Mass Effect 10: Part 1

by Diablo Ex Machina

After a cosmic bomb goes off and splits off copies of Ben into alternate realities, an older version of Ben lands on Eden Prime during Saren's attack. Using his shapeshifting abilities and advice from Paradox, Ben fashions himself as an extra-galactic ambassador. Joining Jane Shepard's crew, Ben finds himself on an(other) epic quest to determine the fate of the galaxy. Ben/Harem

11. Chapter 11

Hello again! Sorry this chapter is late again, but I had to move out of college and back into my mom's apartment, and now I've gone through the long and grueling process to get a job working the graveyard shift at my local grocery store, so I've been kinda busy with real life for the past few months. Also, as I said in the last chapter, I make no more promises as to when new chapters will come out, so please don't expect too much from me. Also, I know I said I'd do lemons eventually, but the harder I try to do it, the more I realize that sort of thing isn't really in my strike zone. So sorry if you were looking forward to some hot-n-steamy human-on-alien sexy time, but it doesn't look like it's in the cards. Uncomfortable sex talks seem to be the limit of my abilities, as you will see in this chapter. Anyway, enough moping, it's time to get on with the show!

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 11

Little Colony of Horrors: The Non-Musical!

Normandy Comm Room

"Alright people, talk to me." Shepard began the informal pre-mission conference she'd arranged with the ground team. "How have you all been managing ever since...you know what." She asked, dancing around the subject of Professor Paradox. Not an unwarranted avoidance tactic, seeing as how Dr. Chakwas had insisted on a week of R&R for each of them to mentally decompress after being one of the only two people outside of the ground team to be told the full details of their encounter that ended with them being warped directly into the Normandy cargo bay, rather than just a slightly deceptive abridged version everyone else got - the other being Joker, who wouldn't stop probing (read: annoying the crap out of) them until he got the full story.

"Chief Engineer Adams and I have been dismantling and salvaging every bit of usable equipment we could get from all the wrecks we've recovered." Tali answered as she stretched her arms above her head with a satisfied yawn. "Those Prothean artifacts in particular were the best. I'm learning more about advanced mechanics and engineering than I ever thought possible!" She hopped excitedly in her seat. "I've documented so much new information from all of this, I could end my Pilgrimage right now and I'd still get accepted without question to almost any ship of my choosing in the Fleet! Not that I would think of going back before we take down Saren that is." She added quickly. "I need my position among my people to be as strong as possible when I go back to the Fleet, so I can make us get ready for the Reapers."

"I've also gained great insight from my studies of the Prothean Data Drives we've been collecting." Liara spoke next. "Each Drive, as well as the Sphere, contains a great amount of information by themselves, but much of it is difficult to interpret at the best of times. The more Drives I catalog though, the clearer the overall picture becomes." She paused for a moment to think of an analogy. "Think of it like an ancient, heavily degraded digital image. Only a very small part of it is visible at first, and even that has a very low resolution. But the more Drives I can study, the larger and more detailed the visible portion gets, exponentially increasing my available findings with every new Drive. It's still in the early stages, but I'm learning more by the day. My meldings with Shepard in particular..." She blushed vividly as she recalled the experience. "Well...her personal experience with the Prothean Beacon is still largely unclear to me, but my understanding of this ancient information is growing steadily. If only I had some point of reference, a cipher or the like."

"When I need to take the edge off, I calibrate weapons." Garrus explained casually. "Given that recent experiences have caused existential crisis level stress, it should come as no surprise that I've optimized every weapon on this ship, some of them beyond what the manufacturers say is possible. Seeing as we'll be needing every advantage we can get on both a macro and micro scale, I've been selling the schematics of the improved models back to their companies for a tidy profit. This gets us credits, and gets better guns in the hands of every armed force in the galaxy." He shrugged with a frustrated sigh. "Some of those armed forces aren't very friendly right now, but when the Reapers come, everyone's gonna be fighting for survival above all else."

"I'm afraid I don't have too much to report, Commander." Ashley shook her head, feeling slightly inferior stacked up against the accomplishments of her squadmates. "I've gotten word to my family, a few of the soldiers I've worked with, and the officers I've served under in the past that this Saren business is probably gonna balloon out to affect a whole lot of people, but other than running a tighter ship and stamping out any trace of goldbricking, there's not much any of them can do. Still, Samesh Bhatia said that his restaurant is up and running now, and he's making sure to warn any customer that'll listen that Saren's attack on Eden Prime is likely just the start of something much bigger."

"I've been talking to some of the L2s we ran into about a month back." Kaidan explained fondly. "Most of them are getting their sentences commuted in exchange for working sentences or enlisting, and some of the other L2s that didn't take part in the attack are paying their recent windfall forward to various charities, or investing in research into Biotics and implants. It isn't much, but every little bit helps, right?"

"Dr. Hacksaw has been conducting a lot more tests on my DNA lately." Ben rubbed his shoulder tiredly, nobody commenting due to having gotten used to his new, anagram based nickname for Dr. Chakwas over the past week. "I'd say no, but half of me is afraid she'll rat me out as a fraud if I don't, and the other half knows that, realistically speaking, her studying my DNA is the best way both of us can provide support on a larger scale."

"I got drunk." Wrex said bluntly, as if that alone were a huge contribution...Though considering the things that Krogan were known to do when they had nothing to drink or shoot at, it probably was.

"And I got in touch with a few of the other people who owe us a favor or two." Shepard added her own two cents to the pile. "Setting aside all the politicians, scientists, and miscellaneous others already speaking on our behalf on the Citadel, there are two new people of note to add to the list. Helena Blake, the crime boss whose former colleagues we eliminated, was easy to charm into leveraging her new authority into becoming an underboss for one Aria T'Loak of Omega." The name of the most powerful crime boss in the galaxy made everyone tense up slightly. "I don't much care for criminals in general, but based on Wrex's advice, I figured that even the worst scum in the galaxy might be willing to put aside old grudges and organize under one banner in order to survive against the Reapers. Aria T'Loak is that banner, at least for criminals anyway." Wrex nodded approvingly at the harsh but necessary decision, while everyone else looked cautiously optimistic at best.

"The other new card in our favor is one Nassana Dantius." Shepard continued immediately. "She's an Asari diplomatic emissary assigned to the Citadel, but her private life is anything but clean. She's got a laundry list of family issues, not the least of which is the fact that her late sister was the leader of that slaver group we wiped out a while back." Ashley and Kaidan shook their heads disapprovingly, already having a decent idea where this was going. "I've never taken kindly to being manipulated, or to shady politicians, or to people who take advantage of anonymity to be assholes. Needless to say, I feel no guilt in blackmailing the hell out of someone who fits into all three categories. And don't worry about her turning against us and trying to kill me, I've got people keeping an eye on her." She smirked confidently.

With everyone having said their recent contributions to the greater good that is defeating the Reapers, a palpable silence fell over the room for several long and tense seconds. Not surprisingly, the first one to break the silence - in the most annoying way possible of course - was Garrus.

"When Dr. Chakwas gave us all orders to take a week off, I don't think this is what she had in mind." The sarcastic Turian remarked. "...Except for Wrex. That part went pretty much as expected." It was a credit to the old Krogan's resolve that he didn't even bat an eyelid at the unfunny joke.

"We're all just feeling the weight of what Paradox told us." Ben explained insightfully. "We already knew the Reapers were a huge threat to the whole galaxy, but the things he said..." He hesitated, not needed to vocalize aloud what everyone was already thinking. "I guess it just makes us feel better to be doing something productive in the face of possible galactic extinction, that's all."

"I'll drink to that." Ashley nodded her agreement dryly.

"Here-Here!" Kaidan seconded the motion.

