A Stranger's Tale

by Lord Viraden

I was just an average joe, that is until I found an artifact that throws me across the very fabric of space and time. As my first unexpected stop, I land in the middle of the first Mass Effect game. But my arrival sparks a storm of changes to the game's plot that I can barely imagine. Its up to me and a motley crew to travel behind the scenes and fix the damage that's been done

10. I am Iron Man? Part 4

Chapter 7 continued.

"People! I really think you're going a bit overboard about this!" Alec shouted out to the clear blue sky above the Citadel while standing in the very center of the hovering Spider Ship's back. Surrounding him and the Replicators on all sides, filling up that clear blue sky at that very moment, were easily several dozen C-Sec patrol cars supported by about ten to fifteen additional Mantis gunships!

"Now I know that if we all just calm down, and talk this out like sensible, rational, adults…" Alec began saying loudly like a government mediator, spreading his hands out before him and flicking his gaze to each of the glowing hot barrels and cannons being pointed at the Ship. However as he was talking, Forsenski's glowing orange omni-tool suddenly activated and enveloped his left arm with a beeping transmission button already flashing.

Freezing with a stunned expression on his face, Alec held up one hand in a symbol of truce.

"Oh, hold on a sec, I gotta take this," he casually called back up to the fleet of vehicles before turning away.

"This is the Alec/Replicator Flight and Decoy services, how may I help you today?" Alec answered into the omni-tool, making his voice sound oddly high and cheery like a stereotypical office receptionist. However his cheery demeanor vanished and he had to recoil away from the speakers as a loud voice blared through them.

"AHHHHHGHH!" the voice screamed. Alec's eyes were already widened as his eyebrows knit down into an awkward frown of confusion. Casting a glance over his shoulder to Polly and Sparky, who were looking up at him just a few feet off to the side, the Guardian could only shrug with his expression still spread across his face.

"Uhhhh…I'm sorry sir but we do not service 'AHHHHHGHH!' please try again later!" Alec called back over the noise before abruptly shutting down the omni-tool.

"Damn prank-callers," he mumbled down to the two Replicator spiders. Barely a second after he said that however, Forsenski's device appeared again with another beeping transmission awaiting. Slumping his shoulders in defeat while blowing out an annoyed breath, the Guardian lightly tapped the accept button again.

"Sir, I'm going to have to insist…"

"Alec, it's me!" Axel's voice suddenly exploded out; accompanied by an odd humming sound that seemed to be flashing from a high pitch to a low pitch over and over again, as if the Iron Man suit were spiraling through the air.

"Ohhhh! It's you! Please remember to speak up next time," Alec joked sarcastically in mock surprise.

"I'm having trouble flying the suit right now so I gotta make this quick. The Normandy's team is safe and Shepard's finally got his hands on Tali's evidence, we can now head back to the ship and plan our next move," Axel snapped back quickly, the humming sound increasing in frequency.

Alec froze with an obviously forced smile on his face, his eyes flicking up from the omni-tool to look around at all of the guns and missile tubes still being trained on him.

"As relieved as I am to hear that, and believe me I am very relieved, we've got a small problem of our own over here," the Guardian uttered as quietly as he could while still glancing around at the enemy ships.

"What kind of problem?" Axel nearly shouted as a loud car horn honked within audio range of his suit.

"Well, after blowing up a radio tower, violating over twelve speeding regulations, and firing back on pursuing police officers, we finally got C-Sec to send nearly a quarter of the station's entire Defense Fleet after us. Right now they've got us surrounded with no visible means of escape, at least non that I can see that wouldn't involve us getting torn to shreds. And even if we were able to escape we still wouldn't be able to get back to the ship without being followed." There was a short pause after Alec finished explaining the situation before Axel responded with the most simplest suggestion ever.

"Have you tried asking the Replicators to cloak themselves yet?"

Alec's eyes widened and a subtle sneer formed on his face, the memories of the many gunshots and injuries that he'd sustained in the last ten minutes coming back to him in a flash. He held that expression as he slowly turned his head back over toward Polly and Sparky, eyeing both of them with a narrowed gaze that was bordering on being capable of setting the two machines on fire.

"Cloaking you say? As in making themselves invisible? No, I don't recall ever having had the indication to ask them such a thing," the Guardian answered evenly, although very deliberately and through gritted teeth as he continued to eye the two spiders. Polly was frantically looking back and forth between Alec and Sparky, gesturing to himself with one of his legs before suddenly backing up a few steps and pointing over to the other spider, as if trying to shift the blame for not informing the Guardian about this little talent sooner.

"Please hold one moment," Alec said politely but firmly as he clamped a hand over top of the omni-tool's speaker.
"I am so going to turn you two into car-batteries when this is over!" he quickly hissed over at them before bringing his attention back to the device.
"Alec I need to cut off now, just meet up with me back at the ship so we can talk about what to do next…" Axel's voice began, pausing for a moment before finishing.

"…And believe me, we've got a lot to talk about."

"Alright then, see you there if we can make it," Alec answered in mild defeat before closing down Forsenski's omni-tool. Letting out a deliberately optimistic sigh, Alec gave one last venomous glance over to the spiders before turning back to look up at the surrounding C-Sec fleet.

"Well ladies and gentlemen, as enjoyable as this massive chase has been, I'm afraid this is where we must…" the Guardian began before suddenly being interrupted by one of the Mantis pilots on a loudspeaker.

"If you do not surrender yourself and your ship in the next five seconds, we will destroy you!" An awkward laugh came from Alec at that statement, accompanied by an equally awkward grin.
"Right…well it was worth a try," Alec said to himself with a half shrug.

"5…" The pilot began counting down, his ship's gun along with all the other cannons and barrels trained on the Spider tuning up to full power as he did.
"If you do have a cloaking device somewhere inside you, now would be a great time to turn it on!" Alec shot down to the back of the Spider, standing rigidly in place but flicking his eyes tensely from one glowing weapon to the next.
"4."
"Any time now!" Alec urged down to the Ship.
"3." Turning to look back at Polly and Sparky, the Guardian gestured to them in a gentle friendly way.
"Guys, about that car-battery thing…" he began softly.
"2!" A look of anger flashed back across his face as he jabbed a threatening finger at them.
"…I meant it!"

"1!"

Alec squeezed his eyes shut as the pilot shouted the final number, silently awaiting the final painful barrage of fire that would be dealt upon them at any second now. But surprisingly at that moment, a strange soft shuddering sound emanated from all around the Spider Ship, causing a gentle tickling sensation to travel across Alec's limbs. What followed afterward was even more surprising. Silence, absolute utter silence. No thermal rounds, no missiles, no buzz of cannons.

For some reason the fleet wasn't firing on them!

With a deep frown, Alec snapped open one eye, looking all around the area. The Mantises and patrol cars were still floating around the Ship, each with their fully armed weapons still pointed at him and the Replicators. The confused Guardian looked down at himself and the other Replicators, still able to clearly see them and his own body as well as nothing out of the ordinary. Had the Replicator's cloaking device activated or hadn't it?

Suddenly the Spider Ship gave a short groan as it uncurled its humongous eight legs out from under itself, cutting the power to its anti-gravity repulsors and dropping through the air like a stone!

"AHHH!" Alec yelled out for a quick second as his body lifted up and became weightless, briefly hover/falling above the Ship before it stopped abruptly and came to a hover in mid air again. The Guardian and the two other Replicators smashed back down onto the Spider, Polly and Sparky landing gracefully on their pincer legs while Alec unfortunately landed with a harsh groan on his back, looking up at the swirling blue sky of the Serpent Nebula.

"Oww…" Alec wheezed out quietly as the severe pain of his landing coursed through his backside, his eyes already closed tightly again.

"We have lost visual on target! All craft open fire on its last known position!" the voice of the pilot suddenly barked out through Alec's reappeared omni-tool.

"Lost visual? We only dropped twenty feet," Alec said with a wince as he opened his eyes. Immediately however, he had to shield them to keep from going blind because of the sudden bright flashes of light that had begun to shoot over top of him. Every Mantis and C-Sec agent leaning out of a patrol car had begun firing their weapons, sending erratic streams of thermal rounds coupled with spiraling missiles crisscrossing over top of the Spider Ship.

"Oooooo! Pretty!" Alec awed jokingly to Polly and Sparky as they crawled over to either side of him, all three of them looking up at the red coloured blasts slicing through the air like a bunch of wide eyed children watching the fireworks on Canada Day!

For several hectic seconds this mass chaos of crisscrossing fire continued until finally it subsided.

"Cease fire! All ship's cease-fire, the target isn't there anymore! It must have activated some kind of cloaking device and left the area," the lead pilot ordered angrily, his words causing the rest of the fleet to quickly stop shooting. Alec had one eyebrow cocked as he looked at the entire group of ships overtop of them, noticing that none were aiming their weapons anywhere remotely close to where the Ship was now.

"Well I'll be damned, your cloaking device must have created some kind of bubble of invisibility around us. And you guys had it this ENTIRE TIME!" Alec started saying calmly with a smile before turning to Polly and shouting the final part of his sentence.

"I'm gonna turn you specifically into a Can-Opener!" the Guardian shouted again as he sharply poked the red and silver Replicator on its front. Polly only hissed angrily at this and took a snap at his hand, to which Alec responded by clenching his fist and drawing it back in readiness to strike.

"All ships, activate your highest sensory equipment, look for any signs that the ship might still be around here somewhere," the pilot of the lead Mantis ordered, causing Alec and Polly to freeze in mid-attack of each other and look back up toward the sky. All of the patrol cars and gunships had begun breaking up, each of them forming into several search groups and beginning to sweep across different sections of the area.

"This ain't over," Alec shot back at Polly with a jab of his finger before turning his attention to the Spider Ship he was still lying on.

"Alright buddy, I don't know how good your cloaking skills are, and right now I don't wanna know. We need to turn around and head back to the Military Docks, best possible speed!"

There was a long drawn out silence from the Ship after Alec proudly gave his order, causing the Guardian to let out a tired sigh of annoyance and rub the bridge of his nose.

"Please get us back to the Military Docks…" Alec threw in, not knowing what else to do to actually get the Ship to listen to him.

But amazingly, being courteous seemed to do the trick. Immediately after he said the magic word, the Spider gave out a metallic groan before quickly turning itself around and blasting away from the swarm of vehicles on a direct path back to the Docks.

---

For several agonizingly long and tense minutes, Alec and the Replicators skimmed across the Presidium's outer hull in silence, bracing themselves in apprehension whenever a siren or a patrolling C-Sec vehicle flashed past them. But amazingly they were never discovered, the Spider Ship's bubble of invisibility keeping them safely concealed from any watching eyes or sensors all the way back to the Corsica.

"Alright, now just bring us up underneath it nice and slow," Alec whispered as the Spider quietly dropped down to the lowest stretch of Docking piers that he and Axel had been chased across not so long ago. Moving with a silence that Alec hadn't expected from a ship its size, the Spider easily glided over toward the pier the Alliance Corvette was still firmly latched to. Glancing over the Ship's side toward an area of the main stretch farther back from the Corsica's pier, Alec winced as he managed to make out the hundreds of Dock Soldiers, medics, and maintenance crews swarming around the site of the alleyway where the Predator had attacked the Echo 2 gunship. There were even still a few wisps of smoke rising up from the many craters that the Mantis's sabotaged missiles had smashed into the platform and the massive wall/hull stretch nearby.

However as bad as that damage was, Alec soon discovered that there was actually something good about the way the massive relief operation was going on in that area. Taking a quick look around at the neighboring Alliance and Council war-ships docked next to the Corsica, he noticed that as many as a dozen piers on each side were practically deserted, the site of the Predator's attack having taken many of the ships' personnel away from them in order to help with the clean-up effort.

"If Axel directs his approach just right, he should be able to sneak up to us without being detected," Alec stated out loud as he looked across the wide open space just off the edge of the Docks, looking for the best way the Ring Bearer could fly the Iron Man suit to the ship without being seen. Suddenly an annoyed metallic squawk from Polly snapped the Guardian out of his thoughts, causing him to look straight up overtop of himself.

The deep white and blue coloured hull of the Corsica's underbelly rapidly began filling up his field of vision, the Spider Ship having decided to begin flying upward to latch on to it.

"Okay hold on, take it easy," Alec began cautioning as he and the Replicator started rising closer and closer to the hull, going up past the side of its docking pier. But even as he began speaking in an increasingly sharper and more anxious tone, the Spider continued to move up without slowing down.

"Easy, easy. Wait, wait, WAIT!" Alec's frantic words went un-headed as the Spider Ship slammed into the Corvette, causing a sharp metallic thud to ring out as its backside connected!

---

"Did you hear something?" the first Alliance marine asked to his partner, craning his neck to look back over the side of the pier the Corsica was attached to. An audible sigh of annoyance came out of the second marine as he dropped and shook his head for a second time.

"No. I didn't hear anything."

"I'm sure I just heard something hit the bottom of the ship," the first began as he tried moving away from the docking corridor that he and the other marine were still guarding. But immediately without even looking at him, the second reached out a hand and harshly grabbed the first by the scruff of his armoured neck, yanking him back into the spot that he had originally been standing in.

"We didn't hear anything. We didn't see anything. And most important of all, there was nothing there!" the second listed off in a sharp and deliberate voice while still looking straight ahead of himself.

---

The inside of the Corsica's main cargo hold was tightly packed with large crates and small containers, leaving only a small aisleway free for people to walk from the ship's elevator down to the far end of the room. The far wall of the cargo hold itself was actually the ship's massive rear door, similar in design to the Normandy's but just reversed to the back of the vessel, which allowed easy access of vehicles or cargo to and from the ship.

For a few still moments all was pleasantly quiet, until suddenly a small hissing sound started emanating from a section of the aisle's flooring. The hissing continued until a roughly circular piece of the metal deck started to give off a faint smoke and quickly dissolve as if acid were eating away at it. After all of this section had dissolved into nothing, Polly and Sparky quickly crawled up through it one after the other, a few lingering wisps of smoke trailing from the front pincers that they had used to burn their way in. A very pained and annoyed grunt echoed out from the hole the Replicators had just created, accompanied by a few sharp curse words in an unfamiliar language. Suddenly Axel's deep black and grey Super-rifle was tossed up unceremoniously onto the hold's floor, followed by two black-gloved hands rising up and latching on to either side of the opening.

