole thing hasn't been for nothing then.

Still though, I'm not quite sure why a VI would be worth all this trouble but I really didn't see the harm in doing this one for Cerberus either. Plus if I do manage to pull this off, I'll actually be more valuable to my team thanks to the improvement in my equipment. So technically this could be looked at as me helping the Alliance still…shit I can't even convince myself on that one. Anyways, it definitely won't actively harm the team so I still don't mind doing it all that much. Seems like Miranda's just easing me into the whole, "somewhat unwilling double agent," thing which is clever on her part. If she went with something big right off the bat there's no way I'd actually do it and she'd lose an asset needlessly. I'll just have to be careful that I don't get dragged in too deeply to and pull one of those, "becoming the mask," things you always hear about when it comes to people in situations like mine.

With that whole mess temporarily out of the way it was time to suit up which required me going into the armory. Chelsea, who was already in her full gear and seemed to be testing out the rebreather functions on her armor as I walked in, folded back her visor and gave a smirking wolf whistle, no pun intended, at the miniscule amount of clothing I was wearing.

"Hey hey, I'm more than just a piece of meat commander!" I laughed loudly as I grabbed the chitinesque gear that went under my Cerberus-provided armor and started to step into it. "You mind helping me seal up the back of this thing?"

"I'd be happy to." She whistled cheerfully as she stepped closer and then performed the necessary function. "Just what is this stuff made out of anyway Wolf? I've never seen anything quite like it."

Well, I've gotta lie my ass off right now. So begins the career of Double Agent, Nathaniel Wolfert. "I actually don't quite know." That was the truth at least. "It's a little something Daxy whipped up for me when he heard I signed back up with the Alliance. When I asked him about it he just shrugged it off as some deep dark Cabal secret and left it at that. Since he was nice enough to throw something together like this for me without even being asked to, I didn't really bug him about the details."

"Huh." She continued to prod the gear that looked eerily reminiscent of an insect exoskeleton. "I'll have to meet him next time we're back on the Citadel. Maybe I can talk it out of him." With the impromptu inspection seemingly out of her system, temporarily at least, she turned to the other four members that would be joining us on the ground. "Everybody check your weapons, omni-tools, and triple chick your damn rebreathers. If you're wearing something other than the standard-issue helmet like our resident genius Wolfert who doesn't even bother wearing anything other than a mask, that goes double for you which equals six total checks for those of you who are bad with math."

"What?" I just shrugged off the looks and laughs that was coming from everybody else. "Helmets are uncomfortable and for the record, it's called a, 'Recon Hood.'"

"Alright then smartass, have it your way." She grabbed the item in question and threw it at me as she continued to give the final talks before we shoved off. "Anyway, like I was saying make sure you check your headwear of choice. The last thing we need is for one of you to die before we even start getting shot at." The six of us were now just about ready to step into the vehicular deathtrap colloquially known as the M35 Mako. With just about everything else out of the way, she switched over to our team channel and her voice crackled in my ear. "Everyone good?"

I checked oxygen readings, shield status, weapon synchronizations, bio-amp levels and everything else under the sun before giving a thumbs-up to the woman along with an enthusiastic shout of affirmation. Ever since the last time I had gone down on that positively beautiful tropical paradise known as Therum, I had made sure that if I could at all avoid it, I would never freedrop in that fucking thing again and now I was going to enact my plan. As we piled into the vehicle, the final straw was being stuck between Wrex and Garrus. That made my question that much easier.

"Joker, open the doors, we are ready to roll."

The voice of the pilot blared over the loudspeaker. "Right away Sarah Connor, good luck taking down Skynet."

What the fuck is he talking about? "Thanks Joker, you just sit tight in that chair and do what you always do."

A sarcastic laugh answered right back. "If only you were as good at shooting things as you are at making fun of cripples."

Sirens blared as the ramp opened, indicating that the hanger was no longer a safe place…although at that point it was pretty much too late for anybody who was savvy enough to decide to ignore the ancient memo regarding what was about to happen. "I'll take that as a compliment, just watch my helmet cam right along with little bro up there and you'll see why. As long as you're not too busy watching your other videos of course."

"I'm sorry commander, you're breaking up. I couldn't hear you."

Seizing my chance, I grabbed the shoulder of the commander and held up a finger as I stared into the orange slits that glowed from her Tyriel Advanced Communications Corporations produced Death Mask. "Question I've gotta ask you on the private chat Chelsea."