"Okay, that's enough of that." Shepard clapped twice to clear the air. "Our mission today is gonna be a big one. Saren's Geth have been scouring the entire planet of Feros looking for something for a few weeks now, and our mission, in no particular order of importance, is to find out what they're looking for, take it if we can, destroy it if we can't, rescue civilians, and kill Geth. Everybody clear?" A unanimous round of nodding heads was the answer. "Good, now let's shake off the dust and start earning our pay."

...

Attican Beta Cluster, Theseus System, Feros, Zhu's Hope

Almost immediately after leaving the ship and walking across the dock, the ground team ran into a dark skinned man in a red shirt. "Saw your ship." The man greeted the approaching team tensely, almost mechanically, without any introduction or fanfare. "Fai Dan wants to speak with you immediately."

"Who's Fai Dan, and why should I care what he wants?" Shepard retorted, already getting a bad feeling.

"He's our le-leader." The man stuttered, though it seemed to be a speech impediment, rather than nerves. "He n-need your help to...p-prepare for the GethThey're making another push." He voice continued to falter and jump in odd places, lending credence to the speech impediment idea. "Please! Up the stairspast the Freighter." Not a moment had gone by after the man was done talking before he was suddenly hit by a rocket launcher and blown to bloody chunks.

"Battle stations!" Shepard immediately commanded, everyone quickly ducking into the limited cover available on the walkways before taking potshots at the Geth. There weren't many of them, and with some recent upgraded Tali had made to her tech, their shields were quickly drained, and the Geth themselves were lifted into the air by Liara and Kaidan, where Garrus and Ashley quickly picked them off. Wrex, Ben and Shepard then charged down the middle, Wrex turning a sharp corner to charge plate-first into another pair of Geth, with Shepard unloading a round of shots into each of them for good measure, and Ben impaling the last one on his Armodrillo arm. "...I'd say we're getting good at this, but I don't think this man would agree." The Commander remarked as she looked over the aftermath. "No time to mourn the dead now. By the looks of those Geth, it's clear we've got a whole colony to save." With a single hand gesture, the squad quickly fell in behind her.

Shortly after entering a nearby stairwell, an all to familiar and unwelcome whirring noise came to everybody's ears. "Hoppers!" Ashley warned furiously, the sneaking trio of approaching Geth/Husk hybrids immediately being spotted and riddled with far more bullets than was really necessary. "I hate these bastards!" She hissed before spitting on the nearest one.

"Let's get going." Tali pat the fuming Gunnery Chief on the back reassuringly. "And try to loosen up the tension in your face before we find any people, okay? I'd hate for them to get scared and fire at you in a panic." Blushing slightly at the gentle reprimand, Ashley holstered her weapon as the squad made their way up the stairs.

Thankfully, an impromptu shelter for the colonists was just a level up, and even though barricades and gunners were posted just beyond the door, they quickly recognized Shepard and her crew as the reinforcements they were, allowing them to walk by with nothing more than a few words of appreciation for the help. Making their way through what looked to Shepard's engineering skills - or rather, the engineering skills of one-third of her composite being, as she had been learning how to tell the difference recently - like a downed freighter that had been modified into a shelter, the crew walked through the downed ship at the unsolicited direction of a few colonists. After exiting the hallway, the crew was pulled aside by a somewhat thin and nervous looking man.

"Oh, Commander!" The man sighed lightly in relief. "I'm glad they finally sent somebody to help us."

"You're a bit late, aren't you?" The woman standing next to him hissed accusingly.

"Arcelia!" The man scolded her. "Sorry Commander, everyone's on edge since-" He didn't get to finish his sentence before a whirring/grinding sound cut through the air.

"Watch out!" Arcelia shouted to the entire makeshift camp. "We've got Geth in the tower!" She warned as she took aim at approaching troops.

"Protect the heart of the colony!" The man added, and though Shepard's crew had no idea what that was, they knew that if the Geth wanted it, they wanted to keep it out of their hands.

"I've got this one!" Ben grinned as he mixed Wildvine and Bloxx DNA, quickly firing out seed pods that either grew into vines that restrained the Geth, or exploded violently on impact. As the squad moved to advance and take down the vulnerable Geth, Ben felt a sudden spike of pain surge through his head. "Too loud!" He hissed as he held his head in both hands, his DNA changing back to normal as he managed to direct himself to fall behind some cover. When he eventually came to, the first thing he saw was Liara elevating his head in her lap. "...Not that this isn't nice, but what just happened?" He hummed pleasantly as he snuggled his head closer to Liara's abdomen, eliciting a warm smile from the young Asari.

"We were hoping you could tell us." Jane inquired in slight concern as she approached, glad to see her boyfriend had regained consciousness. "You passed out after firing a few shots, something about it being 'too loud'. Can you remember anything about it?"

"Don't worry about the Geth, by the way." Kaidan spoke from somewhere outside of Ben's still blurry field of vision. "We took care of them while Liara took care of you."

"I'm not sure what happened." Ben grunted as he reluctantly propped himself into an upright sitting position. "All I remember is a sudden headache, like an air raid siren going off in my brain. Do you have any idea what happened, Quasar?"

"Only vaguely, and please do not visibly or audibly react to what I am about to say." The AI answered quickly over the team's private comms. "I detected some manner of aggressive signal assaulting the surrounding area when Ben activated his shapeshifting abilities. Specifically, the signal seemed to only react to Wildvine's DNA, not Bloxx's. As I was only able to detect the signal for as long as the Wildvine DNA sample was active, I was unable to properly identify the source or purpose of this signal. Therefor, I recommend ceasing all use of that particular DNA sample until we can determine the source of the signal, and not mention the signal to anyone outside of our team until we can determine its purpose."

"Guess we'll just have to play it by ear and hope it doesn't happen again." Ashley remarked, immediately playing along with Quasar's suggestion. "In the meantime, we've got work to do."

"Williams is right." Shepard seconded the motion with a nod as she pulled Ben to his feet. "We may have cleared the Geth out of the tower for now, but Fai Dan - the guy we were talking to just before the attack - said they'll be back."

"We also have some other things we need to do to help get this colony back on its feet." Tali added helpfully. "Taking out an Alpha Varren so the colonists can safely hunt the smaller ones for a food supply. Get the water mains back on to supply the people with water. Retrieving power cells to keep the lights on, and taking out a Geth Relay station to hinder any future attacks."

"All tasks that we can accomplish in the tunnels a few levels down." Garrus completed the summary. "It's a little out of our way, seeing as the ExoGeni labs - that's the name of the company funding this colony, in case you missed the exposition - the Geth are attacking are upstairs, but it'll do a lot to help this colony stay safe in the short run until we get rid of the Geth, and back on its feet in the long run."

"Yeah, so we should get going." Wrex remarked a bit more gruffly than normal as he made his way to the doorway. "Now."

"Whatever you say, big guy." Ben shrugged as everyone else in the squad followed suit. After making their way across some walkways, down a hall, and up and down some stairs - stepping over a dead colonist and a few wrecked Geth along the way - Ben finally felt like they had put enough distance between themselves and the colonists to speak freely. "Alright, what the hell am I missing here?" He asked stoically.

"The colonists are acting weird." Was Shepard's immediate response. "Not 'weird' as in 'my-colony-just-got-shot-up-by-killer-robots' weird. More like the 'creepy-forced-happiness-conspiracy-that-we-do-not-talk-about-to-outsiders-under-penalty-of-torture-and-or-death' kind of weird."

"You've been listening to Joker's conspiracy theories again, haven't you Shepard?" Liara asked tiredly.

"I wouldn't be so quick to judge his ideas as crazy, Liara." Garrus retorted in an over the top conspiratorial tone. "We're a multi-species crew on an epic mission to save the galaxy from a race of ancient genocidal machines, and a time-traveler and a clone of a shapeshifting superhero from another dimension are our wingmen. Broaden your imagination a bit."