"What is it about the words 'easy' and 'gently' and 'HOLD ON!' that the people in this group don't understand?!" Alec growled as he hoisted himself up and rolled onto the deck, taking an extra moment to massage his aching head after the Spider Ship's unpleasant impact had left him sandwiched in-between it and the Corsica's hull.

Back down through the hole, the sound of the Spider repositioning and attaching its eight legs to the ship's underside echoed throughout the cargo hold, followed by a few seconds of eerie silence until the sounds of the usual mechanical movements of normal Replicators began to filter up.

Sure enough, one by one smaller Replicator spiders and beetles began to move up through the hole into the Corsica, each of them spreading out and taking in their new surroundings with extreme interest.

"Great, now I've been turned into a mother duck…" Alec grumbled as he stood up after re-slinging the Super-rifle across his back and rubbed a hand tiredly across his face. The Replicators were still pouring through the hole in a steady stream of bodies as they continued to detach themselves from the Spider Ship, each of them now surrounding Alec across the floor and on top of the many crates packed throughout the area, all awaiting any kind of instructions the Guardian may have had for them.

"Well since the whole family's now getting settled in, it may be time to introduce you guys to another friend of mine upstairs," Alec said to Polly and Sparky as he made for the plated door of the elevator. As Polly climbed up Alec's arm and perched on his shoulder, Sparky and the rest of the growing Replicator horde scurried after him in an orderly rush. After pressing a glowing red activation pad and opening the sliding door, Alec calmly stepped into the small elevator cabin with Polly and Sparky in tow. However he immediately held up a hand as the rest of the group tried to make a dash in alongside him.

"I think it'd be best if you guys took the ladder for this one," the Guardian suggested quickly as he jerked his head over to a ladder built into the wall rising up from the floor to a closed hatch in the ceiling. The horde complied immediately, all of them shifting to the side and clawing up the walls or the bottom rungs of the said ladder.

"And please, don't eat any parts of the ship!"

As the plated door slid down in front of them and the elevator cabin began to rise up to the Corvette's command deck, the very catchy tune of the 1950's song 'Yakety Yak' began playing through a speaker set in the corner.

"Take out the papers and the trash…Or you don't get no spendin' cash…"

"This is one Mass Effect elevator I might not be bored with," Alec said with a wide grin to Polly and Sparky, the second who had positioned himself next to the Guardian's foot. For several long seconds the cabin continued to rise up past the many square block tiles that were built on either side of the elevator shaft, The Coaster's snappy lyrics making Alec and even the Replicators bob their head or bodies up and down to the tune, until finally the trio felt the agonizingly slow machine slow down even more as it neared its destination.

"Okay guys, this friend of mine might be a bit startled when he sees you. So just keep calm, don't act rashly, and follow my lead," Alec explained to the two spiders as the song cut off and the plated door rose up, allowing them to step out onto the blue-lit CIC deck.

Alec and Sparky only got about two steps before freezing in place as a familiar snap-hiss followed by a deep humming sound caused Alec to focus on what was ahead of them. Standing directly before him on the edge of the large black conference table set up in the middle of the room, was the Jedi Master Yoda, who at the moment was pointing his green lightsaber at the Guardian with a grim look of suspicion on his face.

However, it wasn't just Yoda that had caught the trio's attention. Floating in the air on either side of the elevator's doorway were about a dozen Kessler pistols and assault rifles taken from the ship's Armoury, all of them being levitated by an invisible Force Grip. Each were fully activated and training their sights on the Guardian and the spiders!

"Uhh, hey Yoda. What's..uhh, what's with all the guns?" Alec asked with an awkward laugh as he raised his hands in half surrender, half indication of the platoon of weapons behind pointed at him. Ironically this was the moment when Polly and Sparky actually decided to listen to his instructions, specifically that last one about following his lead as they both straightened up and raised their front legs into the air in an imitation of Alec's surrender.

Yoda didn't answer the Guardian's question but frowned in further suspicion as he eyed Polly sitting on Alec's shoulder, the Replicator answering that look with a small hiss.

Suddenly a harsh clanging sound came from a small sealed hatchway built into the floor right beside the elevator's doorway.

"Oh no…" Alec said with a wince a second before the hatch broke open and a collective river of Replicator beetles and spiders exploded out onto the deck. Yoda's eyes widened in surprise as he snapped the point of his lightsaber over to the growing hoard, all of the floating weapons switching their barrels onto them as he did. Upon seeing him, many of the new Replicators began hissing angrily at Yoda, all of them flaring their wing flaps and preparing themselves to attack. In that instant, before any shots could be fired, Alec threw himself in between the two forces with his arms spread wide, while Polly jumped from his shoulder and joined Sparky in opposing the horde. As both of the spiders began hissing at the rest of their family to calm down, Alec spoke loudly to both sides, turning his head back and forth while keeping his arms and hands extended out to them.

"Okay whoa! HOLD ON! And when I say hold on I mean it this time!" Alec's voice boomed throughout the room, turning his head specifically to the Replicators as he mentioned the second part.

"We're all friends here. Which means there will be no shooting or slicing…" the Guardian began listing off, pointing a finger over at a now thoroughly confused Yoda.

"Or pouncing or stabbing pincers into people's heads!" he finished, making another specific jab at the machines, the memory of his first ordeal with them making him shudder slightly. After a tense standoff moment, Polly and Sparky managed to convince the Replicators to stand down, all of them relaxing and ceasing in their hissing. Turning back to Yoda, Alec had to swat away a few pistols that were floating a bit close to his head.

"What manner are these creatures of Alec?" Yoda asked as he begrudgingly closed down his lightsaber; however he still kept his arsenal of floating weapons trained on the machines.

"They're called Replicators Yoda, they're a bunch of new allies that Axel and I made after we managed to ditch C-Sec for a while," Alec explained earnestly. Yoda gave a severe frown of uncertainty as he clipped his lightsaber to his belt, giving one of his deep 'hum's as he remained still somewhat suspicious of the machines.

"Its true! Look, they're actually quite friendly when you're nice to them," Alec insisted, as he turned around and roughly picked up Polly with both hands. The surprised spider hissed angrily and began hopelessly thrashing its legs and pincers in an attempt to get free, clearly not liking being suddenly lifted up from behind.

"Oh knock it off you big metal baby. Yoda, this is Polly…" Alec scoffed down to the squirming machine before he carried him over to the conference table and introduced him to the Jedi.

"Polly, Yoda," he continued politely with a hand gesture in between the two as he placed Polly on the table's surface next to Yoda.

Yoda's look of suspicion faded into one of curiousity as he brushed the folds of his claw torn robes behind himself and sat down cross-legged in front of Polly, his large yellow eyes gazing over the red and silver interconnecting blocks that made up the Replicator's body. Polly now seemed to be taking the same interest in the Jedi, for as soon as he was placed on the table he turned to the little green man and began staring up at him in the same manner that he had to Axel when they had first taken a liking to each other.

"Strange, a great many minds connected to this one there are, and yet thinks with only one it does," Yoda stated slowly in fascination, extending his right hand out to Polly and using the Force to feel the hundreds of other Replicators connected to him. For a few moments they stayed that way until Polly took several hesitant steps toward Yoda's hand, pausing for another moment before suddenly extending his legs up and gently nuzzling the Jedi's palm with the flat of his facial area.

Yoda chuckled softly in his croaky old voice as he pet Polly's wing flaps and belly with both hands, looking like a green toddler playing with a new kitten. Grinning happily at this outcome, Alec turned and beckoned Sparky to come over.

"Sparky, this is Yoda. Yoda, Sparky," Alec introduced the Master to the smoking and still periodically electrocuting spider as it scurried over and climbed up onto the table next to Yoda's other side.

"I'd be careful around him, you might get a bit of a shock," the Guardian warned as Yoda turned his attention to the second machine while still petting Polly with one hand.

"Indeed, hence how he got his name I suspect," Yoda said with another chuckle as he began stroking Sparky's back with his other three fingered hand, a dim blue light glowing from his palm and protecting his skin from the arcs of electricity that would move across the spider's limbs. With an even wider grin on his face than before, Alec sharply spun around to the rest of the silently waiting horde of insects.

"Replicators, YODA! Yoda, REPLICATORS!" Alec announced in a comedic way with dramatic lunging gestures between the two parties. Right away a large portion of the horde screeched with joy, rushing forward and climbing onto the conference table, smothering the now laughing Jedi Master like a bunch of lovesick puppies!

The force of the many spiders and beetles that began gently pulling at him knocked Yoda over onto his back, causing him to laugh even harder as he began petting each of the machines surrounding him.

"Quite starved for attention they appear to be!" Yoda managed to say through his chuckling as he strained to sit up, pushing down several of the needy machines that clung to him.
"I don't blame them, Axel didn't really have time to give them the same affectionate treatment that he did for Polly," Alec responded with a nod over to the red and silver Replicator.
"Where is Axel now?" Yoda asked as he stood up, sweeping his hand through the air to make all of the pistols and rifles still floating around the room deactivate and fall into a pile next to the table.

Alec raised a reassuring hand and opened his mouth to answer when suddenly a tremendous CLANG! echoed harshly throughout the entire CIC, emanating simultaneously from a massive inward dent that had just formed against one of the sealed emergency hatches built into the nearby bulkhead!

Alec's eyes widened and a worried frown formed on his face as he listened to a very faint and yet very painful groaning beginning to filter into the ship from the outside.

"Now, I could be wrong…" he began slowly before abandoning that thought and quickly rushing over toward the bulkhead, Yoda and the rest of the Replicators following right behind him as the same idea occurred to them.

---

"Now I know I just heard something!" the first marine said firmly with a sharp jab of his thumb over to the far starboard side of the Corsica, having just heard the sharp sound of something metallic slam into the ship. The second merely gave an exasperated breath and snapped his head over to his partner, harshly pointing a finger up at the lower area of his own face.

"Read. My. Lips! You did not hear anything!" he roared angrily at the other. A very long, drawn out, and tense stand off began between the two men before the first marine suddenly raised both his hands toward the second's head in a gesture of extremely confused indication.

"YOU'RE WEARING A HELMET!"

The second immediately jabbed the finger he had been pointing at himself directly at the first marine's masked/helmeted face.
"Shut up!"

---

"Come on you dumb machine, open up!" Alec hissed angrily as he continued to press the glowing green pad set up next to the emergency hatch; but the damage caused by the huge dent that had formed in it was preventing the hatchway's operating system from actually working properly. Suddenly the Guardian paused after realizing what he had just said, casting an uneasy glance over his shoulder at the uncomfortably silent horde of Replicators spread out across the deck behind him.

"No offense guys," he added in quickly, getting a small venomous hiss from Polly afterward.

"Stand aside," Yoda commanded as he placed himself directly before the hatch. After Alec quickly jumped out of the way, the Jedi stretched forth his hands and clenched his fingers, willing the energies of the Force to surround the hatchway. With a great screech of straining metal, Yoda closed his eyes and grimaced in effort as he forced the sections of the damaged hatch door to instantly part away from each other.
Immediately a surprised yell sounded throughout the room, followed by a large humanoid figure dressed in a smoking and badly scratched suit of silver and black armour somersaulting head-first through the opened hatchway, landing harshly onto the floor sprayed out on his back!

"Well, that's an entrance if I do say so myself!" Alec stated up to everyone with an amused grin as he looked down on the groaning Iron Man.

---

Pain wracked every inch of my body, my aching head feeling like it was about to split open at any second.
As it turned out, the loss of the Iron Man's right hand stabilizer hadn't been the suit's only problem. As I neared the Military Docks, the suit thrusters soon began to sputter and malfunction, while the already screwy navigation system began to short out and spark within several of the torso's plates. Suddenly I found myself giving out a thin trail of wispy smoke as I haphazardly spiraled through the air up toward the Corsica's pier, pushing the suit with every last shred of power I could draw from it's Replicator core.
Unfortunately however that proved to be too much for the strained system to handle, because as soon as we came within a hundred feet of the ship's hull and tried to slow down, every flight system suddenly flickered and died, making both Haxon and I yell out as we drove straight into one of the closed emergency hatchways built into the ship's starboard side!

After smashing a massive dent into this said hatchway, and groaning for several seconds as I lay plastered against the Corsica's hull like a bug on a windshield, I suddenly yelled out again as the doors to the hatch were forcibly pulled open, allowing me to somersault uncontrollably into the ship.

"Hello? Can you hear me in there?!" a familiar voice asked loudly from outside of the pitch blackness that surrounded my face after the suit's HUD had disappeared. As this voice spoke, I could feel an irritating tapping sensation hitting against center of the Iron Man's faceplate, showing that my annoying doppelgänger was deliberately poking at me. Giving a severe frown with that same feeling, I used the last of the energy in the suit to make the Iron Man's faceplate rise up away from my eyes, allowing me to treat a grinning Alec with a dagger filled glare.

"Yeah!" I answered back sarcastically before wincing in pain, the repercussions of my impact still fresh in my body.

"Man, you really did a number on this," Alec remarked in astonishment as he looked over the scratched, scorched, and bullet torn armour of the suit.

"Yeah, and its gone dead now. That's what happens when you're shot out of the sky and beaten to a pulp by an angry Krogan, help me get out of this thing," I retorted as I reached up and manually unfastened the Iron Man helmet before roughly pulling it off of my sweat soaked head. With a quick nod, Alec turned to the rest of the Replicator horde and hooked two fingers in his mouth, giving a loud sharp whistle. Right away the horde rushed forward, surrounding and semi-submerging me as they began using their pincers to unclasp and pry apart the different sections to the damaged suit. Several of them also crawled up onto the wall and began making impressive repairs to the Corsica's dented hatchway, straightening and closing its doors before sealing them shut with several molten hot weld spots from their front Replicator pincers.

After only a few minutes of simply remaining still and letting the machines work, I was eventually surrounded by an un-orderly ring of pieces of discarded armour, now lying in my mixed Spectre/ N7/ Pirate armour that I had been wearing underneath the whole time.

"Wow, you look a hundred pounds lighter," Alec commented with a chuckle as he extended a hand down to me.

"I feel a hundred pounds lighter, oww!" I said with relief before more waves of fresh pain hit me as I accepted his hand and was pulled to my feet. I closed my eyes and hissed through my teeth as the throbbing bruises on my torso and limbs that I had sustained in my recent ordeals began to sting at me, forcing me to stagger over and lean wincingly against the edge of the black conference table set up in the middle of the room.