The blonde woman turned to survey the rest of the team before giving a slight nod. "Listen if this is about the fact that bro and me stuck the only three people who seem to be actively not getting along on the same team, that was completely intentional so don't even think about asking to be assigned elsewhere."

"No no, that's not the issue at all. I'm a professional, I can deal with it." She cocked her head and even through the intimidating piece of equipment that covered her face, I could pretty much sense the amused question of, "are you really?" that was coming from her. "I don't do well with motion sickness so all I'm asking is if I can do a biotically-assisted freefall instead of falling down there in…that." I just pointed at the object of my disgust.

"Nope." In the blink of an eye, she had lifted my arm and slammed her fist into the lightest part of the armor. "And that's for complaining."

I rubbed my side where she had just smashed her fist into it. So much for that plan. "Shiiiiiiit. How do you manage to make punches hurt no matter how much gear I'm wearing?"

"Practice Wolf. Lots and lots of practice."

"Damn...I feel sorry for Caleb all of the sudden." I couldn't help but state the first thought that came to mind, as so often happened to me my mouth moved faster than my brain could stop it.

Before I knew what was happening she had grabbed me by the nape of my armor, practically dragging me back to the vehicle and tossing me into the back seat. "Now sit tight and shut up. Oh and try not to throw up either Wolf, okay? Garrus just got this thing all nice and tidied up after Therum so I'd hate for anything to happen to it."

"Roger that commander! I'll hold back the enemy vomit to the last man!" Adjusting myself in my seat, I felt all the energy leave my body as I resigned myself to my fate. "If this is how I die, I just want you all to know...I stole one of the corporal's power bars when he wasn't looking."

My designated fireteam leader just reached into a compartment of her armor with a sigh. "Grab this and chew it. It's a pill designed to combat nausea, I always take one before going into situations like this."

"Thanks chief." I held up the pill as I tried to ignore the fact that we were rolling out of the Normandy. "I owe ya one."

Closing my eyes and leaning back, I slipped the chewable under my mask before resealing it and then just leaned back. It felt like an eternity but the sound of the jets activating was one of the most welcome noises I had ever heard. "Thank God."

Chelsea whirled backwards to face the entire team. "We're dropping Ashley's team off at node one and then Wrex and Tali will be going with me to wreck shop at the second one." She whipped her head around to Garrus who was manning the weapons system at the moment, which also meant she was not currently looking ahead of us. "Garrus, fire off a round."

"I'm sorry Shepard, could you repeat that?" The turian voiced what I was feeling, which was mainly confusion.

"Test the cannon. Fire. Off. A round."

"But ma'am, I made sure to calibrate everything. There's no way that it's not going to work."

"Vakarian I swear to the Spirits or whatever it is you believe in-" A booming shot came from the main weapon. "Ahhh, there it is. I always like to put the fear in them a little bit, let 'em know we mean business."

Wrex gave a satisfied grunt while Ashley cocked her head in a confused manner. "With all due respect Chelsea, it's a VI with a bunch of machines guarding it. I'm not sure that it can feel fear."

"Don't worry yourself with the details Gunny." Chelsea was not put off one bit by her statement. "When you're an N7 you'll understand."

Ashley looked at me curiously since I was the only other attendee of The Villa present but I just shook my head from side to side, answering her unstated question. "That's kinda what I figured but I wanted to make sure."

While Chelsea drove, "Garry," as she had already labeled him manned the gun and Tali played navigator up front, the back seat was pretty much dead silent. Ashley didn't like and me Wrex was…Wrex for lack of a better way to describe it so I simply kicked back, taking in the extremely boring scenery that was the moon. There's only so much space rock you can look at before it all looks the same and that goes for Luna too. If this was a couple hundred some years ago it might have been a big deal but by now, it was kind of old hat.

"So Wolf, I'm kinda curious." I don't know if she sensed the awkwardness coming from the backseat or just couldn't take the silence but Chelsea finally broke the awkwardness that reigned. Although that didn't really make me any more comfortable in actuality since I'd kinda rather have her actually focusing on the task at hand. I just hope driving skill isn't something that runs in the family. "What does a somewhat controversial figure like yourself do after leaving your military career in the past, temporarily at least." Well. She doesn't really pull punches. "I'm just really wondering what it's like to live a civvy life after all the fighting you've gone through."