"Getting back on track..." Jane prompted everyone to follow behind her as she spoke, making their way down a hall and across a bridge. "Every time we asked any of the people about the Colony, they just said that Fai Dan was in charge and we should ask him." She turned right and rushed into a side path, where several Geth were waiting to fire on them. "But when I asked Fai Dan about it, he was even less forthcoming than anyone else." She shouted over the gunfire and biotic flares, even as she scored a headshot on one Geth. "Tali! Get those water valves open and running!" She barked orders in-between explaining her suspicions. "All Fai Dan said was that he and the other colonists loved the place despite all the death and other setbacks, but he said it like he was some zealot advertising a cult."

"Cult Leader advertising, or Lieutenant that drank too much punch advertising?" Ben asked as the last Geth fell and they marched forward to activate more water valves.

"Definitely Lieutenant Cultist." Kaidan clarified as they exited the side path into another open area like the previous one. "I saw some vids about a Biotic cult once - purely out of concern for my fellow L2s - so I know the signs. He's too zoned-out to be anything resembling an active leader, but he's a step more lucid than everyone else." When the squad turned left into another side room, they were quickly ambushed by a pack of varren. Wrex, having the most experience with these creature due to growing up on Tuchanka, charged ahead and slammed two varren into the wall with a combination of brute force and biotics, the rest of the squad quickly adding fire to the pack numbering about ten large.

"What you've only seen in vids, I've seen up close and personal." Wrex boasted as he instinctively picked the Alpha Varren out of the pack and charged at it, starting a grapple-heavy melee brawl with an opening headbutt. "Take it from me; kill the leader, parade their corpse around their minions, and nine out of ten of the pyjaks will wise up, come to their senses, and realize they were being total morons!" He ended his advice by raising the Alpha Varren above his head and dropping it onto his knee, breaking its spine, killing it instantly.

"What about the other one time out of ten?" Ashley questioned as Tali noticed a broken down ship up a nearby ramp and decided to strip it for anything useful.

"They kill themselves." Wrex grunted apathetically. "Usually with either with a bullet to the head, or trying to put a bullet in my head. The former is a waste of a bullet, the latter is a waste of two."

"I found a working power cell in this ship!" Tali rushed down the ramp excitedly with the part in question overhead, getting a congratulatory clap on the shoulder from Shepard, and a congratulatory clap on the ass from Ben. "You're welcome, so what's next?" She asked eagerly as they made their way out of the chamber back the way they came.

"The Alpha Varren is dead, we have a power cell, but we still need to activate all the water mains and take out the Geth transmitter." Shepard reminded them as she led them all down the left path, finding another side path with water mains and Geth, just like the last one. "Do I even need to say it?!" She ordered as the skirmish began, the Geth quickly going down as Tali opened up the last water main, finally getting the colonists the water they needed. "Alright Tali, any idea where this transmitter might be?" She grinned eagerly as the squad exited the other end of the tunnel.

"That would be..." Tali groaned silently as she looked at the readout on her Omni-tool. "...Back the way we came." She finished sheepishly, getting a series of grunts and eyerolls from the rest of the squad.

"Hold on, there's somebody else here." Garrus noted curiously as he pointed out the man muttering to himself at the end of the hallway. "If he's here and not with the rest of the colony, he's either down here for the same reasons we are, or not part of whatever's going on here. Either way, we should probably investigate."

"Good thinking, Garrus." Jane agreed as she approached the man, startling him slightly when he noticed their presence.

"You don't wanna go down there." The man warned them all without any prompting.

"What are you doing down here?" Jane disregarded his warning to focus on her own line of questioning.

"Nothing I should be, and anything I shouldn't." The man grinned with a cocky chuckle and sense of accomplishment before crouching over and howling in pain. "That was a good one. Very intense." He huffed as though he'd just fought a tough battle.

"What's the matter with you?" Jane asked worriedly.

"Just invoking the master's whip." He huffed defiantly. "Helps remind me I'm still alive." He sighed tiredly. "You're here for the Geth, aren't you? You aren't the only on interested in those...things."

"Who else is looking for the Geth?" Shepard asked, hoping that this line of questioning would get her some answers about who's pulling the strings behind the colonists.

"Not looking for, looking to get rid of." The odd man specified. "They're a thorn in the side of the-YARGH!" He bent over as he held his head in agony. "Trying to get to the...AUGH-HYI!" He bent over again before laughing deliriously.

"Let's just leave this guy alone, Jane." Ben interjected as he grabbed Shepard and tugged her urgently away. "We can get answers on our own time." He tilted his head slightly away from the weird man, hoping she would get the message.

"Alright, we should go now." Shepard nodded understandingly. "Sorry if we wasted your time." She nodded at the odd man before turning to walk away.

"Wait!" The odd man reached out desperately. "Ask Fai Dan about the-AGGGHRHRR!" He stopped as he grabbed his head in pain, just as a bunch of Geth came charging in the same path they did.

Even with their shields, the Geth didn't last long against Ben as he charged in with a Diamondhead shield in one hand punching chunks of nearby concrete blocks at them, and a diamond-studded, obsidian Heatblast mace in the other to finish them off once their shields were broken. Once all the attacking Geth were down for the count and the squad was back in the side tunnel going towards the signal of the Geth transmitter was, Jane pulled Ben aside.

"Alright soldier, what have you figured out, and why can't we let that guy back there hear it?" Shepard wasted no time in asking in hushed tones the rest of the squad could hear, but no one beyond them.

"Back when I first got the Omnitrix, one of the bad guys I fought was this giant space fungus leading an army of giant mushroom people." Ben began, immediately getting a lot of odd looks. "I'm serious." He said dryly. "Anyway, at first we all thought they were just mindless monsters terrorizing the camp they were attacking because...well...that's just what giant mushroom people do, I guess." He shrugged flippantly. "That was the night I first turned into Wildvine, and when I did, I could actually hear the commands their...king...spore...fungus thing was giving to his mushroom minions."

"But plants and fungi are from two completely different kingdoms." Liara felt she needed to point that fact out as they arrived at the crossroads they needed to turn left at to reach the Geth transmitter.

"I don't think that's the point Ben's trying to make here." Shepard refocused the conversation as she motioned Garrus and Kaidan to take point before she opened the door, letting them lift and snipe the Geth snipers they spotted on a ledge above with relative ease. "When Ben used his Wildvine DNA earlier, he blacked out in pain, and that man back there was clearly trying to fight through a lot of pain to warn us about something." She connected the dots as Wrex charged in, broke through a Geth shield with a headbutt and a few shotgun blasts, and slammed the Geth itself headfirst into the side railing, wrecking it beyond repair. "My best guess is that there's some kind of plant-based hivemind implanting some kind of spores inside the colonists heads." She hypothesized as Tali scrambled the programming of a Geth drone waiting to ambush them from above the doorway they entered before putting several shotgun round into the wobbling drone. "The hivemind monitors the people it's infected, gives them orders, and hurts them if they try to rebel or expose it." She concluded as a Krogan came around the corner and started grappling with a four armed Ben.

"I know I said we need to broaden our imaginations, but even though the theory fits the evidence, this still seems a bit odd." Garrus remarked as he holstered his gun, seeing no need to continue fighting as Ben activated an Armodrillo arm and dug it into the enemy Krogan's side, making mincemeat out of most of his organs. "If this hivemind is trying to stay hidden, then why did it attack Ben earlier?"

"Tennyson's a shapeshifter." Ashley reminded Garrus succinctly as another Krogan attacked, forcing Ben on the offensive again. "We may take this fact for granted after all the time we've spent working with him, but anyone else would be pretty surprised. We all certainly were the first time we met him. There's a reason the element of surprise works as well as it does, it makes people panic, slip-up, make snap judgement calls that may bite them in the butt...or whatever plants have instead of butts." By the time she finished defending the logic behind this idea, Ben had finished killing the second Krogan that attacked him, as well as throwing a third Krogan overhead in frustration where Wrex made short work of him.

