Five

The Crystal palace was beautiful. It was breath taking. Nothing in all the galaxy could compare to its wonder. At least in this dimension. At least in this dimension . . . it was strange to make such a distinction. At least, that's what she thought. What she was thinking. When she heard the strangest sound. Ami Mizuno, doctor to Queen Serenity, looked up. She peaked past the piles of dirty medical equipment and the piles of unread ancient texts. Past the shattered mirror that granted her a ghastly glimpse at her scarred features. Past the TV set and the cluster of dusty old monitors. And she saw, standing there dumb struck towards the epicenter of clutter, an familiar face.

"Usagi?"

There wasn't an response.

An Usagi Tsukino was present. She was roughly 50 meters south east of Doctor Mizuno's current position. Hands shaking, like leaves in the breeze. Eyes frozen in place. Mouth half open. And she had that mark on her head. The mark she always had. The half crescent moon, that she . . . no there must have been a time when she didn't have that mark. Back in Tokyo, maybe, and curiously enough she wasn't wearing her royal dress.

"Ami?"

There was fear in this Usagi's voice. Like she was hoping the fine doctor in front of her wouldn't respond. Perhaps she thought this was a dream. That if she closed her eyes and wished really hard then she could wake up. Were it so easy.

There wasn't an immediate response to Usagi's inquiry. Instead Ami walked towards her slowly. The good doctor was a head taller then the Ami this Usagi was supposed to know. Jagged scars marred her face, and her eyes glinted in the light. Like some kind of nocturnal predator, and she moved like a Mina should move when she was trying to pull a prank. With implied stealth and brief movements of unexpected speed that most people couldn't catch. Mina could do it because she was Mina. But Ami, the Ami this Usagi recalled, was human. She was supposed to be human.

"Are you feeling all right?", Ami touched Usagi's hand. It was cold. She was here. She was really here. Good, not a hallucination. Ami hated the hallucinations. And all the voices. And the things they said, and screamed, and whispered, and- Usagi was here.

"Ami?", this Usagi repeated.

Doctor Mizuno narrowed her eyes. She could smell copper in the air. And she glanced down at "Usagi's" hand. Two fingers too many.

"An remarkably life like recreation", the doctor noted, "do you know that you are a construct?"

"Ami what do you-"

A construct loaded with old memories. That would explain the shock and the surprise. It would explain the lack of a magical aura. The lack of decay. Must be new- the doctor reasoned.

Doctor Mizuno laughed. She glanced at bit of broken mirror in the corner. She could see some of her own surgical scars. Tracing up and down her altered frame. This "Usagi" was probably scared. Best put that fear to rest. Terrified patients are troublesome patients.

"Nothing . . . nothing. Please, have a seat"

The Tsukino in the room looked around. There were no chairs. She pushed herself up onto a desk. And then fell to the floor in a convulsing heap. Her cybernetics were malfunctioning. As her body writhed the culprit looked down at her with pity.

"Disengage", Doctor Mizuno ordered.

The attack protocols she'd silently activated came to a screeching halt. Now that the subject was unconscious doctor Mizuno could start her in depth scans.

Clone. Some flawed components. No star seed present- alien origin. DNA shows multiple errors. Human DNA hybridized with similar equivalent. Subject given advanced cybernetics, quality of cybernetics superior to quality of organic components, suggests lack of experience with organic components.

"Fixing you won't be easy", muttered the doctor, "tracking down whoever created you . . .".

Doctor Mizuno reached towards the subjects dress and tore off a piece of it. She balled her hand into a fist and crushed the small externally isolated bug that was sewn into the fabric.

" will be a pleasure"

-)-

It was moist in the cellar. Like a lovers kiss. There wasn't allot of furniture. But there was a chair, and a table, and his boyfriends computer stacked up on the table. Marc's grandparents gave it to him when he was young. The monitor still worked. It was made by a brand Amin didn't recognize. The last letter had chipped off when his revolver misfired so it now said Noki.

Either way it worked. Now the parts in the actual computer – that had given him some trouble. First he had to get them working, and then he had to work out a way to transfer data that would take advantage of the systems age while still letting it transfer to something. And then he still had to go through the trouble of covering up his activity. He had three different degrees and none of them had a thing to do with computing. It's not like bakers are known for their computer skills either. It was a miracle- and absolute thing of beauty- that some old men were actually into collecting this kind of stuff. Sure he still stood out. But it could be worse.