"Its at least good to see that we all made it back here in one piece without being seen," I said with a small smile as an ecstatic Polly scrambled up onto the table top and began fervently nuzzling my hand, overjoyed at seeing me again.

"It was pretty straight forward on our end: we flew across nearly half the Presidium and got chased by pretty much every agent on duty. But what happened with you, it sounded like you had quite the adventure going on in your area," Alec asked with interest as he crossed his arms and leaned against one of the curved ceiling supports that rose up out of the floor spaced around the table, similar in design to the several supports that would surround the large Galaxy Map onboard the Normandy.

"I don't know…there were assassins…there were cyborgs...there was a Jaffa, it was a mess," I listed off with a tired groan as I rubbed both my hands down across my face, trying to alleviate some of my fatigue and massage the headache I was still feeling simply from thinking about the events of the last half hour.

For the next few minutes I began explaining to the group everything that had happened, starting from the beginning with my arrival at Dr. Michel's clinic, all the way to the end with the explosive death of Kurath.

After I'd finished, it still took a few seconds of stunned silence before Alec and Yoda managed to speak up.

"Stargate and Dune…brought into the Star Wars universe?!" Alec asked in extreme astonishment. Yoda seemed just as taken aback as Alec, even if he had no real idea what Stargate, Dune, and Star Wars were.
(Yeah, still gotta get around to telling him about that last one)

"Darth Sidious and his rule defeated?" Yoda asked in a stupefied voice, as if even his trained 900-year-old mind couldn't possibly fathom it.

"A unified Jaffa Armada being aided by legions of Sardaukar Terror-Troops? Conquering that entire galaxy in just two years?" the Guardian posed again, still just as astonished as he had been before.

"An Empire spanning seven universes?" Yoda asked immediately afterward, more to himself as he stroked his chin in worried thought.

"Go back to the part again about Stargate and Dune…being brought into the STAR WARS UNIVERSE!"

"Guys, guys! I'm just telling you what Kurath told me. I've got no idea how this could be possible or if he was even telling the whole truth," I began saying quickly, raising my hands up in defense against the barrage of questions the two were throwing at me.

"The simple fact that he was a living Jaffa, carrying a living Goa'uld symbiote, already in charge of an assassination plot should be enough truth for us to believe that we may now have a serious problem on our hands. And what about his Master, this Lord Viraden character?" Alec began saying to all of us, even to the horde of attentively listening Replicators. I could only shrug and shake my head in defeat at that last question.

"I have now real idea, I thought the name sounded familiar but I can't remember where I've heard it before. Maybe this Viraden was some kind of villain in a movie or novel I looked over when I was young and now the ring has made him flesh and blood, just like it did for the Predator and the Xenomorphs," I suggested grimly, lifting up my right hand to briefly gaze at what was visible of the ring through the small burn holes in the finger of my glove. Immediately Alec began shaking his head, an obvious frown of uncertainty on his face as he thought it over.

"No, that wouldn't make sense. If the ring did bring this Viraden guy to life from some obscure memory of yours, how could he have already carved out an Empire from a group of completely unrelated universes? You said that Kurath mentioned he had been living on Coruscant for nearly ten years after the Jaffa and the Sardaukar besieged it; that means that Lord Viraden was already alive and causing trouble throughout the cosmoses at least ten years before you even found the ring in the first place."

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose in annoyance, a light sting flaring up from the spot Tali zapped.

"I thought about it on the way back here but my conclusions just kept on getting more and more confusing. I am however willing to bet money on Shepard running into more of Viraden's goons after he learns that his three assassination attempts all failed."

"Well we've still got the Corsica, we've now got the band back together, and Jango is…" Alec began listing off, indicating the ship, the Replicators, and the three of us before turning back to Yoda with an expectant look on his face.

"In the medical chamber he is," the Master answered with a point of his finger over to one of the doors on either side of the elevator.

"…In Intensive Care. So why don't we just launch the ship and follow after the Normandy once Shepard finally leaves the station to go after Saren?" Alec suggested eagerly back to Polly and I.

"Believe me I would love to do that, but do you have any idea how to track a prototype Alliance Frigate through a Mass Relay?" I posed up to him with a wince as I took my hand away from my nose, feeling more throbbing from the bruising along my arms as I moved my muscles slightly.

"Or better yet, do you have any idea which planet Shepard is going to go to first, or what he's going to do in between each of those stops? You said it yourself Alec, we need a way of keeping tabs on him or else we'll be blindly searching all over the galaxy for any sign of where he'll be going next."

Alec was at first silent, opening and closing his mouth hesitantly as the realization struck him.

"Well…uhh…I guess that does…" he began with a few half nods of defeat.

"Exactly. We can't leave quite yet until we've found out where the Normandy will be going," I interrupted with a low nod of indication that sealed my point. Alec threw up his hands and gave an exasperated breath as he stepped away from the ceiling/floor support.

"Alright then, please All-Knowing One, pre-tell what this plan that you've developed for tracking Shepard's whereabouts throughout an entire galaxy is?" Alec prompted to me with a dramatic bow of mock reverence. I gave an involuntary smile at his gesture, causing me to wince again in minor pain before I raised two fingers to my ear.

"Actually it was Haxon's idea this time. Would you mind explaining it to them so it saves me the pain of talking too much," I commented to the Guardian before turning my attention to the A.I.

"Not at all," Haxon answered as Alec, Yoda, and the Replicators grouped closer around me to hear the A.I. better. Raising my right forearm, I pressed a button on the side of my black armoured gauntlet, one that slid open a very small compartment connected to a short barrel that extended outward. Within this compartment was a small short ammunition belt of darts, containing three sections made up of about five darts, which created fifteen in total.

"This is a cloakable listening dart, one that is capable of sticking to any surface and picking up on nearby voices or conversations within twenty feet of its microphone," Haxon explained as I held up one of the darts for everyone to see before placing it on the table in front of Polly.

"And I take it from the name it can go invisible?" Alec asked rhetorically as some of the Replicators craned their bodies up from the floor to see well. Reaching back into the compartment, I took out another dart that looked slightly smaller then the first.

"This is a tracking dart, perfectly accurate within two feet of its intended target, and capable of being picked up within 1000 feet of its corresponding launcher, in this case Axel," he continued as I placed this dart next to the first.

"So I take it that the plan is for us to attach these somewhere on Shepard or one of his crew so that we can listen in on what they're saying to each other?" Alec quizzed as he looked down on the two devices.

"You got it," I answered with a nod.

"And I think I've already found a hole in that plan. If you attach those to somewhere on his armour, they'll simply get left behind in Shepard's locker whenever he changes into his normal clothes on the Normandy. We'd only ever hear what he says after he'd already landed on which ever planet he goes to first." I smiled mischievously as Alec pointed out this flaw, having already come up with a way to counter it.

"You're right, that would be a pretty bad hole in the plan, but there's another way we can plant it on him," I said. Alec frowned at this, a confused look creeping into his eyes.

"Well I'm pretty sure he or any of his squad-mates might feel a sharp tingling sensation if you tried firing it into their necks," he answered sarcastically. I laughed at this, feeling amused that he still hadn't figured out my solution yet.

"That would be a problem too, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm suggesting that we turn both of these into a single mobile tracking unit, capable of remaining hidden and within twenty feet of Shepard at all times." Now I had Alec really confused, causing both he and Yoda (who had been forced to jump up onto the table and stand behind Polly to see properly) both looked back and forth between the two darts and myself.

"And how exactly are we going to do that?" Alec asked.

"This was the part I came up with. With the Replicators' advanced capabilities, I think they can basically combine these two darts and give it a little pair of legs, that way it pretty much becomes…" I began, causing Alec's eyes to widen and one of his trademark grins of revelation to spread across his face.

"You're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

With a grin that very nearly rivaled that of Alec's, I turned my head down to Polly and Sparky, the second which had just crawled up onto the table top next to his red and silver brother.

"Guys, we need these two darts combined into a single casing. We also need it to have legs and a working mind so that it can stay hidden and on Commander Shepard at all times, both on his away-missions and even on the Normandy," I began saying to the two spiders, which were looking up and listening carefully to my every word.

"I want you to turn these darts into a miniature Replicator to keep tabs on him."

Polly and Sparky seemed to flinch in surprise, as if the idea shocked them.

"It needs to be able to still cloak itself, transmit Shepard's location, and pick up on any words he says to the rest of his crew, while at the same time always staying undetected. You think you can do it?" I asked sincerely down to the two spiders. Polly turned to Sparky and began engaging the other in a conversation of hisses and low screeches, debating over the proposition. After a few quick seconds the spiders suddenly turned back to me, both of them nodding their bodies up and down excitedly.

"Alright! Lets stand back and watch the magic happen!" I said with a clap of my hands as Yoda, Alec, and I all inched away from the duo. Both spiders took up positions opposite of each other on either side of the two darts, crouching down low to the surface of the table. As Polly began heating up his front pincers, Sparky began scratching deeply into the table's metal top, scraping up small fragments from it with the sharp ends of his front legs and sweeping them next to the darts. Then, after both Replicators had brought their pincers up to full power, they set to work dismantling the two darts. A bright flair of light and a few sparks flashed out as whatever advanced energy flowed from their bodies carefully broke apart the darts into near microscopic Replicator blocks and re-assembled their fine inner-makings back together into one frame, adding in the small metal fragments provided by Sparky and an additional sliver of material taken from the tip of Polly's left leg.

After several tense seconds of waiting, in which the rest of us had to shield our eyes from the bright light flaring in between the two, Polly and Sparky finally finished their work and backed a few steps away from the final product. Eagerly all of us, even several of the Replicators waiting patiently on the floor, scrambled over toward the table, bringing our heads or bodies close together over top of the steaming spot the others had been working at like some intense pre-game Football huddle!

"Is this it?" Alec asked with a slightly confused frown, the tops of his, mine, and Yoda's heads all touching each other in a weird triangle as we looked down on the small black device. Just as I had hoped the two darts had indeed been fused together into one single body, one that looked more akin to a small-caliber bullet then a dart. For another tense second we all said nothing, waiting with baited breath for the dart to do something.

Suddenly it shuddered, giving a miniature metallic groan before four very small curved legs sprouted out from the underside of its body at its front and back!

All of us reared back in surprise as the tiny Replicator Dart picked itself up and stretched its limbs like a small animal coming out of a nap, followed by a few shaky steps as it became accustomed to crawling around.

"IT'S ALIVE! ALIIIVE!" I announced dramatically in the classic voice of Dr. Frankenstein, raising my arms high for greater effect.

Both Alec and Yoda looked over at me with cocked eyebrows at my sudden outburst.

"I have always wanted to say that," I said to them with a wide grin and a gentle shrug to keep my bruises from inflaming any further.

"It's a bit bigger than I was expecting," Alec remarked after closely inspecting the tiny creature scurrying in circles in front of him as I offered the flat of my palm down to the machine. Immediately the Replicator Dart moved onto and nested itself within the center of my gloved palm, curling its legs back into the sides of its body and going silent once again.

"It is, but its still small enough to fit properly. When I get close to Shepard it should still fire out and latch on to him like its suppose to," I said as I carefully placed the Dart into the small ammunition compartment and slid it firmly into place within my gauntlet's barrel.

"Which brings me to another issue in your plan; how exactly are you going to get close enough to Shepard to shoot this onto him?" Alec asked with a brief hand gesture to my gauntlet as the barrel retracted back and disappeared within it.

"After I saved Tali she promised that she would hand her evidence over to Shepard, which means all he has to do now is present it to the Council and get Saren kicked out of the Spectres," I answered. Alec's eyes suddenly widened again.

"Which means the last chance you'll have to wire him is…" he began when I suddenly finished for him.

"At his next meeting in the Council Chambers…" I said morbidly with a small nod.

There was a short pause of silence before Alec began giving a very deliberate and forced laugh, using it as more of a way of expressing sarcasm than humour.

"Axel, you're seriously planning on waltzing into one of the most secure places on the entire Citadel? With that kind of plan in mind you might as well just barge into C-Sec Academy itself, hold up a bouquet full of roses, and say 'Arrest Me!' to everyone there!" Alec explained exasperatedly while connecting and thrusting his wrists toward me, imitating the act of being handcuffed.

"I know Alec! Haxon already drilled me enough about that on the way here. There just isn't any other alterative that wouldn't involve me getting caught," I shot back sourly.

"How do you plan on even getting in there without being seen?" At that question my mood brightened up a little bit.

"With this," I said with a sly grin before pressing another small button on my left gauntlet this time. Immediately I felt a small tickling sensation travel across my body, accompanied by a visible pixeled flash. Looking down at myself, I frowned in momentary confusion at the fact that I could still see my body normally.

'Is the suit's cloaking device broken?' I wondered. However a half second afterward my fears were belayed, for Alec immediately threw up his hands with a 'screw it all' look on his face.

"I'm done. I am so done with this group. Does everyone here have an invisibility device stashed on them somewhere?" the Guardian asked irritated, for some reason focusing most of the question on Polly and Sparky, before whirling around and pointing a finger at a stunned Yoda standing on the table top next to him.

"Even you! You were able to make us practically invisible with your MIND!"

"Alec I couldn't really tell you about this little trick at the time because we were still being chased and shot at," I said with a laugh to calm him down as I pressed the button again, causing another pixeled flash and, to everyone else but me, my body to reappear out of thin air.

"Well then there's your solution right there! Instead of going into the Council Chambers, why don't you just cloak yourself, wait outside its front entrance, and then tag Shepard when he and his squad walk out after their meeting?" Alec suggested with a nod down to my gauntlet.

"Because Shepard isn't walking to places, he's taking the Fast Transit Taxis to go between destinations. So unless you actually want me to try barging into C-Sec Academy when he's getting into the elevator to go up to the Normandy's docking pier, the Council Chambers are the only place he'll be out in the open long enough for me to plant the Dart on him," I pointed out. Alec sighed and shook his head in defeat, begrudgingly agreeing with my point.

"Then at least let me do it instead, that way if they manage to corner me I can always suffer the pain of using my teleportation trick…or just fight my way out," Alec suggested with a crack of his knuckles and a grin. I smiled warmly at that proposal, stretching out and laying a grateful hand on his shoulder.