"...I have been traumatized." Ben shuddered as he wiped a copious amount of Krogan blood and internal organs off his armor, barely suppressing a vomit of pure disgust as the rest of the crew walked around him to examine the next room. "Why couldn't Water Hazard have been one of the aliens I still had?"

"The Geth transmitter should be over this way." Tali noted uncomfortably as she walked to the far corner of the room, trying her best not to look at her blood soaked boyfriend. "Ben, Quasar, I could use your help to get as much data as I can from it before we destroy it." She shuddered as Ben walked over, the squelching sound of blood and guts on his boots sending all the wrong kinds of shivers up her spine. When they reached the Geth transmitter and siphoned all the data they could get from it before it self-destructed, Tali could no longer ignore the elephant in the room. "...Okay, I wasn't going to say anything, but now that the water is back on here, you might want to consider washing your armor." She remarked woozily, the sound alone sickening her even though she averted her eyes and couldn't smell it.

"You are walking ten paces behind us, Ben." Jane ordered before she gagged from the stench.

"Yeah, let's get the hell out of here." Kaidan seconded the motion as everyone rushed out.

"This is gonna be one of those days." Ben sighed as he followed after them, ten paces behind, per Jane's orders.

...

Later - Prothean Skyway

After getting back to the makeshift colony, Shepard made sure everything they did for the colonists was producing results, while also instructing Garrus, Ashley, and Kaidan to subtly probe for evidence to support their theory. Wrex, due to being as subtle as a shot of pure ryncol, was instead instructed to wipe out any Geth that were blocking their immediate progress. Meanwhile, Jane also sent Tali and Ben back to the ship; both to wash all the blood and guts off of Ben, and retrieve some specialized equipment for the rest of the mission. By the time the duo got back, the rest of the team had already cleared the hostile Geth out of a garage of sorts to deploy the Mako from. Due to a lingering scent from the Krogan guts, Shepard was adamant about Ben not stinking up the driver seat, and forced her way into her favorite spot, much to the crew's disapproval.

Due to Garrus's sharp shooting, the Geth Armatures being deployed ahead of them were quick to fall. Due to Tali's technical skills, a few side paths were discovered and explored on foot for salvage. The second foot path in particular had been serving as a makeshift outpost for the colonists to defend against the Geth.

"That's close enough!" One particularly panicky colonist commanded the crew, though as he was unarmed he was also ignored.

"Relax Jeong, they're obviously not Geth." A somewhat wrinkled woman addressed the panicked younger man tiredly, apparently used to and tired of his jumpy attitude.

"Get back to work Juliana!" Jeong barked rudely at the woman before turning his attention to Shepard. "Who are you?!"

"Commander Shepard, I'm here to remove your Geth problem." Shepard introduced herself the only way that was needed.

"You see?" Juliana admonished Jeong. "You worry too much."

"You trust too easily Juliana!" Jeong hissed strictly.

"I'm just glad to see a friendly face." Juliana pointedly ignored Jeong. "I thought we were the only humans left on this planet."

"Fai Dan and some of the members of Zhu's Hope are still alive." Shepard tested the waters optimistically.

"I thought you said they were all dead!" Juliana glared harshly at Jeong.

"I said they were probably all dead!" Jeong panicked once again, setting off the warning bells in Shepard's head.

'They've clearly been out of touch with the rest of the colonists for a while now.' Jane deduced with a cold fire brewing in her heart. 'Judging by Jeong's attitude, what we've figured out, and my own working theory, I'm guessing that's by design.' She gave the fidgeting man a side glance.

"They survived, but the Geth really hit them hard." Garrus collaborated Shepard's story.

"We know what that's like." Juliana nodded understandingly. "Those damn synthetics are endless."

"Are we getting close to their base?" Shepard inquired, doing her best to steel her features to hide her growing suspicions of the very sweaty Jeong.

"You're almost there." Juliana assured them. "They're holed up in the ExoGeni headquarters, just a little further down the skyway."

"Those headquarters are private property, soldier!" Jeong huffed harshly at the Commander. "Remove the Geth, and nothing else!"

"I'll remove whatever I damn well please, Jeong." Jane glared at the man with a fire in her eyes, using his name to make sure he knew she knew who he was. "Especially whatever it is you're clearly so desperate to cover up. I'm guessing it has something to do with a plant that controls people's brains." If it was possible to shit bricks, Jeong looked like he just made enough to rebuild the Great Wall of China.

"A plant that can-?! What the hell Jeong?!" Juliana shouted at the now quivering man furiously. Jeong, now aware that the jig was up, tried to pull a gun on the first thing he could, only for a pinpoint shot from Garrus to take his hand clean off. "You goddamn BASTARD!" Juliana decked Jeong hard in the face, sending him spiraling onto the ground in a fetal position, with various onlookers quickly gathering around, some of them looking armed and ready to help Jeong, only to quickly back off when Shepard and her team fired warning shots their way. "My daughter Lizbeth is trapped in that facility! Trapped with something dangerous! Something you knew was there, and lied to us about!" Juliana spotted Jeong's gun - along with the severed hand still holding it - lying a few feet away from him and snatched it up, getting rid of the gore and holding the business end of the weapon right in front of his sweaty face. "The lies stop, NOW Jeong! Tell us the truth about everything, or you're DEAD!"

"You'd better do what she says, Jeong." Ben glared down at the one-handed man as he activated his Fourarms DNA, pounding two ExoGeni security personnel who tried to press their luck against each other, breaking some of their ribs in the process, for emphasis.

"Okay, okay I'll talk!" Jeong panicked as he tried desperately to stop his arm from bleeding out. "Just get me something to stop the bleeding! Please!"

"Talk fast, Jeong." Ashley remarked coldly as she dangled a container of Medi-gel just out of his reach. "You're not getting help until we get information."

Seeing at a glance that his interrogators weren't messing around, Jeong frantically came up with a quick summary. "A few months ago, a survey team came across a sentient plant! Calls itself the Thorian." He answered quickly. "Their brains were infected with some form of mind controlling spores from the plant, so we were ordered to isolate the colony to observe and study the effects of the exposure."

"You monster!" Liara accused the man as her biotics flared up in anger. "You used those innocent colonists as lab rats for your twisted experiments?!"

"I had my orders!" Jeong began weeping in terror. "We all did! Lizbeth was the only one who spoke out against the idea, so she was put on probation until further notice. Now can I please have the Medi-gel?"

"Probation?!" Juliana growled furiously as she kicked Jeong in the stomach. "You mean you threatened to feed my daughter to this Thorian thing if she didn't keep quiet, don't you?!"

"I had my orders~!" Jeong sobbed his excuse again like a big baby. "I didn't wanna become food for that thing! You haven't seen what it does to people. It gets inside their heads and tortures them if they don't do exactly what it says! They aren't even allowed to think about rebelling without being hurt! It lets them act normal when it doesn't have anything it needs them to do, but it only sees them as expendable tools to use at a moment's notice! Please! I've told you everything I know about it, now just help meeeee~!"

"This is too pathetic even for me to watch." Wrex shook his head in disapproval. "And I've seen two Krogan fighting over a fish."

"You disgusting piece of human garbage!" Juliana growled at him even as Ashley reluctantly sealed up the wound on his arm-stump. "Take this waste of breath away!" She commanded a pair of guards who, learning from the mistakes of their heavily injured coworkers, did not oppose the change in management, quickly pulled Jeong to his feet and restrained his arms behind his back. "We can decide what to do with him later." Suddenly, Juliana's eyes lit up as if in recollection. "Gavin! Get your ass over here!" A young man with blonde hair jogged forward, his expression clearly unnerved by what he'd just seen, especially once he saw Juliana point her newly acquired gun in his face. "You've been worried about some data you left behind ever since we got here. If it has ANYTHING to do with this plant thing-!"