Drip-drip- Amin looked up. The celling was leaking again. He'd have to melt another condom to seal up the plastic pipe. He was running low on condoms. Pretty soon he might not be able to fuck. Not that he had time for such necessities. His colleague was demanding. Always demanding results for the good of humanity or something.

The well-muscled young lad scoffed at that. For the good of humanity? Who did they think that they were kidding? You'd have to be stoned out of your mind not to remember what Cerberus did in the last war. They taught it in schools and quizzed you on the numbers. So many numbers. So many human lives

You'd have to be a fool or desperate to join Cerberus now. Amin joined when he was the former and now he stayed with them because he was the latter.

Drip-drip- a leak in a new place. Marc's grand parents would loose their place soon. And Marc's sister needed medication. Amin would run out of condoms sooner or later. But no matter what happened he would always be fucked.

With a sigh Amin reached for the manila package set on the table. In sharpie some one had scrawled – Dirty Porn Do Not Open- and Marc's grandparents had definitely seen it. That was beyond fixing now. Amin pulled out his knife and neatly opened the thing. He shook it violently. A floppy disk fell out.

"Shit"

Did they really think he'd be able to read this thing? He'd have to go to a specialty store and spend more money. The lights flickered. Usually when they did that Amin heard a sound. Tic-tic- but now he heard nothing.

His face impacted the computer screen. His long hawkish nose compacted with a wet crunch. The computer screen was fine. Blood was coming down hard, harder then he went down on Marc last week. Amin grinned at his own wit. He let loose a torrent of biotic energy. His attacker went flying back, the table shook, and water pipes shattered.

Amin spun around quick as he could. His attacker was smiling. They were as tall as him. With dark blue hair, pale skin, and plenty of scars. Deep sunken eyes with dark spots underneath stared at him from across the room. They looked hungry.

They were on him before he could shoot them. They caught his hand mid draw. He tried to jerk it up. But their grip was like steel. Moving was impossible. Tik-tik- the lights flickered. He kicked them between the legs. It was no good. They didn't have balls to break.

"Your work is quite sloppy", they told him, and perhaps he would have agreed were they not at this very moment trying to kill one another.

He went for his knife and they head butted him. Crack- he hit the floor. Luke warm water was everywhere. The cellar was flooding. And he knew that some one must have been taking a shower a few moments ago. That was unfortunate.

"I want you to tell me everything"

He tried to get up. And then a heel pressed down on his left leg. Crack-crack- something broke.

"You can whisper it if you like. I'll hear you"

Amin just smiled. He'd invested in some life insurance a month ago. It wasn't much but- at least some one could to fix the lights after this stranger killed him. Maybe the pipes too.

"How about you fuck yourself"

The lights went out without making a sound.

-(-

Three

Shepard arrived at the New Citdael three hours ago. Now she was in the upgraded council chambers. Today the councilors had gathered in person, and for some reason she had to be here too. She stood at the lower area of the room with her arms crossed. She was painfully aware of the newly installed stasis field generators beneath her feat. She looked up at the new councilors, trying to get a read on which of them would probably try to freeze her first. Right now her money was on the new Turian councilor, Quentius. She had a bad track record with turians in power. Sure, she got along Sparatus in the end. But that was after a lot of shit. It took the galaxy ending for them to get on good terms.

Then there was the new Asari councilor. Irissa, she nodded to Shepard and Shepard nodded back. Shepard heard that during the reaper war she took a pragmatic approach towards fighting against the enemy. Scorched earth. After the war some investigations were launched into the morality of her choices, and then dropped. She saved lives. She made tough choices. She had access to sources that could dig up the skeletons in your closet.

The Salarian councilor avoided Shepards gaze, and in the middle of all this was Goyle. Anita Goyle. The living legend. Here, in the flesh. Shepard stared at her. She stared back. They looked away at the exact same time. When Baraka started talking.

"Commander, are you aware of what we now face?"

"Demons, Brain washed rogue agents, Cerberus remnants, tortured post humans, and judging by what just got released on the extranet a massive post human empire"

"An astute observation commander", noted the Salarian councilor.

Shepard glanced at him. Half his face was covered in scars. He still hadn't mentioned his name yet. Her gaze resettled on Councilor Goyle.