"I appreciate that, but I know how to take care of myself," I said with a nod as I pushed myself off the edge of the conference table. Unfortunately a tremendous sting from the bruises on my legs caused me to stagger to the side slightly, forcing Alec to grab onto my arm to help steady me.

"You're sure about that? You can barely stand as it is," he commented with concern as I slowly stood up straighter with a wince.

"I'm bruised Alec, not broken. I'll be fine once I get moving around some more," I stated as I flexed my legs a bit.

"Well before you go, at least take this for some added protection," the Guardian said as he reached to his belt and pulled out my white M5-Phalanx that I had given to him earlier, flipping it around so that its handle grip was extended out to me. I smiled again as I accepted the pistol and clipped it to my belt. With a last affectionate stroke on the head to a mournful looking Polly, and a final handshake from Alec, I began making my way around the edge of the conference table toward the Corsica's main airlock.

"Don't worry about me guys, I'll be extra careful. I'll be like a fly on a wall, a shadow in the night, a…" I began saying to everyone from across the table as I moved, turning my head over to them while speaking before I suddenly walked straight into one of the ceiling/floor supports spaced around the table!

"Yeah, because that fills us with so much confidence," Alec said sarcastically as I shook my head to clear the pain of the impact.

"Aside from that part, everything is going to be fine. I'll be back soon, so while I'm gone just stay here, lie low, and keep the ship in one piece," I said with an embarrassed chuckle as I continued into the tight corridor that connected the forward cockpit to the conference area.

"Take care Axel, if true it is what you have told us about Viraden, graver dangers than C-Sec there are now roaming across this station," Yoda called over to me as I pressed my palm against the airlock's opening mechanism.

"Believe me Yoda, that's a forefront in my mind," I answered back solemnly as the door slid open.

"May the Force be with you," Yoda and Alec said at the same time, causing them both to look at each other with an amused smirk. I couldn't help but chuckle and nod back at them.
"You too. Now kids, try not to burn down the house while I'm gone," I joked with a farewell salute before stepping into the airlock and sealing the door behind me.

---

As Axel disappeared from view, Alec turned back to Yoda with a dramatic frown of confusion on his face.

"I'm getting a weird sense of deja-vu here, have we split up like this before?" Alec asked to the little green man standing on the table beside him with a barely contained chuckle. Yoda could only chuckle also and shrug. With a wide grin, Alec clasped his hands together and turned to the horde of Replicators surrounding them.

"Well gents, since we're going to be waiting on this rust-bucket for a while, why don't we go and see if there's anything here that needs…improvement," the Guardian stated with a slyly cocked eyebrow, eliciting an eager hiss from the hundreds of machines.

---

Outside the Corsica, I moved swiftly down the docking corridor once the outer airlock doors had opened. There already wasn't much time before Shepard would be summoned to present Tali's evidence to the Council, which meant I had to find a way to get to the Citadel Tower before him, and with the Iron Man suit now defunct I needed a new way to do it fast. Up ahead, the two bumbling Alliance soldiers that had been left to guard the ship were still arguing with each other over some new topic that I didn't care to listen to. I played with the idea of activating the suit's cloaking device then and there, but since Yoda's Mind Trick had been powerful enough for them to forget and ignore us the last time, I figured it would be powerful enough to still convince them into not noticing me now.

"Great job on the guarding boys, keep at it," I complimented as I walked through unseen in-between them, casually clapping them both on the backs as I did.

The two screamed in un-naturally high voices as they felt the sensation, whipping out their guns and shouting at each other, spinning around in circles looking for whatever had just touched them. It took all my energy to keep from bursting out into a fit of laughter as I made my way down the pier away from the oblivious duo, pressing the button on my gauntlet and disappearing into thin air with a pixeled flash.

For the next fifteen minutes I stealthily ran down the Docks, carefully avoiding patrols of Turian and Human soldiers that were still searching around the area for Alec and I. Eventually I found an unguarded elevator lift which I entered and took up to the top level of the Docks, which luckily led and opened onto one of the farthest sections of the Embassy District.

"It doesn't look like there are too many people around. If I keep a low profile no one should notice my face," I stated quietly to Haxon as I deactivated my cloaking device and reappeared, having ducked into cover behind a large metal wall partition only a few feet away from the elevator I had stepped out of. Just beyond my position was the usual sun-lit, wide open, lush green, and cool watery scenery of the Embassy District, along with several connecting pathways and bridges that extended out to the other side of the area. Spanning horizontally in front of me was a white tile pathway with a single steel railing going across, one that only a handful of people from different races were leaning on or standing beside throughout the immediate area, each of the deep in conversation with each other. Connected to this railing in plain sight was a single glowing Fast Transit terminal.

"Without the Iron Man suit, how are you planning on getting to the Council Chambers in time?" Haxon inquired as I carefully looked across the area, summing up each of the few individuals within walking distance of the terminal.

"The same way most other people get there, I'm gonna take a taxi," I answered with a small smile, taking one last glance around for any nearby cameras or C-Sec agents that might have been running their beat at the moment. Thankfully there weren't any.

"What if the taxi driver recognizes you?" Haxon suddenly asked as I stepped out from my cover and began quickly making my way over toward the terminal.

"C-Sec only broadcasted my face throughout the Market District, so hopefully not that many people actually know what I look like. But if the driver does recognize me…I may need to get creative," I said under my breath as I subtly laid a hand on the butt of my Phalanx. For the few seconds that it took to cross the distance between myself and the terminal, I kept my head bowed and avoided eye contact with the few people nearby. I also made sure to keep my left hand covering over my right so as to prevent the ring from lighting up and possibly causing a repeat of the incident in the Market Corridor, the very one in which I nearly gotten arrested. I felt a small feeling of relief wash over me as I came to a stop in front of the glowing terminal, reaching out my hand and tapping the bright orange call button that would summon a hover taxi from the Fast Transit Lanes that flashed back and forth overhead.

But immediately that feeling was replaced by one of apprehension as a shadow came across the terminal, followed by the feeling of someone deliberately jabbing their elbow into my left side as a Human politician dressed in a dark blue and red business suit came up and tried pushing me out of the way.

"Excuse me sir," the politician uttered without really meaning it as he made to press his hand against the call button. Up overhead the screech of a nearing hover car could be heard as the taxi I had flagged came dropping out of the Travel Lanes down toward our terminal. I scowled as I quickly used the flat of my hand to slap the politician's away from the device, locking eyes with him as he jerked to face me in astonishment.

"Excuse me sir, I got here first. This is my taxi," I retorted with a jab of my thumb over my shoulder as the taxi gently touched down on the tiled pathway beside me.

"Do you know who I am?" the politician hissed at me, as if he were insulted that I would dare to make him wait for the next one.

"Don't know, don't care, I'm in a bit of a hurry. You got a problem with that?" I shot back at him with a maliciously cocked eyebrow. The politician's astonishment increased ten-fold at that statement, causing him to stutter over his next words with barely contained fury.

"Didn't think so, have a nice day," I finished with a curt nod before turning around and making my way into the back seat of the vehicle as its roof and doors flung wide open to allow me entrance. As I sat down and became comfortable, the taxi sealed back up and hum/screeched back into the sky, leaving the politician to watch us fly away shaking with rage.

"Are you sure that was wise? What if he had recognized you?" Haxon asked quietly to keep the taxi driver up front from hearing.

"Come on, that guy was just some smug smart-ass politician, I wasn't just going to stand by and let him take our only means of getting to the Tower on time. Besides, what are the chances of him even bothering to listen to the news issues that don't interfere with his special luncheons with the Citadel Counselors?" I asked reassuringly back under my breath.

---

"Impudent, no good, stupid…" the politician began muttering to himself as he watched the taxi with the man that had just challenged him fly up and mix with the usual flow of air traffic. Smacking the call button on the terminal to signal the next taxi, the politician began sourly thinking on that man's face and his appearance, hoping to burn that image into his own mind so that he would remember that person if they ever crossed paths again. But then suddenly the politician's eyes widened, and his look of anger dropped into one of horrified recognition.

"Wait a minute. That was the terrorist who started the park riot!" he suddenly exclaimed as he looked back up toward the sky. Immediately he brought up his arm and activated his omni-tool, keying in the proper sequence to contact C-Sec Academy!

---

"So man, where ya headed?" the taxi driver asked back to me in a friendly voice once he had merged our car within the lanes of flying vehicles. I snapped my head up to look at the back of our chauffer; something in his voice and the way he was speaking catching my attention. Simply from looking at him I could tell that he was an odd contradiction to the normalness of the dark blue hover taxi he was driving.

He was a young man of about my age who had wavy shoulder length blonde hair, with a trim but scruffy beard of the same colour that connected with his sideburns and covered all of his chin and jaw. On his slightly crooked nose that looked like it had been broken at one time in his life, he wore a pair of sleek glasses that appeared to have dark purple lenses instead of transparent ones. On his body he wore a plain un-tucked white dress shirt that didn't look like it had been ironed in a while, wearing it with his sleeves rolled up just underneath his elbows and with his collar left open by a few buttons. He also wore rumpled black trousers that looked like they had been purchased at a second-hand store.

As I took all of this in, there was one thing that really caught my eye. Wrapped around the driver's right wrist were several bracelets, some of them made out of straps while others were sets of wooden beads placed on a string. But one of them appeared to be a charm bracelet, with several tiny metal symbols spaced out along it. The biggest and shiniest one was what had caught my attention, being in the shape of a circle with an upside down Y and a small third branch sticking out from the bottom.

It was the classic Hippy symbol for peace.

"Oh no. In another universe, nearly two hundred years in the future, and I still run into these people," I muttered quietly as I rubbed my forehead tiredly, wincing as more pain shot up from the bridge of my nose. While living in the colder woods of Northern Ontario, I had run into a lot of hippies or former hippies in my life. Many of them had been really nice people, while unfortunately a lot of others had simply been drug/sex addicts or thieves, more than willing to slit someone's throat if it meant they'd get what they needed for their next fix. I'd always made it a point to stay clear of them whenever I could, simply out of caution.

"What do you mean?" Haxon whispered as I thought about this.

"Take me to the Council Chambers please," I told our hippy driver politely, ignoring Haxon's question. I noticed the driver frown in confusion and cast a glance up at me through the taxi's rear-view mirror after my request.

"That's gonna be expensive dude, most taxi traffic that goes in there's usually supposed to be packing those high and mighty politicians or their lackeys," he explained, kind of bitterly, while still casting occasional glances up at the mirror.

"I'm willing to pay, I've got urgent business there. In fact, I'll be willing to pay a little extra if you can get me there as fast as possible," I suggested with a nod to the wide windshield showing the scenery of the Embassy District flash by underneath us. Up ahead, the mighty form of the Citadel Tower rose up slightly off to the left side, slowly coming closer and closer as the car continued flying. It actually felt quiet nice to be going across this terrain for a second time without the weight of the Iron Man suit pressing in on me, or having an angry Asari liaison blasting away in a gunship.

"Oh sure thing then man, if I crunch the numbers it should total out to…" the driver began as he took one more look at me through the mirror. But then suddenly his jaw dropped and his eyes widened as he focused all his attention on my face.

"Hey, wait a minute! You're that guy…" he began excitedly with a jab of his finger up at the mirror before semi-spinning around in his seat to look back at me.

Only his voice cut off abruptly as the tip of his nose ran into the barrel of my activated Phalanx!

Pointing the pistol that I'd subtly unclipped from my belt straight in his face, I kept my expression neutral and my breathing steady as I leaned forward in my seat closer to him.

"Turn around, keep your eyes ahead of you, and take me to the Council Chambers please," I requested again evenly, but this time in a cold tone as I pressed the barrel harder against the ball of his nose. The driver's eyes went crossed as they tried looking down at the gun, while he slowly raised his hands in surrender.

"Dude, chill, chill we're cool man," he said with a nod as he obediently flipped around back to the car's controls. Still keeping the Phalanx on him, I leaned closer until my head and gun were nearly sticking out in between the taxi's two front seats.

"What's your name?" I asked the driver calmly as I looked out the windshield.

"Uhh Darren, Darren Aagaard sir. If you don't mind me asking man, you are Axel right?" Darren asked with a small grin of excitement on his face as he occasionally turned his head back to me, keeping most of his attention on flying while still trying to talk. I rolled my eyes as I slightly nodded my head in defeat.

"Yes I'm Axel, and no I'm not a terrorist. That was a badly used ruse made by my partner to get the crowd in the park to riot," I answered in an irritated tone as I thought back on how that stupid label had started. But Darren only laughed and shook his head.

"Man even if you were a terrorist, you don't need the gun. I'm on your side dude, power to people, stickin' it to the system!" the driver announced enthusiastically while shaking his fist in a show of victory as he indicated my Phalanx. I was frowning in extreme bewilderment, enough so that I lowered my pistol and looked directly at my thought to be hostage.

"What are you talking about? Why would you want to side with a terrorist?" I asked him. Darren only shot his widened eyes over to me with another grin on his face.

"DUDE! Do you have any idea how much the Council picked our pockets to build that stupid SKYLIFT system! That thing cost the people close to half a billion credits, and it barely works any better than a simple hover car. Me and probably a couple thousand others were chanting your name when we heard that you were the one who'd blown up one of its cabins!" The hippy driver sharply jabbed his finger up to the peak of the Tower as he explained this.

I was truly stunned now, my face scrunching up even more as I thought about this new notion for a few seconds.

"Man to a lot of people on this station, you and your buddies are fucking heroes! Especially to me!" Darren continued as he slapped a hand over his heart.
"Seriously?!" I asked, still as astonished as I could ever be.
"Straight up man!"
I blew out an amused scoff as I deactivated and clipped my pistol back on to my belt.
"Well, in that case, Darren Aagaard, Axel Sorenson," I said with a relieved smile as I extended my right hand out to him.
"Sorenson, nice to meet you. What is that, Swedish?" Darren asked after fervently shaking my hand while at the same time manipulating the car's controls with his other.
"Danish actually," I corrected with a nod.

"Danish, Fuckin'-A! My family's from Norway, so I guess that pretty much makes us neighbours," he remarked with a brief clap on my shoulder. I arched my mouth in agreement and nodded at that too.
"Yeah, I guess it could."
"So where ya from Axel," Darren asked as he made the taxi dodge around a slow moving cargo transport.
"Uhh…I was born near Ottawa," I answered after a moment of thought, not really knowing if Thunder Bay, the place I had been mostly raised in, would still be around in the year 2183. But Darren's eyes only lit up as I said this.