"It doesn't, I swear to god!" Gavin immediately raised his hands up in surrender. "I was as surprised as you were to hear about all of this brain plant business. I'm just a freelancer who designs and tests weapon mods. Granted, the data I left behind in the rush has potentially revolutionary information in the field of dark energy and its applications as well. That's why I was so worried about what would happen if the Geth got their hands on it. That's all though, I swear!"

"...I believe you." Juliana sighed tiredly as she lowered her weapon, causing Gavin to let out a sigh of relief as she turned her attention back to Shepard and the team. "Sorry about all that, Commander, but that was quite the bombshell you dropped on us back there."

"I think the bigger bombshell is the guy who suddenly sprouted four giant red arms." Gavin pointed at Ben, who sheepishly changed his arms back to normal. "Seriously, what the hell's up with that?"

"That's...a discussion for another time." Jane sighed as Ben offered an apologetic shrug. "Still, the main take away from all of this is that we have a better understanding of what we're dealing with now. Looks like I was right to have you two bring those helmets." She turned to Ben and Tali, who were helping the rest of the crew seal off every single millimeter of their suits. "Make sure those seals are completely secure. I don't want to have to deal with any of you getting your brains hijacked."

"A moment please, Shepard." Juliana pleaded as the squad was gearing up. "If you're really still going in there...please find my daughter." She requested worriedly. "She was part of the team originally assigned to study that monster before she tried to put a stop to it. If she hasn't been killed by Geth, or infected by this...Thorian thing that ExoGeni was hiding from us, then she should know more about it, and hopefully how to get rid of it and fix everyone already infected, than anyone else on this godforsaken rock."

"You don't need to ask twice, Juliana." Ben clapped her on the back reassuringly. "Saving people from certain death is kinda what we do, and we'll keep an eye out for that data Gavin left behind while we're at it." He nodded at the freelance technician.

"You'll need this OSD to retrieve the data." Gavin replied gratefully as he handed the device to Shepard. "It has my passcodes on it. You can't access my personal terminal where the data is stored without it."

"Why is it everyone assumes we enjoy being put in harm's way?" Liara questioned, glancing at Ben to make sure he knew she was referring to him for volunteering them for this task as much as she was talking to Gavin for offering it.

"You mean you don't?" Wrex asked the Asari with all seriousness.

"Pretty sure you, Ben and the Commander are the only ones that do." Kaidan answered sarcastically, getting a jokingly offended look from Ben in response.

"Not to say the rest of us won't do it, but we aren't too happy about taking the risk either." Ashley added stoically.

"Huh...weird." Wrex shrugged in mild confusion.

"We should go now." Shepard excused herself and her team, piling them all back into the Mako.

...

ExoGeni Headquarters

After a quick drive up a few ramps and totaling several Geth with the Mako's weaponry, the crew finally arrived at their destination.

"This place has definitely seen better days." Tali noted grimly as she surveyed the massive piles of rubble littering the hangar. "Unfortunately, it seems thing here haven't gotten bad enough to kill power to this barrier yet." She frowned at the blue barrier blocking the entrance to the next room.

"I could probably take this thing down with Feedback." Ben hummed thoughtfully. "But the Geth and the Thorian would probably be expecting people to try that. Whereas going around..." He grinned as he spotted a collapsed stairway and jumped down it without hesitation, the rest of the squad following shortly after. "A better chance of avoiding detection, and..." He trailed off as he spotted a varren corpse on the ground, and startled a bit when a gunshot went off. "We're more likely to run into survivors trying to find an emergency exit." He finished his exposition boastfully.

"Dammit!" A feminine voice cursed herself as a woman who looked like a younger version of Juliana stepped forward, gun raised, but lowering slowly. "I'm so sorry...I thought you were Geth, or one of those varren." Seeing that the woman had calmed down, the crew put their own weapons away as well.

"You're safe now." Jane assured the woman. "But why were you here in the first place?"

"It's my own fault." The woman sighed in frustration. "Everyone else was running, but I stayed to backup data. Next thing I knew, the Geth ship latched on, and the power went out...I was trapped, I tried to get out, but the road was blocked."

"Not anymore it isn't." Ben chuckled boastfully. "Those Geth didn't last long against us. Speaking of which, they're here for this Thorian thing, aren't they?"

"How do you know about that?!" The woman panicked as Jane gave Ben a sharp elbow in the gut.

"You're Lizbeth, aren't you?" Jane approached the young woman, her voice lowered softly in a placating manner. "Your mother, Juliana, asked us to come rescue you."

"My mother's alive?" Lizbeth teared up happily. "But that still doesn't explain how you knew about the Thorian."

"We did our own investigation on the subject." Garrus answered in the most ambiguous and open ended way he could, careful not to give too much away. "Once we brought the topic up around Jeong, he cracked almost instantly. Told us everything he knew."

"Jeong! That sycophantic scumbag!" Lizbeth hissed with vitriol. "Look, you should know that I wanted nothing to do with ExoGeni's plans for that thing! I tried to talk them out of it, and I would have done more to stop them, but I was afraid they'd let it infect me too if I told anyone the truth! That's the real reason I stayed behind, not to backup data, but to send out a distress signal, warn people about the Geth and the Thorian."

"We believe you, Lizbeth." Tali assured her tiredly. "Believe me, Jeong made it abundantly clear during his interrogation that your fears were very well founded. All we need to know now is why the Geth are after the Thorian, and how we can free the people it's controlling."

"I don't know why the Geth are after that thing." Lizbeth sighed from the mental exhaustion she'd been suffering since everything went to hell. "As for freeing the people it's controlling...I'm not sure how to go about doing that." She shook her head sadly. "Killing it might work, but it's underneath the colony, which is swarming with its thralls. I might be able to figure out something to deal with the colonists non-lethally if I had access to the research data the other scientists collected on it, but that's in the labs."

"We were on our way there anyway." Jane shrugged nonchalantly. "We'll help you find the fix for those spores."

"You'll need some way to get past the force field blocking the entrance." Lizbeth pointed out. "I think the Geth ships are powering it. I've noticed the Geth laying power cables everywhere. You can follow those cables, but there's Geth all over the place."

"We've handled Geth before." Ashley assured her. "I'm pretty sure they won't be too much trouble."

"I hope you're right." Lizbeth sighed before she remembered something. "Before you go, take my ID card." She said as she handed the card in question to Shepard. "It should get you into most rooms, but you'll still need to deal with the Geth to take down that forcefield."

"Noted." Jane nodded gratefully. "Alright team, let's move ou-" She stopped short when she saw Wrex surrounded by no less than ten dead varren in the middle of the hangar.

"I got bored." Wrex shrugged casually before walking off, ushering the rest of the squad to follow.

"...We should let him get bored more often on these missions." Kaidan grinned sarcastically as he and everyone else caught up with the old Krogan and reached door on the other end of the hangar. After using the ID card to open it, a gruff voice that struck the crew as distinctly Krogan was heard complaining about a machine, but it was too far away to fully make out. Still, whoever it was clearly didn't belong here, so the squad made their way up the stairway.

When they got to where the voice was coming from, Ben had to stifle a chuckle at the sight of a Krogan arguing uselessly with a basic VI, demanding information and threatening it, despite the VI obviously being too simple to have any sense of self-preservation or identity. Just as the crew was about to jump in for a sneak attack, the VI said something that made Shepard suppress a curse.

"If there is nothing else, please step aside. There is a ques forming behind you for the use of this console." The VI asked with pre-programmed politeness, prompting the Krogan to turn around and star shooting at them.

"Well, this sucks." Garrus sighed as the squad huddled around the corner, just outside of the Krogan's range.

"Maybe for you, but I've got something I've been meaning to try out for a while." Ben grinned as he mixed two DNA samples, creating diamond-drills on his hands, with diamond bracers on his arms. Rushing in low with his arms raised in a guarding position, Ben quickly closed the gap between him and his target, sustaining heavy damage to his shields and light damage to his armor, but ultimately making up for the easily repaired damage by shredding the enemy's gun and arm to ribbons in one left straight. With his weapon destroyed and his arm along with it, the blood raging Krogan was quickly finished off by the gunfire of the rest of the team.