"Shepard, I'll be blunt- we're out of our depth here. The entity known as crystal Tokyo could destabilize all of council space. A few disparate organizations within their hierarchy are searching for peace. They want us to send some one to represent us. And after considerable debate . . ."

"You chose me"

"As if we could choose any one else", commented Tali vas Normandy.

"Should you fail", cautioned the Asari councilor Irissa, "the next thing we send in will be an invasion fleet. "

"The fate of the galaxy is in your hands commander", intoned the Salarian Councilor.

"I'll do my best", promised Comander Shepard the infiltrator and living personification of collateral damage.

With that the commander turned, and headed out of the room. She went through the gauntlet of upgraded security. Past over a hundred C-sec personel and what looked like mass accelerator auto cannons of Turian design. She was a Spectre and they still stopped her at every single checkpoint.

"Damn Saren protocols", she muttered under her breath as yet another scanner checked her armor. And as she was about to leave another barrier linked to a Breathalyzer program blocked her exit, 'damn Shepard Protocols' she cursed internally. The measure came out to a 10.0 blood alcohol level.

"Delegate justice responsibly", an V.I. told her, and then she was finally free. Free to wander the vast expanse that was the New Citadel for what could be the last time. Free to get wasted. She went to the bar. Hopefully Taylor would be there. He still owed her a drink.

-)-

Two

"We must reboot all the systems", Roared the Cereburus Scientist, "and make sure they are really dead this time. I will not tolerate any more interruptions on this god forsaken rock in this accursed dimension"

The lighting here was all wrong. How could anyone work in these conditions? It was so cold. Everything had gone wrong. This was supposed to be an easy target. Nice, isolated, out of crystal Tokyo's sight while still within striking range of that place. It was supposed to be the perfect base of operations. But the locals proved impervious to all forms of Fell persuasion. And their "guides" had said this facility would be lightly guarded. There were exactly two individuals inside of it – if you did not count the living specimen that Cerberus had found after the battle and promptly secured to a table- and those two individuals took out three Cerberus agents before a hail of gunfire ended their resistance.

The one who was initially in a swivel chair, she threw an enhanced trooper across the room. If her assistant had not succumbed to multiple blasts of biotic energy then the battle could have turned. They could have lost every one. Everything. This whole thing felt like a set up.

Their allies' promises seemed so alluring. Of course Chaos forget to mention a few things until it was too late to turn back. Sailors, Shadows, and the . . . things that were being made on this planets version of Mercury.

"74 hours until interference can be expected", commented a soldier in a voice not quite their own.

Lights flickered. Green crystals shot out and tore their way through the throat of an enhanced soldier by the door. Gray blood splattered against the wall and froze solid. The crystal on the living specimen quickly replenished itself from thin air. That was the phenomenon they were studying: Crystal Tokyo's new weapon, "Serenity", a natural bane to all things touched by Chaos. It reacted aggressively to protect its host.

"No- no- No!", screamed the scientist. The computer he was trying to access exploded with a hellish crack. And then there was burst of light. When that bright white light faded the scientist was nothing more then a few chunks of flesh scattered here or there and every single Cerberus operative was now pooling in their own blood.

The specimen was still alive. A green cystal cacoon had formed around her just in time. Thick vibrant green coffin like walls separated her everything else. Help would not come for another 73 hours. She could not move, she could not scream- she could still feel everything.

-(-

One

Commander Shepard peered into the yawning gate. Colors that she'd never seen before, that she knew she shouldn't exist, danced in an indescribable way. Right now she was on Surkesh. A few meters ahead of her there was an inter dimensional portal that had been gifted to the salarians by some one called Sailor Mercury. It'd be her ticket to the other humanities home dimension.

"We're still getting strange reading off of it", muttered an STG agent to Shepards left, "and they tell us that after you go through it'll just disappear".

Slivers of darkness fled from light cast by the portal. The cameras in the room would later record this as spots of iridescent light. To Shepard these spots were blurs. They appeared to be bits of space where reality hit a glitch before her highly evolved senses.

Humanities Savoir glanced at the Salarian to her left, "I don't suppose that you'll be joining me"

He shook his head.

"Very well then", Shepard took a large step forward. She almost lost her footing. Gravity was weaker towards the entrance of the portal. But there was another force. Sliding her towards it. She took a few smaller steps, and then she was pulled into the portal. Cast beyond all that she had ever known.