"Man, I was born in Vancouver!"

"No shit?" I exclaimed with a start, a wide grin of surprise forming on my face at this news. With an even wider grin that would have impressed Alec, Darren clenched and raised his fist, extending it out before me.
"Dude, pound that shit. Canadians are drawn to each other man! Small galaxy eh?!"
"Dude," I agreed with a series of nods in that same cool laid back tone that Darren was speaking in as I raised my own fist.
"Dude!" Darren answered back with his own nods as we fist-bumped each other.
"DUDE!" we both said again at the same time before bursting out into a fit of laughter.
"Alright Darren, you want to do something that can help me get off this station?" I asked after we both finally calmed down, reaching down to one of the pouches on my belt and unbuckling it.

"Just name it Axel, I've got your back." Reaching in, I pulled out the small credit chit that Steve Irwin had given to me after winning our shooting contest against the Xenomorphs back in his store.

"I want you to get me to the Council Chambers as fast as you can without C-Sec detecting us, this fifty thousand credits should be able to shoo away even the most stubborn politician into letting you land and staying in the Tower for a while," I explained as I placed the chit in Darren's hand. His eyes bulged as he heard the amount, causing him to look the device up and down as if expecting it to be a fake.

"Dude if you want it, you can buy the whole car with this, I'd be your gunman," he answered sincerely with a sweep of his hand across the dashboard.

"I think I'll just pass on that, the last time I tried flying one of these it didn't go so well," I said quickly with a wince as I remembered the eventful trip in Irwin's Viper from the Market District to the Military Docks. Darren chuckled at that as he remembered it to.

"Yeah I heard about that not too long ago. Man, a high speed battle with a Ray, you sir are a badass," he stated with another of his grins and a finger pointed over at me. I smiled at that as I inclined farther out between the two front seats, bringing myself closer to him.

"Alright, so if you're gonna be my getaway man, here's the plan I've thought out…" I said before I began to lay out my idea of how I was going to escape from the Council Chambers after I had successfully planted the Replicator Dart on Shepard.

---

"Alright we're here dude!" Darren announced excitedly as he brought his taxi into a slow glide through the air within the dim-lit but lushly decorated Council Chambers. As we easily flew toward the large trees and shrubbery spaced near the center of the room, I was having a hard time breathing properly, my heart and lungs having already gone into overdrive from the adrenaline coursing through my body. My fingers were nearly breaking the backseat's armrest as they remained clamped around it, shaking slightly from the ordeal we had just gone through.

"That uhh…that was some insane flying Darren," I managed to say after calming down enough to speak again. When I'd told him that I wanted to get to the Tower as fast as possible, I wasn't prepared for the speed or maneuvers he had been willing to enact to do just that!

(And I'm just going to leave it at that and allow you guys to conjure up whatever insane acrobatics you think a hover car could manage, because chances are they won't even come close to what he was able to do)

With a deft mastery of the controls, Darren brought the taxi to an easy hover over top of the large pink tree set up close to the large pit the Council would hold meetings over, gently easing us down until we had landed directly in front of the glowing Fast Transit terminal positioned before the large grand double staircase that led up to the extended Speaker's platform.

"So you remember everything you need to do?" I asked from the backseat as I clapped our hippy driver on the shoulder.

"Yup. Basically just sit here and wait for you to get back. If anything goes wrong I'm suppose to listen for your word," Darren answered, summarizing everything that we had planned together on the way here. I smile at that as I clapped him again.

"Close enough." With a quick repositioning, I leaned against the side door closest to the Chamber staircase and pressed the small button on my left gauntlet, causing the familiar tingling and brief pixeled flash to travel across my body as my armour's cloaking device activated.

"Wicked!" Darren awed with a grin as he looked around the interior of the car, obviously having lost sight of me even though I could still see my own body just fine.

'This'll be very confusing if I ever forget to turn this thing off,' I thought as I took a moment to look myself over.

"Alright, open the doors now," I ordered over to him, appearing as a disembodied voice from his perspective. With a quick nod Darren pressed the release button, causing the entire taxi to open up like a flower and let me step out.

"Excuse me sir. Only taxi's with official Council business are allowed to park here," said a Turian Chamber guard as he came over to Darren's opened vehicle.
"Hey boss chill out. I am on 'Official Council Business', I'm just waitin' to pick up a dude after the meetin' they got goin' on up there," Darren said up to the Turian looming over him, making good use of finger quotations for the business part as he jabbed his thumb up the stairs toward the Speaker's platform.

"The meeting hasn't even started yet," the guard pointed out as he flicked his eyes up the Council platform, catching sight of the Turian, Asari, and Salarian Counselors only now just arriving to take their positions.
"Then I'll just wait here until it starts, and then wait again until its finished so that I don't miss my fare," Darren remarked.
"Do you have any permits to enter into Chamber airspace, or land on Chamber property?" the Turian demanded.

"No sir I don't, but I do know the fees required to park in this area," Darren shot back with a folding of his arms. The Turian folded his own arms and glared down at the Human that was trying his patience.
"So you already know about the 2000 credit spatial fees, plus the three hundred…" the guard began when suddenly Darren pulled out the credit chit I had given him and held it up toward the Turian's face. (Which considering the Turian's natural height and how low Darren was sitting to the ground, it reached up more to the man's waist than his face)

"Yeah yeah yeah, how about you just take the money for the fees and another 2000 from me as a way of saying 'Get away from the car and don't bother me again'," the hippy interrupted as he waved the chit. The Turian scoffed, snatching the chit out of his hand and taking a scan of it with his omni-tool.

"As if a man as badly dressed as you could possibly afford to…WHOA!" the Turian stated with his eyes bulging once he saw the amount the chit contained scroll up on his screen.
"Thanks, Bird-Face," Darren bit out, in a slightly smug tone, as he snatched the chit back after the Turian had finished transacting the fees from it.
"Yes sir! Sorry to disturb you sir! I'll make sure nobody does it again, sir!" the guard said with perfect military precision as he snapped off a stiff salute before marching away. With that Darren clicked the button on his dashboard again and caused the car's doors and roof to seal back into place.

I laughed quietly at that altercation, still standing out in the open but remaining completely hidden from all the politicians and guards scattered throughout the Chambers.

"I always run into the strangest characters when I'm out on my own. First Irwin and Bruce, then Kurath, and now Darren," I listed off with a chuckle as I gestured over to my getaway taxi.

"Yes you do. And…Axel, he's here!" Haxon began before suddenly hissing his warning in my ear. Snapping my head around as I heard the telltale screech of another hover car echo throughout the colossal Chambers, I stiffened with apprehension as another Fast Transit Taxi touched down on the other side of the pink tree that Darren had landed beside. As it opened, Commander Shepard, Kaidan, Ashley, Garrus, and Tali all staggered out from its insides, each of them groaning or massaging the stiffness from their limbs after having been crammed together into such a small vehicle.

"All in favour of taking the elevator next time?" Garrus asked offhand to everyone while rubbing the back of his sore neck. I held my breath tightly as they each walked around the back of Darren's car, passing within fifteen feet of me but never glancing in my direction as they began climbing up the double staircase toward the Speaker platform. I breathed again slowly, inwardly relieved that the cloaking device was working as properly as Irwin said it would. As I watched them walk farther away from me, most of my focus shifted to Tali as she allowed herself to fall to the back of the group.

I smiled as I thought back to the last thing I had said to her, how if we ever saw each other again it would be at a less rushed moment. But now here I was, standing within normal speaking distance of her but unable to actually show myself.

Suddenly however, something strange happened.

As I noticed Captain David Anderson suddenly appear at the top of the staircase and begin to descend down to meet up with Shepard, the group stopped for a brief moment on the steps. Kaidan, Ash, and Garrus all began engaging in a short conversation amongst each other, but Tali took this moment to turn around and look out across the Chambers, obviously struck in awe by its sheer size and beauty.

What was strange however was when she panned her view over to the right; she suddenly stopped abruptly with her gaze centered directly on the area I was standing in!

My smile dropped and my eyes widened slightly, my body going rigid and remaining completely still. My breath caught in my chest as Tali slowly cocked her head to one side, the glowing silver orbs visible through her visor shrinking slightly as she narrowed her eyes, as if she were curious or confused about something.

"Haxon? The cloaking device is still working right?" I asked very quietly while barely moving my lips, feeling my apprehension raise another notch as Tali took a slow step off the staircase towards me, her eyes narrowing even more.

"Of course it is," Haxon answered, but even as he said it I could hear a slight wariness in his voice. For another second I stayed as frozen as a statue, staring into the eyes of the woman in front of me, waiting for her to suddenly shout and oust me to everyone.

"Come on. Udina's presenting the Quarian's evidence to the Council," Anderson's voice echoed down from the middle landing of the staircase, causing Shepard to signal for the rest of the squad to follow him and the Captain up to the Speaker's platform.

"You coming Tali?" Kaidan asked over to her once he saw that she wasn't moving. The lieutenant's voice seemed to snap Tali out of a deep trans, causing her to shake her head as if clearing her eyesight.
"Uh, yeah…I'm right behind you," she said hesitantly, casting one last confused glance over at me before turning and following the others.

"She saw me!" I stated in astonishment as I watched her ascend quickly up the stairs.

"Axel, you're using one of the most advanced cloaking devices out on the market, there's no way she could have seen you," Haxon defended.
"Maybe she couldn't actually see my body, but she knew I was standing here somehow." I barely had time to extrapolate further on this when suddenly the deep grainy voice of Saren Arterius boomed out across the glass-covered pit from atop the stairs.

"Eden Prime was a major victory…" I cursed as I recognized those words from the Geth audio logs that Tali had discovered. Our window of opportunity to tag Shepard was quickly closing!

"We need to get to a vantage point now!" I said sharply as I spun around and dashed to the far left side of the Chambers. Crossing the distance in seconds and running past an oblivious Admiral Kahoku who at the moment was arguing with an uncooperative communication's terminal, I came to a skidding stop within an enclosed sitting area surrounded by elevated layers of soil-beds, each with lush bushes, trees, and greenery growing out of them. With a snap decision, I sprinted over to my right and dived head first into the bushes of the first soil bed, coming up in a roll and launching myself up onto the second level. The citizens and politicians who were sitting on the benches in the area all began speaking to each other in alarm as they saw, to their perspective, the bushes and plants I was climbing through roughly shift and move all on their own.

"Where are we going?" Haxon asked as I lunged through an alien flowerbed and latched both hands onto the edge of the third and final level. Baring my teeth and grunting in effort, I quickly kicked my feet and hauled myself onto the flat vine covered top of the level, standing up and pointing my left arm across the deep pit that stretched out below me.

Far off to my right, the Speaker's platform extended out above the center of this pit, at the moment supporting Ambassador Udina on its front end as he played the rest of Tali's recording for the three Counselors towering over him on their higher platform.

'This is ten times weirder then back at Chora's Den,' I thought with an amused smile, reflecting back on how I had been present and had even helped during one of the pivotal moment's in Mass Effect's plot, even without the main character's knowing of my presence.

"We're going to perch up there," I said quietly as I pointed up to a small extended roof jutting out overtop of a walkway that encircled around a portion of the glass-pit the Council was presiding over, one that would give me a perfect bead to fire the Dart onto Shepard when the time came.

"…And one step closer to the return of the Reapers," the voice of Matriarch Benezia suddenly echoed out from the glowing console on the Speaker's platform, showing that Tali's evidence was finished playing.

"Remember when you said you wanted me to go through a tutorial on how to use my grappling-hook? Now's the time, how do I use it?" I asked as I quickly scanned across the gauntlet surrounding my left forearm.

"It's very simple, press the first button next to the one that activates your cloaking device," the A.I. explained. After finding the indicated button, I pressed it and suddenly felt a sharp mechanical movement within the gauntlet.

Immediately a six inch long steel spike jutted out of a small barrel that had extended from the gauntlet, one that quickly snapped out a series of progressively larger serrated edges along either side of it, forming a large and very sharp arrow-like head!

"Whoa! What's next?" I asked in surprise as I took a moment to look over the dangerous appearance of the grappling hook's end.

"Take careful aim at your target, and then press the next button over from the one you just used, this will fire the hook," Haxon explained further. Seeing the third button, I outstretched my left arm while flexing my wrist downward and sighted along its length with my right eye, taking a brief second to steady my aim before pressing the fire button. My arm barely jerked from what little recoil there was as the dart-hook silently blasted from my gauntlet all the way across the glass pit, a thin steel cable wildly trailing out behind it from the barrel before the dart head sunk into the Chamber's surrounding wall above the jutting roof with a metallic slicing sound.

"Nobody else can see this right?" I asked after a quick look around for any onlookers.

"Steve modified the cloaking device to extend its field down along the cable, thereby keeping it invisible even when extended to its full length. Now, simply press that button again and it will automatically retract the cable, taking you along with it to the roof." With a wide grin I gave an eager nod, excited for my first attempt at flying through the air on a grappling-hook.

"Tally-ho then," I said with a chuckle before slamming my finger against the fire button for a second time. Suddenly my eyes widened as the mechanism in my gauntlet began sucking the cable back into its barrel, and harshly pulling me up through the air with enough force to nearly rip my arm out of its socket!

"HAAAAARGH! I screamed as I was whipped up from the vine level and yanked across the pit toward the wall my hook was attached to.

---

"You wanted proof, there it…" Ambassador Udina began stating up to the three Counselors after the Quarian's evidence had finished playing, pointing a commanding finger at them before he was suddenly interrupted by a loud masculine scream that echoed out across the Chambers from the far left side!

"HAAAAARGH!" the voice screamed before it was cut off by a tremendous metallic crash, followed by two smaller crashes, leaving an awkward stillness running throughout the room afterward. Everyone: Udina, the Counselors, Anderson, Shepard and his squad, along with anyone leaning against the walkways that surrounded the glass pit all looked to that general direction in confusion, searching for whatever had caused that noise.

"What was that?" Ashley asked to the rest of the squad as her eyes also scanned across that portion of the room.

"Most likely an accident has just occurred, guards will be dispatched immediately to find the source and render any aid that may be required," the Salarian Counselor reassured as he activated his omni-tool to put in this order.