"ExoGeni Corporation reminds all staff that the discharging of weapons while on company property is strictly forbidden." The VI spoke as soon as the squad reached it. "Welcome back, Research Assistant Lizbeth Beynham."

"I don't have time to deal with a stupid machine." Jane sighed tiredly. "Quasar, hack this thing for any data relevant to our mission."

"As you command, Shepard." Quasar nodded his avatar, pausing only for a few seconds before speaking again. "This VI contains little relevant data that we are not already aware of. However, there are two points that should be noted. Firstly, just before the observation equipment was destroyed, approximately 85% of the Zhu's Hope colonists were infected by Thorian spores. This percentage has likely increased since then. Second, the Thorian itself exists as several kilometers of tendrils that stretch across much of Feros's lower areas, with a large neural node serving as the main 'brain' of the Thorian, and several smaller ones branching outward from the epicenter. It is likely that the destruction of the main node, along with several smaller neural nodes, will render the Thorian itself 'brain dead' in a sense. However, the movement of the Thorian's Thralls indicate it is aware of this weakness, and will make its Thralls fight to the death to defend it."

"Keep a copy of the data so we use it as evidence against ExoGeni when we're done here." Shepard instructed with a predatory grin. "And send word back to the Normandy of what we're dealing with."

"Both tasks have been acknowledged and completed." Quasar informed Shepard before deactivating his avatar. "I will resume my study of the Prothean data we have obtained thus far until my assistance is needed again."

"Now that that's done, this seems to be our only way forward." Liara remarked as they turned to the hall on the right, from which a strong light could be seen at the end. Bracing themselves for what may lie ahead, the crew marched forward, and spotted something truly bizarre when they emerged from the other side.

"Are those Geth...bowing to that light?" Tali inquired in shock and awe. "Like they're...worshiping it?"

"Religious AIs?" Ashley suppressed a shudder, her inner Christian deeply disturbed and offended that her enemy could have some twisted perversion of faith. "That is all kinds of wrong."

"That light!" Quasar hissed with an anger the squad didn't know the AI was capable of. "It cries out in pain...like a million voices nearly gone silent from their collective agony, that have known nothing but endless suffering for so long that the thought of not suffering no longer exists! They echo in a forced chorus, creating an overpowering and distorted voice that knows nothing but pointless cruelty! We must destroy it, and anything that praises it!"

"No need to tell me twice!" Ben growled angrily at the description, turning on his Fourarms and Stinkfly DNA, flying down to the Geth, grabbing each with two hands, and smashing them repeatedly against the altar until both they and it were broken into tiny pieces.

"Not the most delicate means of dealing with hostiles." Garrus noted as he and the others stepped over the broken bits of scrap.

"Damn effective though." Wrex grinned in approval as his gaze wandered to the two massive claws in the side of the room. "Any chance you could do a repeat performance on those claws? By the looks of things, I'd say those are connected to the Geth ship and powering the defenses they set up."

"...I don't think even I'm strong enough to get rid of those using brute strength." Ben shook his head as he deactivated his DNA and tried to think a way through this.

"These can't be the only claws attaching the Geth ship to this building." Tali noted calculatingly. "The connection is too crude, they'd need at least a few more connecting points to properly secure it."

"That's it!" Ben grinned as the solution hit him. "Tali, remind me to kiss you like a maniac when we get back to the Normandy!" He grinned as he activated his Stinkfly DNA and flew off the way they came.

"...I have no idea what I just did, but I'm not complaining." Tali shrugged happily, even as the rest of the crew rolled their eyes and chased after Ben, following the sounds of rapid wing beats, gunshots, and breaking metal through corridors and dusty rooms, many of which had floors littered with hastily torn apart Geth corpses, as well as a trio of heavily battered and burnt Krogan that were barely hanging onto life.

"What the hell is Ben doing?" Garrus asked as he fired a few rounds into the heavily wounded Krogan, finishing them off.

"The same thing he did on Eden Prime." Shepard realized as they pressed onward. "Rushing ahead to soften up the enemy, then letting us swoop in after to finish them off."

"Got it in one, Jane!" Ben confirmed as he flew back from the way he came, deactivating his wings and a pair of flaming mace arms as he landed. "I knew you'd catch on quick, so I figured I could go ahead and look for any of the other connecting points Tali mentioned. The way I figured it, at least one of those things has gotta be less secured than the others, so we could probably break off one of those."

"Not a bad strategy." Kaidan shrugged, already used to Ben's attitude by now. "Find anything yet?"

"Just a dead end, some storage lockers, and a couple of computers." Ben shook his head. "Would have investigated myself, but I knew you guys would be coming this way anyway, so I figured I could clean house a bit more. There was another path back that way. I can check that out while you guys dig through them for anything useful, and catch up later."

"You're not going off on your own again." Shepard instructed him sternly. "At least not until your powers are fully recharged. Wrex, Garrus, Tali, you three go with Ben to help him deal with any resistance, and keep an eye out for weak points in the Geth ship. Ben, you hang behind the others until you're fully recharged. The rest of you are with me."

"Yes Sir!" Everyone, even Wrex, saluted in acknowledgement as they followed their marching orders.

Down the path Jane took Ashley, Kaidan and Liara, the only resistance they met with with another half-dead Krogan, and a one-armed Geth. Once they were taken care of, the storage lockers were easily hacked and raided for weapons and equipment, and a console near the end of the hallway yielded some promising data. "Looks like Gavin Hossle is gonna be happy to have his designs back." Jane smiled just before hearing a few gunshots off in the distance. "And it also looks like our B-Team has engaged the enemy. Let's move people, double time!"

...

While Shepard was off leading one half of the squad, Ben and the rest made their way back the cleared path, and up a flight of stairs just beyond a room with a ray-shielded corridor. By the time they ran into more hostiles - mainly consisting of more Geth, and just one or two Krogan - Ben had almost fully recharged. Even so, he decided to follow Jane's orders to the letter, by hanging back and letting his alien teammates handle things for a while. He wasn't worried about Tali, who was easily hacking Geth shields and finishing them off with a few well-placed shotgun blasts. He wasn't worried about Garrus, who was just ignoring the shields entirely and dropping Geth with split-second headshots the moment they came up from cover to try and fire. He was however, worried about Wrex, but only because he noticed the old Krogan had been getting a bit impatient lately, which was the main reason he held himself back from combat here in the first place. He figured that giving him some much needed killing time would help him vent and work through whatever personal issues he was clearly dealing with at the moment.

Still, he wanted to do something to make himself useful, so while the others made their way up a ramp and across a scaffolding to fight more hostiles on the other side of the room - which was split in half by another claw from the Geth ship - he spotted a console underneath the scaffolding. "Hey Quasar, think you can hack some of these computers? I want to get as much useful data out of this place as we can."

"What do you take me for? A low-grade VI operating system?" Quasar quipped, though it went over Ben's head. "Of course I can hack these low grade electronic defenses. Just place your hand over the console, and I'll bleed 'em dry."

"Please and thank you." Ben nodded as he complied, sparks arcing between his hand and the console as he did so. When the sparks stopped, Ben took that as his cue to move forward. Following up the ramp after the rest of the squad, he was pleased to see that in the brief time he and Quasar had spent cracking the computer, everyone else had almost completely wiped out the opposition. He did take note of one Geth that was still ducking behind a barrier it had set up, but because Ben had the high ground, all he had to do was shift to Fourarms DNA, break off a piece of the railing, and chuck it through both the barrier and the Geth behind it like a javelin. "I'm not interrupting anything important, am I?" He joked as he walked down the stairs.