Hah. Of all the times to get grilled about what I've been up to in the last two years it's in the back of this motherfucking contraption straight from hell. I quickly decided to go with a cliffnotes version of the truth, leaving out certain more sensitive details that I didn't want to share right now. "Oh you know, just embody the good old North American dream. Settle down with your pregnant fiance, watch her and your adoptive father get gunned down by a gang while you're powerless to stop them, then go join a bounty hunting guild on the Citadel. That way you can make sure that you ignore all the guilt by using your talents to track down hardened criminals and beat the shit out of- I mean, bring them to justice!" Looking down at my hands, I noticed that they were clenched tightly and a bright aura was emanating from them. Shit…I've gotta cool down a bit. Fuckin' hell but that drew a lot more out of me than I meant it to, I guess Chelsea's not the only one who can be forcefully blunt when the situation calls for it. "My bad guys. Got a little carried away there in the moment."

"Shit...well you certainly know how to kill the mood real quick there don't you? Way to go Wolfy, I was just getting amped up for this thing too before you went into your morbid backstory."

"Don't look at me, you asked."

I didn't see the rest of the crew's reactions to my statement since I was intently scrutinizing the floor from behind the safety of my face-concealing Recon Hood but I could guess what was coming from each of them just based on who they were. I'm guessing Wrex didn't really give too much of a shit, Garrus and Ash probably just thought I was even more of a loose cannon now and Tali just probably felt bad for me because she seemed way too nice like that. The Sheps though I wasn't sure about since the commander just stayed quiet on the line and Chelsea I hadn't really gotten a read on as to how she felt about me since she was about as unpredictable as me which bugged me. Now I know how other people feel for once since the shoe's on the other foot here.

The group breathed a sort of collective, "thank you," I think as the structure that housed the first hub came into view and with it a group of defense turrets. "Tali, monitor shield levels! Garry, blast those fuckers into scrap! The rest of you just sit tight and enjoy the fireworks."

You know, if I was up in the ship I just may have enjoyed the intricately frenzied dance that was being performed by the driving skills of Chelsea Shepard but on the ground where I was subject to all the jostling, bumping and nasty looks from a certain space Marine that came with it, I would have passed given the opportunity. Thankfully we were never really in any danger, even if I wouldn't have minded fighting them on foot, and the emplacements were eradicated in short order.

Chelsea yanked the handbrake, performing a complete one-eighty as we arrived at the entrance. As the three of us piled out, she gave a final few words. "Good work team but I believe this is where we part ways for the time being." Chelsea focused her look on Williams, the fireteam leader. "Remember, no matter what happens you lock it down and hold tight here and if I hear that you two," she jabbed a finger at Vakarian and me, preemptively chastising as if we were kids being left with the babysitter or something, "cause any trouble for the chief here…Wolf how's that ribcage doing?"

"Don't ask." I don't know how she did it but I'm pretty sure I was bruised to hell and back somehow, my armor had taken hits from various firearms that hurt me less afterwards.

We all pulled out our weapons of choice, Williams with the Alliance standard Lancer, the former cop with his Mantis and me my trusty old M11 before heading down into the facility that apparently housed this thing. "What's our lineup here chief?"

"Right." Thankfully now that we were getting into the actual thick of things, I think we'll be fine. If I'm the least professional one here then we'll be ok in terms of getting shit done without killing each other in the process. "Wolfert, you take point and I'll be right behind you. Vakarian, you trail behind us and play overwatch with that sniper of yours. I'll call out bio and tech attacks as necessary but I don't want you two going overboard right off the bat if it's not necessary."

"Roger that." With the latest order coming in, I tucked the pistol on my hip and pulled out my semi-automatic rifle. Since Williams had a weapon with such a high rate of fire, I figured this would complement it nicely to pick up some kill shots after she had stripped the shields off these things. "Just let me know once you want me to break out the goodies."

"You seem to enjoy phrasing things in the strangest way possible don't you Wolfert?" Garrus shook his helmeted head from behind his sniper rifle. "Unless that's just a human thing?"

"No." Williams signaled and us two frontliners stacked up on the door while Garrus set up on a crate a little way back. "It's definitely just him."

"Team Williams can you hear me?" Caleb Shepard's voice rang in my ears.

"Gunnery Chief Williams here, you're coming in loud and clear."