"Meanwhile we must return to the issue at hand," the Asari Counselor said to everyone, earning a collective nod from the other Counselors. As the meeting continued and everyone returned to what they were doing, Tali continued looking up toward the area the scream and crash had come from, the sensor's in her helmet visor picking up a slight spatial anomaly now present on the roof of a walkway that curved around a small section of the glass pit they were standing over.

She frowned deeply and narrowed her eyes in suspicion, leaning over the side railing of the Speaker's platform as she tried focusing her gaze on whatever this thing was. It was like looking at a heat haze, very nearly invisible to the naked eye but distorted enough to be distinguished from the rest of its surroundings. It was the very same distortion that she had noticed at the foot of the stairs just a little while ago.

"Tali? Are you alright?" Garrus suddenly asked as he reached out and gently shook her by the shoulder. Tali blinked as the movement made her lose focus on the distortion, causing it to vanish just like it had the last time she'd seen it. The Engineer shook her head again and massaged a spot near her helmet's temple, the experience of seeing something and then having it vanish on her twice causing a small pain to flare up in her forehead.

"I…I think my suit might be malfunctioning, its picking up random heat traces," Tali answered as she turned away from the railing to face back up to the Counselors.

"You may want to get that looked at before we run into anymore trouble," Garrus said. Casting a subtle glance back up to the roof, Tali could see a portion of the heat haze had reappeared and was now moving over to its center, coming to a stop at a perfect vantage point overlooking the Council Pit. Wedging her eyes shut in annoyance and rubbing her temple even harder, Tali gave an irritated sigh of agreement.
"Yes, I'll definitely do that."

After all, it was just a heat trace right? It couldn't have been anything other than a malfunction.

---

"Oww…oww…owww…" I wheezed out through small pain induced gasps, awkwardly pressed sideways with my back against the wall, hanging off my left arm as the head of the grappling hook remained embedded in the wall itself.

"Mayyyybe I should have mentioned the amount of power the auto retractor can have on this thing," Haxon remarked with another one of those audible winces in his voice, knowing full well what my reaction would be at the moment. Growling under my breath, I grimaced as I jerked my arm outward, causing the dart-hook to disengage its serrated edges from the wall and retract itself all the way back into my gauntlet barrel in a flash, disappearing entirely as the barrel also folded back up along with it. I gave a brief yell as this happened, the lose of my connection to the wall making me fall and roll down the side of the slanted roofing before I abruptly flattened myself out on my stomach, coming to a scraping stop right beside its sudden drop-off.

"Yeah, that would have been nice to know before I smashed face-first into a steel wall," I hissed under my breath before my entire body cringed in pain, the throbbing bruises that covered my torso having become re-inflamed again after my recent impact. I could also feel a stinging cut going across the top of my right eyebrow, and a hot sticky wetness beginning to collect within its hairs. Raising a hand up, I wiped my thumb against this injury and found a moderate amount of blood smeared across it, it's dark red colour blending in with the black leather of my glove.

"Great. I really hope this won't need stitches," I muttered with another wince as I wiped away more of it with the back of my hand.

"This evidence is irrefutable Ambassador. Saren will be stripped of his Spectre status, and all efforts will be made to bring him in to answer for his crimes," the voice of the Turian Counselor suddenly echoed throughout the area nearby.

My eyes shot wide as I quickly sprung up into a sideways crouch, turning around and carefully moving along the edge of the roofing.

"Show time," I stated with a wince as I turned to the left and crossed over onto the main stretch of roofing that ran along the outside of the glass pit. Down below, the Counselors' and Speaker's platforms faced inward toward each other, giving me the most perfect vantage point I could think of for watching the rest of the meeting and tagging Shepard once he stepped out away from the rest of his squad.

"Do you need a tutorial on how to fire the dart launcher?" Haxon asked after I stopped and quietly leaned against the roofing, sitting with my back straight and the bottoms of my boots pressed against the edging to keep myself stable. I winced again as I raised my aching right arm, pressing the button that would open the ammunition compartment containing the dart-belt.

"I think I got the basics down. This button here should be the firing system right?" I asked as I pointed to a second button next to the one I had just pressed.
"You got it," Haxon confirmed.

"I recognize the other voice, the one speaking with Saren. Matriarch Benezia," the Asari Counselor had begun saying, continuing the meeting as if my scream hadn't been heard by anyone.

(Wow. Way to show concern people. What if it had been a bomb going off?)

"Who is she?" Shepard asked up to the Counselor, standing close beside Anderson and the rest of the Normandy squad. I blew out an annoyed breath at this as I reached in to the dart compartment, gently grabbing on to and pulling the miniature Replicator Dart out from the barrel of the launcher.
"Come on. Hurry up and get to the good part," I began saying to myself under my breath, continuing to watch the meeting with keen ears and peeled eyes, eager for the moment I was waiting for.

"What good part?" Haxon asked as the Replicator Dart slowly began extending its legs within the center of my palm, waking up from its apparent nap with its cute little movements and miniaturized noises.
"Just wait for it, it's coming up soon. This was one of the side benefits of getting here on time; we get to watch a historic moment in this galaxy's history," I answered as I turned my attention from the Dart back to the Counselor, who was nearly finished answering Shepard's question.

"…They serve as guides and mentors to my people," the Asari finished explaining before returning to the specifics of Benezia.

"Matriarch Benezia is a powerful Biotic, and she had many followers. She will make a formidable ally for Saren." Beside her, the Salarian Counselor semi-folded his arms and began stroking his white striped chin, staring off down into the Council Pit deep in thought for a few seconds before bringing his large black eyes back up to look at the Speaker's platform.

"I'm more interested in the Reapers. What do you know about them?" he asked with a gesture down to Shepard.

"There's that name again, Reapers. First you mentioned them when we faced against that Turian assassin in Chloe's hospital, then you spoke about them to Tali, and now the Council themselves are talking about them, what exactly are they?" Haxon asked after hearing the Counselor mention the title. I gave a heavy sigh, knowing that the A.I. wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

"Brace yourself, cause' you're about to find out."

"Only what our Quarian expert here was able to extract from the Geth's memory core…" Capt. Anderson began saying, casting a respectful gesture of indication over to Tali. I couldn't help but crack a smile as everyone on the platform turned to look at her, causing Tali to flick her head between each person and nervously point to herself from all the sudden attention.

"I assume then that you have some insight into the Geth's knowledge of these beings, Miss…" the Salarian began with a casual questioning tone. There was a moment of hesitancy as Tali took a slow deep breath and mustered her courage before moving up to the head of the group past Shepard and Anderson.

"My name is Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya. From the memories I was able to extract from that core, I learned that the Reapers were an ancient race of machines thousands of years more advanced then the Geth themselves, and that they were the ones responsible for eradicating the Protheans. After they finished, they suddenly vanished from the galaxy never to be seen again." My eyes had already widened the moment she stepped forward, and now my smile of astonishment was widening to epic proportions as well.

'Well…this never happened! This plot-line already had a few changes of its own even without me messing it up!' I thought as I watched her spread her hands and arms out in semi-dramatic gestures and continue explaining what she had learned from the memory core.

"The Geth revere the Reapers as the Old Gods, the epitome of all synthetic life, and they believe that Saren is the prophet for their return," Tali continued with a nod up to the Counselors.

"We think the Conduit is the key to bringing them back. Saren's already begun searching for it. That's why he attacked Eden Prime," Anderson said from behind her.
"Do we even know what this Conduit is?" the Salarian Counselor asked.
"Saren thinks it can bring back the Reapers. That's bad enough," Shepard answered with a serious nod. Tali nodded after that also.

"Exactly. If the Reapers are using Saren as an agent to control the Geth by-proxy, then they will have already established a beachhead from which to allow the rest of their forces a quick entry back into this galaxy. According to the Geth, Saren only needs this Conduit device in order to complete that very plan," she said up to the high platform. Even as they spoke however, the Turian Counselor was already shaking his head in dismissal, throwing up a hand to emphasize that very point.

"Listen to what you're all saying. Saren wants to bring back the machines that wiped out all life in the galaxy? Impossible, it has to be," he began as Tali turned around and rejoined the rest of the group, obviously glad to finally be out of the spotlight.

"Where did the Reapers go? Why did they vanish? How come we've found no trace of their existence? If they were real, we'd have found something," the Turian finished, looking between the Speaker's platform and the rest of his fellow Counselors. Immediately Shepard took a step forward, pointing a reminding finger up at the Council.

"I tried to warn you about Saren and you refused to face the truth, don't make that same mistake again," Shepard said firmly, although slightly imploringly, as if he were subtly pleading with the Counselors to see the truth.

'They're going to regret this in the end,' I thought sadly as the Asari held up a hand and shook her head.
"This is different. You proved Saren betrayed the Council. We all agree he's using the Geth to search for the Conduit, but we don't really know why."

"The Reapers are obviously just a myth Commander. A convenient lie to cover Saren's true purpose. A simple legend he is using to bend the Geth to his will," the Salarian spoke after, shaking his head softly as he played down the notion.

A scowl formed on Shepard's goateed face after that statement, causing the Commander to take a step forward on one leg and direct his gaze up to the Counselor.

"Fifty thousand years ago the Reapers wiped out all organic civilization. If Saren finds the Conduit, it will happen again!" The Turian merely scoffed as Shepard pulled back in step next to Anderson.
"Saren is a rogue agent on the run for his life. He no longer has the rights or resources of a Spectre, the Council has stripped him of his position," the Counselor stated matter-of-factly.

I gave a small chuckle as Ambassador Udina, as if right on queue, butted into the exchange with one of his classic outbursts.
"That is not good enough! You know he's hiding somewhere in the Traverse, send your fleet in!" the Irishman barked, leaning forward aggressively and curling his fist out before himself in a symbolic show of military strength.
"A fleet cannot track down one man," the Salarian retorted firmly with a calm shake of his head. This answer caused the Ambassador to huff quietly and drop his fist, shaking his own head in annoyance.
"A Citadel Fleet could secure the entire region, keep the Geth from attacking any more of our colonies!"
"Or it could trigger a war with the Terminus Systems. We won't be dragged into a galactic confrontation over a few dozen Human colonies!" the Turian Counselor rebuffed immediately with a jab of his index talon. Right away Shepard spoke up with an obvious smirk on his face.

"Alright, send me in then."

"Bull's-eye," I uttered with a grin as everyone on the Speaker's platform jerked his or her heads over to him with a start of surprise. On the high platform, the Asari Counselor was slowly beginning to match Shepard's smirk, nodding in approval as she came to the same conclusion he had.

"The Commander's right. There is another way to stop Saren that does not require fleets or armies," the Counselor stated to her colleagues. The Salarian was rubbing his chin again, this time with a look of thoughtful curiousity before he began nodding in agreement. The Turian Counselor however was looking over at the Asari with his cheek mandibles flared open and his jaw half dropped.
"Are you out of your mind?! It's far too soon! Humanity is not ready for the responsibilities that come with joining the Spectres."

Shepard, still with his knowing smirk on his face, loudly cleared his throat to regain the Council's attention.
"You don't have to send a fleet into the Traverse, and the Ambassador gets his Human Spectre. Everybody's happy," the Commander said, nodding his head over to Udina's backside before staring back up at them. I grinned madly at this, now we were ready!

"This is it!" I said before bringing my attention back to the Replicator Dart that was crawling in circles across my palm.

"Okay buddy, I'm sending you on a mission now, a mission that'll probably end up being a few weeks long. Inside you there's a cloaking device, a tracker, and a listening microphone. I'm going to fire you out of this dart launcher and you're going to attach on to Shepard; once you do that you're going to turn invisible and stay within twenty feet of the Commander and his team at all times, day and night. Is that understood? The team and I are counting on you, can you do it?" I asked in the most commanding military officer's voice I could muster. The Dart stopped moving and was silent for a moment before it looked up at me and slowly nodded, getting into a ready crouch and retracting its legs back into its body-casing. Smiling at this, I picked up the Dart and gently slid him back into the open chamber of the dart-launcher's barrel.

"Commander Shepard…step forward."

The Asari's words caused me to snap my head back to the meeting in excitement, my right arm quickly extending forward and my left index finger coming to a hover over the launcher's firing button.

With a nod from Anderson that he returned gratefully, Shepard took several steps toward the end of the Speaker's platform, coming to a stop standing next to Udina's left side, leaving his left side out in the open for the Dart to latch on to!

All around the Chambers, on walkways, platforms, and another vantage points (well legal vantage points I should say) citizens and politicians of every race were gathering to watch this historic event, waiting in silence for the Council to make the announcement.

"Wait a minute. You really weren't kidding? Shepard is going to become the…" Haxon began in shock before I suddenly interrupted him with a sly smile.

"The First Human Spectre." With that I mashed my finger down onto the fire button, causing a sharp whistle to cut through the air as the Replicator Dart was fired out from the barrel!

As it shot down across the width of the Council Pit, the Dart sprang open and extended its legs out to their farthest lengths, stabbing the sharp points on their ends into the material of Shepard's N7 shoulder-plate as it slammed and latched onto him without a sound. The Dart remained motionless for a second before quickly crawling several inches down the length of the Commander's arm and activating its internal cloaking device, vanishing from sight a moment afterward.

---

Ashley blinked, stunned by what she had just seen. Narrowing her eyes, she scanned the side of Shepard's left arm intently, searching for any sign of the strange spider-like thing that had just landed on the Commander and then disappeared.

"LT, did you see that?" Ash whispered over to Kaidan standing beside her as she pointed to Shepard. Frowning, the lieutenant leaned over closer to her head, trying to match his line-of-sight with Ashley's.

"See what?" Kaidan asked after failing to find whatever it was she was talking about.

"For a second there was this small black thing attached to his arm, and then it just…disappeared," Williams answered with another gesture to the Commander, frowning in confusion as she kept looking him over. Kaidan cocked an incredulous eyebrow with a glance over at Ashley this time.

"Chief, are you sure you're not feeling a bit, dizzy, after your injury?" Alenko asked with a nod down to her exposed left shoulder, spinning his finger in a circle near his temple to indicate what he meant. Ash only scoffed and rolled her eyes at that.

"Shut up," she bit out in annoyance while turning her attention back to Shepard's induction into the Spectres, a bitter look now scowled on her face. Kaidan only gave a thin smile as he leaned closer to her.