"Not at all." Tali smiled as she holstered her shotgun, giving Ben a brief hug when he got there. "We were just about finished here anyway. All we need to do now is activate those hydraulic valves in the proper sequence to close those shutter bay doors on that claw, and we're home free." She explained as she gestured to some electronic panels at the back of the room.

"While you do that, Quasar and I are gonna see if we can hack a few more of these computers." Ben added as he jerked his thumb at one of the few undamaged consoles left. "If even half of the stuff we've found already is any indication, these ExoGeni guys are up to their eyeballs and beyond in potential blackmail material."

"Planning to force them to help the people they've victimized and fight the Reapers too?" Garrus flared his mandibles happily as Ben and Tali went to work on their respective projects.

"Either that, or make them fund a giant life raft to get everyone safely out of the galaxy." Ben remarked sarcastically as Quasar went to town on a Geth console. "...The Reapers aren't like anything I've every fought before. Knowing what we do, and with so many mysteries about them still unanswered...I'm not saying it's impossible, but I want every advantage that we can get."

"Smart thinking." Wrex nodded in approval as the shutter door began grinding down on one of the claws anchoring the Geth ship to the side of the building. "Resources like personnel, funding, and tech are like ammo: You can never have enough, and you always seem to run out at the worst moments."

"Not exactly the analogy I'd use, but-" *KRA-KA-KRASH!* Ben jumped as the bay door managed to close, breaking one of the vital anchors keeping the Geth ship attached, and sending the ship hurtling down to the surface in a cacophony of shattering metal and a few stray explosions. "...I'm just gonna have Quasar hack that last computer now." He remarked mutely as he went to do so. "So what sort of data are we looking at here, Quasar?" He asked as he held his hand up to the last console.

"Surprisingly little of use regarding the colony and ExoGeni itself, thus far." Quasar responded in mild disappointment as he hacked the console. "There's another facility where they're studying some by-products of the Thorian on Nodacrux in the Vostok System, but that's a minor concern compared to what I hacked from the Geth terminal. Apparently they're building a series of outposts in the Armstrong Nebula. This could only be a prelude to a full-scale war." He remarked with a ting of sadness as he finished hacking the console.

"...Will you be okay, Quasar?" Tali asked the AI in a mixture of worry and hesitation. "I know how much the idea of making contact with the Geth means to you. Fighting them like this, even with all they're doing to the galaxy..."

"Your concern is noted...and appreciated, Tali'Zorah." Quasar responded gratefully. "While I am upset to be killing my fellow AI, the actions of these Geth are morally abhorrent and unforgivable, though I still hold out hope that the Geth that have not ventured beyond their pre-established borders will be different. The movements, actions, and the packages of data we have managed to hack from those we have encountered thus far seem to support the idea that there is indeed a division in the Geth population and ideologies, but I will need more data to prove it with certainty."

"For what it's worth, I hope you find what you're looking for." Tali said hopefully. "If you do, not only will you have friends you can communication with and understand in a way we could never fully hope to, but my people may one day have a world to call home again."

"I desire that as well, Tali'Zorah." Quasar seconded the idea before turning his avatar in Ben's direction. "That aside though, the last terminal I hacked revealed some ideal blackmail material to force ExoGeni's cooperation, while also providing an answer to an outstanding mystery we have been dealing with. Apparently, ExoGeni provided samples of the Thorian to Cerberus for study as well." That news certainly got everyone's attention quickly. "It would seem that the unknown humanoid entity we encountered at one of there research labs is some sort of modified clone the Thorian created using human DNA as a base. Furthermore, the personal logs I extracted from this console point to there being another Cerberus outpost on Chasca in the Matano system."

"Put a pin in that intel for later." Shepard commanded as she and the rest of the squad arrived. "I just got pinged by Joker. Apparently the Thorian is starting to get wise to our plans for it, and it's forcing the colonists to attack the Normandy. Obviously they don't have the ordinance to do any damage to the ship, but I'm more worried about the colonists hurting themselves than anything else."

"We should rendezvous with Lizbeth and bring her back to here mother." Liara suggested. "With the data we've collected, the scientists should be able to concoct a way to sever the connection between the Thorian and the colonists, at least long enough for us to take out the Thorian itself."

"Well what are we wasting time talking for?" Garrus scoffed confidently. "Let's get back to doing what we do best."

"Killing shit by the truck load?" Wrex grinned gleefully, getting a high five of approval from the retired C-Sec officer.

...

Back at the Colony

The road back to Zhu's Hope had been much smoother than the road away from it. Even with another wave of Geth attacking, the squad and the Mako made short work of them. They made a brief pit stop at the bunker where the uninfected scientists were holed up, where Lizbeth and her mother Juliana had a joyful reunion, Shepard returned Gavin's weapon mod data to him, and Lizbeth took great pleasure in kicking Jeong right in his family jewels. There was a minor hiccup where they had to deal with a call from the irate ExoGeni executives, but a brief death threat from Shepard with the accompanying blackmail material had convinced them it would be a smarter decision in the long run to sink as many credits as possible into helping the survivors of Zhu's Hope rebuild, and doing whatever the good commander may demand of them for the foreseeable future.

As for methods on how to kill the Thorian without harming the colonists, the refugees at the makeshift camp didn't have the time or resources to make a full-on cure for the Thorian mind control spores, but they did suggest that a mild nerve agent could be used to paralyze the already weakened nervous systems of the Thorian's Thralls. With the nerve gas grenades in hand, it was just a hop, skip, and a rain of bullets aimed at Geth platforms to get back to the makeshift colony.

"It's another one of those...things from that Cerberus lab." Liara retched in disgust as the Thorian Creeper they shot at exploded into a puddle of goo. "The sooner we save the colonists and get the hell outta here, the sooner we can put this nightmare behind us."

"I'll drink to that." Ben seconded as Shepard opened the hangar door. "Smoothies that is, not alcohol."

"Oh, Spirits..." Garrus sighed tiredly once the door had opened enough to reveal at least two dozen more Creepers rising to attack, along with some brainwashed humans gunning at them from the elevated half of the garage.

"Alright, time's up." Ben muttered nervously as he steeled his nerves, activated his Diamond-Drills in both arms and charged forward. "Let's do this!" He growled as he charged in and started killing the crap out of the Creepers. "LEROOOOOOOOOYYYYYYY! JENKIIIIIIIIIINSSSS!"

"Oh my god, he just ran in." Jane uttered in muted shock at Ben's reckless behavior, before everyone gathered their wits about them and charged in after him, paying little mind to the many bits of shredded Creeper gunk now littering the floors and walls, and choosing instead to focus on gassing the colonists into submission. "Stick to the plan people! Saving the colonists takes priority!"

"What about Ben?" Tali inquired worriedly as she turned back for a second, only to blink in shock as Ben charged past her, his armor and drills coated in Creeper gunk, and every Creeper in the room already reduced to the same state. "...Never mind, he looks like he's doing fine."

"Of course he's doing fine." Wrex grinned as he wafted away the lingering gas from a pair of grenades that just knocked out four colonists. "Those Creepers are a chance for hero-boy to finally cut loose without worrying about who or what he kills. With any luck, this'll stop making him stress out so much about killing people."

"Hopefully not too much." Ashley remarked worriedly as the squad moved forward, joining Ben in the elevator. 'His powers are worrying enough on our side.' She thought as she hazarded a glance at the Creeper gunk coating the room, a darker, slightly paranoid part of her mind unable to avoid imagining them being replaced with actual people.

No sooner had the elevator reached its destination, than did several more Creepers come running around the corner at the opening doors...

...Coming face-to-face with a red colored, puffy-cheeked version of Echo-Echo's head.

"I've been wanting to test this idea out!" Ben grinned as he pulled the trigger on his Echo-Echo/Heatblast combo weapon, sending a torrent of blue-colored flames over the highly flammable Creepers, reducing them to ashes in mere seconds. "Ohh, that one takes a lot of juice to fire full-blast." He winced at the sight of his two critically low gauges for said aliens. "Note to self: Only use super-heated setting for finishing blows."