"Good. I've pulled up the schematics of these underground hubs and I'm guessing from this layout you'll meet significant resistance once you open this door. This seems to be the largest room in the place and after this you'll be just a hallway away from the core you need to shut down so if this thing is going to try and stop you this would be the time."

"Understood sir." She nodded to the two of us and I gripped my rifle a little tighter, getting ready for the fight that was coming any moment. "Team Williams is breaching in three…two…one…"

She signaled me and I slammed my closed fist into the button that opened the door. Just ten feet in front of us was a LOKI mech that stared at us for a brief second before raising a pistol.

"Open fire!"

In a split-second all three of our weapons roared to life, Williams instantly stripping its cheap shields with an accurate burst from her weapon which let me plug away with shots to the torso that quickly disabled the thing. "Watch out!" I screamed as airborne drones firing bursts from small turrets along with a few rockets flew towards us.

It took just a second for me to pull Williams into cover next to me as the din of battle now surrounded us. "Wolfert can you do that wall thing?"

"You mean my Bio-cade?" I grinned at the woman from behind my mask, quickly tucking away my rifle and bringing out my sidearm.

"Yeah whatever, just can you do it?" She popped out from the metal barricade and brought down an enemy that had got a little too close with a spray of bullets.

"Of course, you don't get to be an N7 by not being able to come through when it counts. Here we go ladies and gents, just try not to let them circle me alright?" I rolled out into the middle of the large rectangular room and as all gunfire shifted towards me, I thrust both arms forward. "Bio-cade coming right up!"

I just laughed inwardly as the poor programming of the machines caused them to completely ignore my teammates as they ripped through them with a deadly storm of bullets, Overloads and Ashley even throwing a couple incendiary grenades for good measure. However, my humor was short-lived as a couple rockets crashed into my barricade, causing it to disappear like shattered glass. "Fuck!" I dived behind a nearby crate, wincing as an explosion shook my hastily chosen hiding spot.

"Do they teach you that in N school too?" Williams just couldn't help poking at my misfortune.

I however was not in much of a mood to joke around. "They at least teach you to prioritize the targets shooting at you with fucking rockets!" Unleashing half a dozen shots in rapid succession, I blasted a LOKI mech before blowing its head clean off with a highly-concentrated Throw orb.

As I started to advance once again, I was quickly stopped when the mech exploded in an orange display of light and flames. "Alrighty then."

"Watch out Williams." Garrus warned in a flanging tone. "Apparently these bots explode once you take out the head. One almost got Wolfert."

"Understood, go for body shots if possible and shout it over the comms if you do take out the head. Grenade out!" She screamed a non-sequitur as so often happened in battle before returning to what she was saying in a calm tone of voice. "I don't want anyone injured because one of these faulty things exploded when we weren't paying attention."

Both Garrus and I gave a quick verbal assent before returning to what we were doing. By now their numbers were thankfully dwindling and only one or two of the pesky missile firing ones remained. A loud boom signaled the end of one and the chief brought down the other, leaving only a dozen or so of the flying pests.

"Wolfert, break cover and start doing your thing."

I mentally cleared my ears. Is Williams seriously giving me free reign to fly around? "Could you repeat that order chief?"

She sounded incredibly strained, as if it was painful to let this happen. "You heard me. Get up close with your Charge and start blasting these things to hell. Between the two of us, we'll make sure that nothing sneaks up behind you."

"I've got you covered Wolfert." Garrus added his two cents and with a pleased sigh, I sprung forward into the fray.

Using my semi-automatic N7 Piranha, I fired three blasts that downed a drone before using a Pull to lower one towards me and then finishing that with another spray from my weapon. With the two close threats neutralized, I flew across the room, grabbing one in both of my hands as I came out of the Charge and practically disintegrating it with a single Palm Crush.

With the targets directly around me neutralized, I turned to see Ashley lay down a burst of accurate fire that eliminated the shields of a drone before Garrus blasted it straight through with a single bullet. In what was the mark of a confident sniper, the turian didn't stop to admire his kill, just panning right to the final pest in the room. One more shot rang through the base and then the only thing that could be heard was the electrical spasms of the robots we had just eliminated.

"I think we're clear chief." Now that the firefight was done and the adrenaline died down a bit, the unbearable stench of death that I was all too familiar with hit me like a speeding skybus. Around a lot of the more technical looking equipment, a bunch of engineers in various Alliance gear were lying in pools of blood. A few Marines in protective gear were near them but it looked like they were targeted first by the machines as they didn't even have time to draw their weapons before they were gunned down. Whatever went wrong happened quick, the poor bastards just doing their jobs never even had a chance.