"What was that? Chief," he whispered to her in a humoured tone, taking an extra emphasis on her rank. Ash gave her own smile as she glanced back at him, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.

"Shut up, sir," she uttered back in a semi-sarcastic, semi-playful tone, her mood already brightening up a bit after the fury she had felt at being injured in the first place. Seeing that his attempt at lightening her sour state had succeeded, Kaidan's smile only widened as he gave her a small nod.
"Much better."

---

"Haxon my friend, I'm pleased to say our mission here is a success," I stated gladly as I lay back against the roof and gave out a deep sigh of relief.

"Indeed. The Dart's tracking device is fully operational and feeding Shepard's current position directly into my homing systems. But with this operation nearly completed, what happens now?" the A.I. asked intently, still viewing the spectacle with fascination. Giving a knowing smile, I gently laced my fingers together across my stomach, crossed my boots at their ankles, and nodded down to the Council Pit.

"Now we simply sit back, relax for a bit, and watch the show." Within my head I could almost hear the epic notes of the Spectre Induction Soundtrack playing in the background, adding that same mesmerizing feel to the whole scene playing out before me that it had during this part in the game.

"It is the decision of the Council that you be granted all the powers and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch of the Citadel," the Asari Counselor began saying. The Salarian Counselor folded his arms and straightened up, looking almost regal in his flowing black and red robes.

"Spectres are not trained…but chosen. Individuals forged in the fires of service and battle, those whose actions elevate them above the rank and file," he said, nodding his hooded head down to Shepard as he spoke.

"Spectres are an ideal, a symbol. The embodiment of courage, determination, and self-reliance. They are the right hand of the Council, instruments of our will," the Asari continued, raising her head proudly. The Turian Counselor placed his hands behind his back, setting his jaw and standing tall in classic military rigidness.
"Spectres bear a great burden. They are the protectors of galactic peace, both our first and last line of defense. The safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold."

With a genuine smile and a sweeping hand gesture down to the Speaker's platform, the Asari finished the momentous proclamation.
"You are the first Human Spectre, Commander. This is a great achievement for you and your entire species."

Closing his eyes for a moment, Shepard bowed his head in deep respect.
"I'm honoured Counselors."

"We're sending you into the Traverse after Saren. He's a fugitive from justice, so you are authorized to use any means necessary to apprehend or eliminate him," the Salarian stated.
"Do we have any leads that might help me find him?" Shepard asked with a cocked eyebrow.
"We will forward any relevant files to Ambassador Udina," the Turian said with a nod over to the Ambassador.
"This meeting of the Council is adjourned," the Asari stated with finality before she and her fellow Counselors turned and departed.
"There you have it. The first Human Spectre knighted right before our eyes," I stated with a firm clap of my hands as I sat up straight.

"I thought it would be at least another decade before the Council would even consider accepting a Human," Haxon remarked as Udina and Anderson began speaking to Shepard about the various things he would need before beginning his chase.

"Well with this over, and Shepard now inadvertently giving us everything we need, I think its time we got out of here and headed back to the ship."

Quickly standing up and moving back across the roof to the area I had landed on when I first got up here, I extended my left arm and activated my grappling hook.

"Are you sure you want to try this again?" Haxon asked as the Serrated Dart-Head from Hell snapped out from my gauntlet.

"I think I'm just going to swing across this time. When I come overtop of the soil beds, disengage the dart-hook and allow me to fall," I instructed as I aimed up toward the top roof of another walkway on the other side of the sitting area surrounded by trees and bushes, pressing the fire button and shooting the dart across the distance into the wall far up ahead of me. With a tight breath, I leapt from the roof, swinging through the air on the grappling-hook's cable like Tarzan. As I glided across the third vine covered level of the soil beds, Haxon caused the serrated edges of the dart head to fold back up into their main body, which in turn allowed me to retract the cable in a flash and fall down onto the second soil bed, softly landed sprayed out on my back within a thick cluster of bushes and exotic flowers.

"See, that wasn't so bad, and still nobody…" I began as I sat up on the crushed plants and started brushing myself off. Suddenly however, a faint whine briefly came out of my left gauntlet, accompanied by an erratic flash of pixeled light racing across the surface of my body.

"…Saw me?" I finished with a frown. As I patted myself down in confusion, a thought came to mind that caused me to stiffen in apprehension.

"Haxon, please tell me…"

"The cloaking device is malfunctioning, everyone can see you now! It appears to have suffered damage that must have been accumulating since the Citadel's Defense Turret shot us down!" Rolling backwards into a crouch farther within the bushes, I kept my head down low as I peered through the thick crisscrossing foliage, eyeing several people chitchatting in the sitting area just one soil-bed down from me.

"Can you fix it? Remember we're still Number One on C-Sec's hit list," I whispered quietly before ducking my head even lower under the branches surrounding me, having just sighted a squad of fully armoured Human Chamber guards move into the area.

"The more I look into it the more damage I'm finding, this'll take a bit longer than some of my other patch jobs. I'm sorry Axel, this could take me a good ten minutes to fix properly," the A.I. apologized as he reviewed the beat up device. Giving an understanding nod, I squinted my eyes a bit as I summed up each guard that was ushering any politicians or civilians out of the sitting area, while others were poking the barrels of their assault rifles into the shrubbery of the first soil-bed in search of something.

"No worries, I just need to find something to cover my head with," I said before a small smirk crept across my face, my gaze zeroing in on one guard in particular that had just sat himself down on a bench close to my position.

"And I think I just found it." Employing as much stealth into my movements as my Army training had given me, I slowly advanced through the greenery down to the first level.

---

"There's no sign of what caused the scream over here. Lets move the search up one level," one of the helmeted and armoured guards said to the others after they had completed their sweep of the sitting area.

"You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up in a minute," one of the guards said with a wave of his hand as he tiredly sat down on one of the area's benches, resting his back against the first level of soil-beds that ran behind him. As he did so, he laid his rifle down beside himself and pulled his helmet off his head. Laying that down too, he reached to his belt and pulled out a small container filled with cigarettes.

"Come on Frank, not now. We just got our first Spectre finally, don't you think we should put a little extra effort into today's shift to show the Council we actually deserved that," one of the men asked over to the younger guard with a gesture up to the Council Pit. Frank merely stuck the cigarette in his mouth and casually pulled out a lighter from his pocket.

"Everybody's got their vices Bill, and I haven't indulged mine all day. Don't worry, I'll be with you guys in a bit," Frank said over to the other guy as he ignited the lighter and placed it at the tip of his cigarette, holding it there for a moment before a wisp of smoke began to roll up. All the other guards just sighed in annoyed defeat, some shaking their heads with distain as they turned and began making their way out of the area.

"Just make sure nobody sees you," Bill commented over his shoulder on his way out. Frank merely chuckled as he sucked in a breath and exhaled a cloud of smoke, basking in the relaxing feeling of the nicotine that was beginning to run through his system.

However, that feeling was abruptly shattered as a large metal scale covered arm flashed into existence and wrapped tightly around his neck!

Frank's eyes bulged as the arm squeezed tighter, cutting off his flow of air and preventing him from crying out. Dropping his cigarette, the guard grabbed on to the attacking arm with one hand, desperately trying to pull it away from himself while he extended his free hand out to Bill and the others as they continued walking away from him. Even as he tried forcing a scream or a gasp to gain his fellow guards' attention, Frank's attacker roughly clamped their second hand over his mouth and nose, snuffing out the small choking noises coming from his throat. After a moment of struggling, Frank's eyes widened in paralyzing fear as Bill and the other guards obliviously walked away until they had disappeared from view, leaving him completely alone and without help in the deserted sitting area. Then quite suddenly the guard's mysterious attacker began pulling him up from the bench into the bushes of the soil-bed!

Despite his rapid thrashing and kicking, Frank could only manage a weak scream against the gloved palm of his assailant as he was dragged out of sight deeper into the multi-coloured foliage.

---

"Have you done this before?" Haxon asked in alarm as I roughly threw back my weight and pulled the panicking guard into the thickest most concealing part of the shrubbery, grunting slightly as I turned over and forced him onto his front.

"In training, dozens of times…" I began through bared teeth, fighting against the man's struggles as they started becoming more erratic, dodging my head from side to side to avoid his flailing arms as he tried reaching back to grab me.
"In real life, only once or twice," I finished, pressing my left knee into his back and pulling myself up slightly, making the guard painfully arch his torso and fuel every last bit of strength he had left into pulling my arm away from his neck.

"But you do know how to do it without killing him?" Haxon asked quickly as the guard began to slowly weaken in his fighting, his throat letting out a raspy wheezing sound.

"The trick is in restricting the carotid artery for the right amount of time, that way they'll fall asleep about a minute before they die, giving the attacker enough opportunity to let go of them before its too late," I ground out as I put all of my own strength into the final constriction, tightening the grip my left hand had on my right arm so that I was correctly squeezing the before mentioned artery. For another second the guard continued weakening until his hands finally fell away from my arm, the wheezing sound coming from behind the other hand I had clamped over his mouth and nose becoming a constant background noise.

"Relax. I'm a doctor," I whispered into his ear through my own labored breath, followed soon after by the guard's entire body going limp.

For a moment I held him tightly to make sure he was knocked out before releasing my grip on his neck and pressing two fingers against the artery I had restricted.
"Sleep tight pal, and thanks for the helmet," I said with a small smile as I felt the thumping of the guard's pulse against my fingers, showing that he was still alive and well.

"So: soldier, fugitive, pirate, Iron Man, intergalactic traveller, and now…doctor? What exactly haven't you achieved in your life?" Haxon listed off humourously as I quickly pushed through the leaves of the bushes and climbed out of the soil-bed into the open space of the sitting area.

"Well I'm not actually a doctor, that was just a line I picked up from a Sherlock Holmes movie," I said with a chuckle as I looked around the area, seeing no witnesses within incriminating range. Turning back to the bed, I picked up the guard's assault rifle and tossed it into the shrubs, followed by the remains of his cigarette after I picked up the smoking death stick and crushed it against the bench.
"Smoking kills anyway, Frank. It's a disgusting habit," I said loosely over to the bushes the sleeping guard was lying in, stooping down and picking up Frank's helmet before quickly sliding it over my head.

"It's a bit tight but it should do," I said with a wince as I shoved the smaller fitting helmet down over my face, looking out ahead of myself through its clear slit visor.

With my identity now safe for the moment, I began briskly walking out of the sitting area into the main stretch of the Chambers. Straight up ahead, Darren's taxi was still patiently awaiting my arrival, with the enthusiastic hippy beckoning to me through the windshield at the moment. However I chose to stop for a second as I saw the other hover taxi that had originally brought Shepard and his crew begin to rise up overtop of the pink tree they had parked beside, the Commander's side-profile visible in the front seat through the window. Tracking it with my eyes, I watched the taxi screech off through the air down the length of the Chambers, disappearing from sight as it banked left and exited through one of the many Air Traffic entranceways built into the ceiling.
"See you guys soon," I said to myself with a chuckle as I thought back to the Replicator Dart that was tracking Shepard at this very moment.

"Maybe not as soon as you think," Haxon said forebodingly, causing me to frown and look around for what he meant. Right away I froze as I saw it, my muscles tightening in apprehension. Across from me on the other side of the Chambers, questioning random citizens and politicians with a detachment of C-Sec agents flanking them, were two people I hadn't been expecting to see again.

"Well, I guess Alec's 95% odds actually paid off," I said with an impressed cock of my eyebrow.

It was Bailey and Chellick!

Both the Turian and the Human looked just as ragged as they had the last time I had seen them, except now they had a nice addition of dark soot marks covering their T-shirted uniform and armour, most likely left behind by Alec's surprise explosive.
"I'm detecting roughly twenty additional C-Sec agents fanning throughout the Chambers, they'd get to us before Darren would have a chance to take off. What're we going to do?" Haxon asked as he pointed out the multi-racial squads of agents that had also begun to question people in the area.

"We're going to cause a distraction. And I have just the thing in mind," I said slyly as I saw one of the elements for my new plan leaning against a nearby pillar.

Walking casually with my hands placed behind my back, I began quietly humming a slow-paced tune as I came up behind a pair of Chamber guards leaning against that said pillar, both of them fully immersed in conversation. With the deftest of hands, I easily brushed past one of them and slipped his compacted Kessler pistol from his belt, spinning around and moving away before either could become suspicious of my presence.

"What are you going to do with that?" Haxon asked quietly as I activated the pistol and kept it hidden behind my lower back. Without answering, I passed close behind a nearby Human civilian of similar height and build to me.

Then without warning, I pulled the trigger several times, firing out multiple rounds from my back into the floor next to the two of us!

As screams from startled civilians and politicians materialized in response to the sudden loud noise, I quickly spun around and shoved the smoking gun into the back of the man's belt before anyone could see me, jumping away from him immediately with my hands held high in a dramatic show of frightened surrender.

"OH MINE GOD!" I shouted in the best and most guttural German accent I could manage to disguise my voice, jabbing a shaky finger at the startled man as he ripped the stolen Kessler out of his belt and stared at it in wide-eyed horror.

"HE HAS UN GUN! HE IS UN KRAZY MAN! SOMEONE STOOP HIM!" I made my voice boom out across the Chambers, catching the attention of every civilian and agent now looking this way.

"Hey! That's my gun!" barked the Chamber guard I'd slipped the gun from as he fervently began searching for his sidearm on his empty belt. As he said this, he and his partner along with a dozen other Chamber guards all began charging toward the panic stricken man holding the weapon.
"What? No! Wait! Its not me!" the innocent man began saying frantically to the sprinting authorities, dropping the Kessler and spinning around in a circle with his hands stretched out before him.

But even as he begged, he soon gave out a yell of fear as the guards ganged up and pounced on him from all sides, submerging his body with their own in a harsh Football style Dog Pile!

Just before that happened, I had sprinted out to the center of the Chambers near the pink tree that a confused but grinning Darren was still parked beside, frenziedly jabbing my arms back to the incident going on behind me.

"It is he! It is ze terrorist Axel! He vill kill us all! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" I shouted to everyone, viciously shaking my head and raising my hands over myself like a fear-induced maniac.

I grinned widely behind my stolen helmet's facemask as a collection of screams and shouts rose up and shook the very walls of the Chambers, the entire population of civilians within the area turning and dashing in random directions!

"Suuuuckerrrs," I chimed to myself in my normal voice as I watched Bailey and Chellick struggle against the dozens of people scrambling past them, while most of the C-Sec agents they had brought began suffering through the same trouble as well.

"Come on dude! Let's get outta here!" Darren's voice suddenly called to me over the chaos, coming from the urgently waving driver as he opened up the taxi.
"That's the best suggestion I've heard lately!" I commented before breaking into a sprint over toward him.

"Stop that man!" Bailey's voice ordered to anyone nearby as he recognized my armour from across the room. Luckily there was only one Turian guard standing between the taxi and me.

Ripping Frank's helmet from my head, I drew back my arm and pitched it like a baseball at the oncoming Turian, catching the man in the face and dropping him to the floor with a cry.
"Axel, STOP!" Chellick roared out from off to the side as he broke through the hysterical individuals running back and forth in front of him, bringing his drawn pistol to bear on my fleeing form.

"GO! I shouted to Darren, diving headfirst into the backseat of the taxi at the last second before Chellick began firing rounds after me, several of which tore into the upholster of the car's interior. With a smack of the button that re-sealed the taxi's doors and roof, Darren's fingers flew across the controls, blasting the hover car up into the air and lurching us forward into a screaming acceleration down the Chambers. Both the hippy and I flinched as sparks began shooting up along the taxi's exterior hull, Chellick and several other Turian agents unleashing a sporadic barrage of weapons' fire on us before the taxi flew out of range and disappeared through one of the Chamber's Air-Traffic exits.

---

"Cease fire! Cease fire, they're gone!" Chellick barked to the other Turians over the gunfire and screaming surrounding them.

"We need someone after that taxi before he gets too far out!" Bailey shouted to the Turian lieutenant as he shoved his way through civilians. Chellick nodded and activated his omni-tool.

"Way ahead of you! Echos 12, 15, and 20, you have a go, repeat you have a go! Force Axel's escape craft into an emergency landing now!" he shouted into the microphone of his device, one that was connecting him to three Mantis gunships waiting on standby outside the Tower!

---

"Dude! That was one of the most insane getaways I've ever seen!" Darren called back to me with a laugh and a wild grin as he pushed the taxi to its maximum limits, blasting us down the radial Embassy Walkway on a frantic course back to the Military Docks.

"If you think that was insane, you should see what some of my friends can do," I answered as I struggled to pull myself up from the floor. However I was roughly thrown back down as a storm of concussive thermal rounds began impacting into the side of the car, a combined barrage briefly slamming against us from the cannons of three Mantises that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere in hot pursuit!

"Unidentified taxi, you are aiding and transporting a dangerous fugitive…" an angered voice began barking through the dashboard's radio, but was suddenly silenced by a slap of Darren's hand on the cutoff switch.

"You know they can just shoot us down if they want to right?" I asked after finally managing to pull myself up in between the two front seats. A devilish smile formed on the hippy's face as I said that, followed by him quickly pulling and buckling the strap for his seatbelt across his chest.

"You might want to hold on to somethin' pal," was all he said before sharply pressing a combination of buttons and sending the taxi into a steep nosedive. I heard myself yell as I fell back, the car diving down into the main levels of the Walkway before pulling up just in time and briefly skimming across the surface of the Presidium Lakes!

"Haven't we already been down this route before?!" Haxon asked sarcastically as the roar of the Mantises stayed close behind us, each gunship following our path in single-file formation like a trio of ducklings following their mother.

"Except last time we were getting shot at while going the other way!" I agreed with a jab of my thumb back to the rapidly shrinking Citadel Tower, remembering our flight from Agent F'Loson in the Iron Man suit across this very same terrain. Up in front of us Darren was laughing again as he sharply banked the taxi into a hard right, throwing me around the car again as he flew us at dangerous speeds back into the main Embassies within the Presidium Ring.

"Look on the better side of things boys, C-Sec gunships are prohibited from firing below the Presidium's hull level. And since we're actually inside the interior of the Embassy District, they can't do shit to us now!" Darren explained, pulling up the taxi a bit as we flashed overtop of several bridges, causing many people to scream and dive to the ground as we and our procession of gunships passed by.

"Yeah, now we're just in danger of accidentally running someone over," I commented dryly while still trying to pick myself up, since I hadn't managed to put my seatbelt on yet.

Suddenly a loud crack shot out from the cannon of the Mantis following right behind us, the car jerking forward for a moment as something slammed into its rear thrusters. Immediately the lights on the taxi's dashboard began to flicker, and a decreasing humming sound came out from Darren's controls while the car itself began to subtly slow down in speed.

"Unless of course they fire attachable EMP devices onto my car," the hippy stated hesitantly as he turned to me with an awkward expression. We jerked forward again, this time more harshly as the Mantis rammed its front end into the car's malfunctioning propulsion, nudging us further back down toward the Lakes that flashed by underneath us.

"How much farther do you think this thing can take us before it loses all power?" I asked quickly as I brought my head back up in between the front seats.

"Probably no more than a few kilometers man, sorry it had to end like this," Darren apologized with a sad shrug. I merely gave a mischievous smile as I clapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, I've got a plan. Bring us out of the Embassies back into open space," I said as I pointed up through the windshield toward the Fast Transit Lanes zooming overtop of us. Darren frowned in confusion.
"But dude, that'll make us an open target again."
"Just trust me, I know what I'm doing," I said reassuringly. Darren could only shrug again as he went to work on the failing flight-controls.
"You're the boss, boss." With a draining screech of protest, the slowing hover taxi shot up skyward with every last ounce of power it could muster, cutting diagonally through the Fast Transit Lanes with the three Mantises following close behind.

"I'm givin' her everything she's got! If you wanna use that plan of yours you better do it now man," the driver said as many of the lights in front of us shut off, and the power coming out from the thrusters snuffed out with a hiss. Quickly I extended my right hand and pressed my gloved palm against the surface of the dashboard.

"Prepare to have your mind blown," I said calmly before closing my eyes and willing the power of the ring to channel a surge of energy into the dying vehicle, almost exactly in the same way that I had done to Irwin's car seconds before we were about to be arrested. In an instant, the ring lit up bright silver and shot out a familiar web of silver electrical arcs that sunk into the dashboard and disappeared.

Suddenly both Darren and I shouted in surprise as we were thrown back in our seats, all the lights on the dashboard coming back to full power, the thrusters on the taxi roaring alive and blasting us through the air three times faster than the vehicle was capable of!

"This…is…totally…WICKED!" Darren managed to shout back to me over the roaring hum coming from his car's engine, the massive G-Forces pressing against us making his cheeks ripple wildly and his eyes squint, slurring his words to the point of barely being able to understand them.

---

"We had them disabled, but now they've powered back up and are accelerating out of range!" the pilot of the lead Mantis finished reporting back to Chellick and Bailey through the Turian's omni-tool. At the moment the two officers were speeding out from the Tower in one of the C-Sec patrol cars they had taken to get there, joined by four others carrying the agents they had brought with them.
"Can you catch them?" Bailey asked within range of the microphone as he leaned closer to the front passenger seat Chellick was sitting in.

"I don't think you understand what I'm telling you lieutenant, they're flying at near Super-Sonic speed!" Chellick scowled as he brought his face closer to the omni-tool.
"A superior officer just asked you a question pilot. At near Super Sonic speeds, can you keep up with them?!" There was a pause before the pilot answered in a calmer voice.

"Hover taxi's aren't built to handle that kind of stress on their engines, soon it'll burn out and crash. We can keep up from a distance but we won't be able to stop it; when it happens we can land and render any medical assistance that may be required, depending on how bad the damage is." Bailey jerked his head forward with a look of apprehension on his face.
"That isn't good enough! We can't risk having Axel die on us or this whole thing will have been for nothing!"

"That's the best we can do Bailey! We're not exactly in control of the situation anymore!" With that the pilot severed the link between himself and Chellick.

"Get us to the Military Docks as fast as possible! I don't care how many speeding regulations you need to break!" the Turian ordered over to the driver of the car, both he and Bailey strapping themselves in and preparing for the worst.

---

A loud explosion rocked the taxi, followed by another burst of flame and debris shooting out from the back end of the vehicle.

"Annnnnd now that's the second thruster gone! This ship of yours better show up soon!" Darren shouted over the groaning protest of his car, struggling at the controls to keep the flaming/rocking craft airborne as we began shooting across the lowest stretch of the Docks.

"There it is! Far dead-ahead!" I said with a jab of my finger to the windshield, having just been able to spot the miniature form of the Corsica sitting in stark contrast to the enormous hulls of the Alliance or Council war-ships docked nearby.
"Groovy man! Now we just need to slow this baby down," Darren said with a grin as he began pressing his foot against the brake mechanism. However after a moment, a worried frown formed on his face once he noticed nothing was happening.

"Well? Hit the brakes," I said as we continued flying closer to the Corvette without slowing down.

"I am, its not working," Darren said as he jabbed his foot down again, still getting no response. The car rocked from another explosion as our super charged speed blew out the car's third thruster.

"We've only got one left! Hit the brakes harder!" I shouted over the screech of the taxi as it began to shake more violently then it had before. Darren slammed his foot down all the way and kept it there, but the car didn't even slow down a fraction.

"I'm holdin' the damn thing down, nothings working!" he shouted, both of us feeling a profound anxiety begin to creep up as the flaming car flew within a kilometer of the ship. Suddenly another explosion jerked us forward as the fourth and final thruster blew out.

Now we were definitely slowing down, and dropping from the air at the same time!

Both of us began shouting at the other about brakes or hitting the bakes, our voices quickly descending into gibberish until finally we simply resorted to screaming in fright, our eyes wide and our limbs bracing against anything as the taxi slammed down onto the platform stretch!

Smashing nose first and completing a front flip through the air, the demolished taxi crashed and skid several feet, careering in a series of circles before coming to a painful screeching stop.

"That actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," Haxon remarked after we had completely settled.

"That's easy for a disembodied A.I. to say," I fired back sarcastically while hissing in pain; rubbing the newly forming goose egg that the crash had delivered to the back of my head. Wincing against my re-enflamed bruising and eyebrow cut, I pulled myself up from the floor into a sitting position, taking notice of all the shattered windows and the roaring fires still coming from the back of the vehicle. Looking ahead, I raised a leg and sent a useless kick into the taxi's left side door in an attempt to wrench it open. Almost exactly like last time after our crash in Irwin's car, I made two more attempts at kicking the door open, both of them ending in similar failure.

But then I remembered how we had actually gotten out of that car, with the help of a Force push from Yoda that had blasted the door completely off of the vehicle. Closing my eyes, I drew back both my hands and clenched my fingers as I willed a great force of invisible energy to swirl within my palms. The ring glowed silver for a second before I snapped my arms forward, releasing the built up energy in a concentrated burst that slammed into the door and blew it away from the chassis with a loud tearing of metal.

"Thanks Yoda," I said with an astonished smile, looking down at my hands in amazement at what I'd just done. Suddenly, a pained groaning from the driver's seat caught my immediate attention.

"Darren!" I said as I yanked myself out of the car, moving to the front and dropping to one knee next to the newly exposed driver section, quickly reaching in and ripping the hippy's mangled seatbelt off his chest. A stream of blood was trickling down the side of his head from within the folds of his shaggy blonde hair, his purple-lensed glasses having gotten thrown from his face during the crash. Several small bleeding cuts and abrasions travelled up the side of his left arm and pectoral region, mostly thanks to the many tiny glass shards that had stuck into him after his window had smashed apart.

Darren groaned again, his eyes remaining closed and chest barely moving.

"Darren? Darren! Come on man wake up! Don't you die on me now!" I ordered sternly, slapping the flat of my fingers against his cheek while shaking him by his un-injured shoulder. Immediately his eyes snapped open and he latched a hand onto my shoulder.

"That…was fucking awesome!" he announced to me with a wide grin, showing several bloodstained teeth before he began chuckling happily. I gave a wide grin of my own after seeing he was okay, despite his bloody appearance.

"I'm glad you think so, your car's kind of trashed to shit now," I said as I swept a hand to the wreckage we were sitting in. But Darren only waved it off.

"Ah forget the car man, the insurance will cover it just fine. Just being able to trash it like this was what made it all worth while," he said as we both looked at the roaring flames engulfing the back area of the vehicle. As I was about to say something else, I heard the humming screech of Mantis repulsors begin to echo closer and closer toward us. Standing up, I wasn't surprised to quickly see the three gunships that had been chasing us earlier B-Lining it directly to the crash-site.

"Come on we gotta go!" I said as I began trying to pull him out of his seat, but he only grimaced in pain from some unseen injury.
"Nah man I'll just slow ya down. You go on without me, I'll try to hold em' off when they come to make the arrest." My eyes widened and my face scrunched in horrified confusion.
"What? Darren you can't," I said in protest. The hippy only gave a wince as he leaned back in his seat, grabbing my arm and pulling me back down onto one knee next to him.

"My part in this journey's over dude, its up to you now. For whatever reason the Great Spirit brought you here, be it to topple a corrupt government, free the oppressed, or save this galaxy from an Armageddon, you go and you fulfill that plan. I believe in you! Besides, this won't be the first time C-Sec's slapped me in handcuffs," my fellow Canadian said with a smile that seemed to contain wisdom beyond his years, grabbing and firmly squeezing my shoulder with his other hand. I was dumbstruck as a smile of my own crept on my face.

"Dude, that's deep," I said after a moment. Darren nodded enthusiastically.
"Dude," he agreed in his laid-back voice.
"DUDE!" we both drew out in unison just like before when we had first met, laughing heartily as we embraced each other in a fond hug.
"Thanks for all your help Darren. Keep what's left of the fifty thousand as a gift from me," I said with a nod as we broke from each other and I stood up.
"I will brother, thank you," he said with another smile as we both grabbed and shook the other's hand in farewell, taking an extra second to flip them upward so that we were holding on to each other's palms in the Bro-Grip style for a moment before letting go.

"I'm gonna miss you, take care of yourself," I said with another smile and a snap salute before turning and dashing away from the taxi wreckage, the harsh beams of Mantis searchlights travelling quickly over toward us from the approaching gunships.

"Not as much as I'll miss you! We love you man!" Darren's voice called after me as he waved goodbye.

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