"Gunnery Chief Williams, I suggest we find the core and plant the explosives." I gave a nod to Vakarian, hoping he would pick up on the fact that letting the soldier who had seen her entire platoon massacred by robots in the recent past dwell on another tragedy would not be advantageous.

Thankfully, he gave the slightest nod and carried forward, tucking his sniper and pulling out his turian made assault rifle. "According to the map, there should be a hallway on the other side of this door that takes us right to the site we need to plant the explosives."

"Roger that." She shook her helmeted head vigorously and pointed in my general direction. "I'm pretty sure that's the last of the VI's defenses but just in case, you take point." It only took a few moments for us to clear the rest of the facility and just like Williams said, that was all that the VI had to throw at us for now. "Wolfert, I'm going to raise Chelsea on the comms, go ahead and plant the charges while we wait out here."

"No sense in us all getting blown up at once eh? Especially since it's been…" At seeing the expressions on their face, I decided to stop with that train of thought. As they left the room I mumbled to myself. "Well you know what they say about explosives, it's just like riding a bike, right?"

As I strapped the device to the core, I studied the thing intently, realizing that this was as good a time as any to study where I could procure the data for Cerberus. If I could only rip it from one of the side conduits, this would be much easier. Also, the fact that everything I can see is being monitored by the eye of Commander Shepard doesn't help one bit.

Stepping away from the equipment that was now ready to be blown sky-high, I joined my two teammates, musing about how exactly I was going to pull off this caper. My thoughts were interrupted by the displeased voice of my squad leader. "They're just getting to the second base now."

"Sweet!" I gave a sarcastic thumbs-up. On the plus side at least I'll have plenty of time to strategize about how I was going to do this without being spotted. "So can I at least blow this thing so I get a little bit of joy in the middle of all this damn waiting?"

"Knock yourself out Wolf."

Ashley's rolling eyes could be seen even through the helmet's visor but that didn't deter me one bit. "Fucking sweet! Here comes the boom ladies and gents…"

A/N: So school's a thing. A thing I really wish was over. Working 12 hour days is something I can deal with no problem but college life is just so ridiculously tedious. On the positive side…there's Overwatch, the people I'm sitting next to in my classes aren't assholes and I just finished Gurren Lagann which is probably one of my favorite anime now.

Also, thanks to everybody who keeps consistently reviewing. Because of how my brain works I equate, "less reviews," to, "story is sucking worse than usual," and the fact that this one has already hit over 50 reviews in less than half the chapters it took for the first book is really encouraging. So again, thanks to you guys out there who keep taking time out of your day and jotting down a few words, it means a lot.

Shout-out once again goes to my man Ranger Station Charlie for still keeping up with Beta'ing and doing a kickass job of it.

Review answering portion:

Dekuton: Thanks for the nice words man, that sort of duality of Miranda's personality is definitely something I've tried to highlight so I'm glad it came through.

GJD: Appreciate the feedback, although I will say that Wolf's kind of always been a bit of a tool so I'm not sure if that's going to change, lol.

RSC: Yeah the vision definitely added a more personal touch to Wolf being on the Normandy, as he has his own added reasons to work with the team so that was definitely an awesome suggestion on your part, really brought it together.

The ripple effect is definitely how I see Wolf's impact, which really started on Torfan I guess. It'll be fun to watch and craft it as this thing starts to widen out more and more as he continues to get involved.

Stormdragon981: Hey anything is possible, I haven't written that far ahead at all so any suggestions will definitely be taken into consideration when it comes to future events.

Fallout Fan: In pure biotic killing capability Wolf would probably fall a bit short compared to Shep but when you take everything else that he's skilled with into account, it'd end up pretty close in the end. The two are kind of the different ends of the spectrum with Caleb showcasing more biotic precision whereas Wolf relies more on raw power. And yeah, I won't spoil anything but I'm debating in my mind and brainstorming with my beta on how that whole thing should go down. Wish us luck, lol.

Yup, that quote definitely is pretty fitting when it comes to Wolf, he's got his fair share of issues to deal with. Same here when it comes to Miranda, ME2 was my first Mass Effect game since I was a PS3 owner as well so Lawson has a special spot when it comes to the potential squadmates.