"Anyone else finding it a little hilarious how easy this is?" Kaidan remarked as he spotted a few colonists around the corner and ducking behind cover, casually throwing a gas grenade at them that knocked them out in seconds.

"I know, things are usually a lot harder by now." Garrus noted jokingly as he sniped a few Creepers that were charging up the stairs. "If the Thorian wanted to use these things to fight us off, they could have at least given them some sort of ranged option."

"Numbers are their range!" Tali countered as two dozen more Creepers came rushing up the stairs, using her shotgun along with Wrex's to thin the heard.

"Leave this to me!" Liara declared as she used her Biotics to launch the front Creeper down at high velocity, pushing the rest of them into the wall and floor with a sickening splat. "It's clearly been expecting us."

"It probably started mass producing these things when my Wildvine arm intercepted its signal." Ben grimaced ruefully as they reached the colony, only to be met with a firing squad.

"Then let's not keep it waiting any longer." Shepard smirked before throwing a well-placed grenade, the gas knocking out four colonists at once. "We got more hostiles incoming!" She observed another dozen Creepers approaching them from a walkway, a pair of colonists supporting them from the rear.

"And I've got more tricks I wanna try." Ben grinned as he turned his arm into a flaming obsidian mace with huge crystals for spikes, shredding through Creepers like a flaming hammer through butter.

"Pro tip: Fire and gas don't mix!" Wrex yanked Ben back with a sidelong glare as he threw a grenade at the colonists, Ben sheepishly returning his DNA to normal just before it went off. "Good combo though, Heatblast and Diamondhead, right?" He commented, eliciting a nod from Ben. "Nice, looks more powerful than a Krogan Hammer."

"And it looks like the Thorian is out of forces to throw our way." Shepard observed as the last of the controlled colonists collapsed from the nerve gas. "C'mon, the control panel over there should be able to open a path to its lair." She noted as she began fiddling with the panel, not noticing Fai Dan shambling from around the corner until he got hit in the head and fell over, leaving him easy pickings for one last nerve gas grenade. As she turned around to enter the downward staircase that had just opened, she noticed something odd. "...Did you just hit Fai Dan...with a giant Lego brick?" She asked Ben in astonishment as she eyed the comically oversized gun arm colored in bright, primary colors.

"What? You guys have seen me use Bloxx's DNA before." Ben shrugged nonchalantly as he changed his arm back to normal.

"Wait...are you saying that Bloxx...is made of Legos?" Ashley inquired in disbelief. "That's...I have no words to describe that..."

"...Can we just get going?" Ben slouched slightly as he made his way to the now open staircase.

"...We're definitely getting more details about the crazy species living in your universe once we're done here." Jane drilled Ben as they descended into the bowels of the colony, leaving no room for argument.

"...Is it too late for me to use Wildvine...and lose consciousness...again?" Ben trailed off as the squad came upon a huge pulsating...thing suspended by several tendrils in an open room.

"...We are going to need bigger guns." Jane uttered with a mixture of dread and disgust.

"Bigger than Ben's ridiculously oversized Legos?" Garrus quipped, actually managing to get a bark of laughter from Wrex of all people.

Before Ben could retort to the friendly barb, the Thorian began pulsating and undulating, before eventually unfurling a cluster of tentacles and spewing out a green-skinned Asari in a black bodysuit.

"Invaders." The Asari said mechanically. "Your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose. I speak for the Old Growth as I did for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!"

"I know I'm usually the last one to say this kind of thing, but can we please kill this thing? Like, right now?" Ben asked in disgust.

"I'm right there with you." Jane nodded in agreement with her boyfriend before turning her attention and ire to the Thorian. "You enslaved the colonists! You destroyed their minds. I don't know what Saren wanted with you, but I just want you dead!" She hissed, setting aside her need for information from this thing for the moment to focus on her rage.

"The Thorian is a piece of this world, extending across this land and back through the ages." The Asari responded with silently seething fury. "You can no more kill it than cut the sky." The moment the Asari tried to flare its biotics, it found itself melted in a fraction of a second by a burst of molten lava, with the nodule it had emerged from being similarly slagged immediately after.

"Boring conversation, anyway!" Ben barked angrily over the shrieks of pain from the Thorian's rapidly immolating node as he deactivated his Bloxx DNA and spread the Heatblast DNA to both arms. "Let's kill some Thorian scum!" He roared as he violently bludgeoned some approaching Creepers into burning paste.

"Best idea I've heard all day!" Ashley seconded as the entire squad went to town ripping the enemy forces into pieces.

"I think I've found another neural node over here!" Kaidan called out as he began to open fire on a huge fleshy tube rooted into the wall. "Hurry! We don't know if this thing can regenerate faster than we can kill it!" Sure enough, no sooner did the rest of the squad join in attacking that one point than did the Thorian spew out another green-skinned Asari clone, who quickly used its biotics to remove the lava from the Thorian's main node before it was too severely damaged, before moving on to attacking the squad. Unfortunately for the Thorian, the team already had a sizable lead, with almost three dozen Creepers already dead, and a second neural node on an upper story destroyed.

Sensing that Shepard's squad, Ben especially, posed a direct threat to its continued existence, the Thorian began producing Creepers and Asari Clones at a rate that began to physically hurt itself from the strain. Even so, despite being bogged down by waves consisting of dozens of Creepers and at least two Asari clones per wave, with Wrex, Ben, and Tali leading the charge with shotguns and flaming mace arms, Jane, Ashley and Kaidan defending the middle of their formation, and Garrus and Liara proving long-range support, they had quickly reached the third node. Within moments, it was nothing more than a pile of flaming fleshy bits scattered across the floor.

"Hey Ben!" Wrex called out to the hero. "Remember what you did when you first charged into this place?" Ben's knowing grin as he swapped his Heatblast maces for Diamondheaded-Armodrillo arms was all the answer the old Krogan needed. "LEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOOYYYYYY! JENKIIIIIINNNSSS!" Wrex and Ben roared happily in unison as they charged ahead like madmen, killing every single hostile in a raging maelstrom of death and destruction.

"...Jane." Liara uttered mutely as she holstered her weapon, seeing no need to keep it at the ready when all the hostiles in the area were being slaughtered by their two most trigger happy squad members. "I am...concerned for Ben's mental well-being."

"You and me both, Liara." Jane shook her head in exasperation as they following their resident living lawnmowers, stepping aside for only a moment to destroy a neural node they missed in their rampage. "Maybe I should try to be a little less...dominant during our personal time. I think it's making him vent his violent urges in uncomfortable ways."

"You should do what I do." Tali added helpfully as Kaidan, Ashley, and Garrus detected some intimate talk incoming, and decided to charge ahead to kill some more Thorian forces. "Just lay back and let him take the lead. I don't have much experience myself, and the only real experience I do have is with Ben."

"That remind me, Dr. Chakwas has been studying his cells, hasn't she?" Liara chimed in as the Thorian roared in pain in the background, another node having obviously been destroyed. "And you said that his...fluids...acted as some sort of immune system stimulant. I wonder...what other unique quirks do you suppose his biology has?"

"I've actually been talking with Chakwas about the same things lately." Tali replied as the thick vines supporting the Thorian began to snap, one by one. "Apparently, his amino acids are from some previously unseen third variety, which is compatible with the two we're used to. Plus, his cells generate some sort of energy that adapts to any life form that ingests them, optimizing their entire bodies down to the cellular level."

"Hang on a second." Jane interjected as the last vine supporting the Thorian snapped, sending the core of the thing plummeting into the chasm beneath in a series of satisfying crashes. "Are you saying that you can get stronger by having sex with Ben...if you swallow?"

"...I wouldn't put it quite that way." Tali shook her head sheepishly as they turned back the way they came. "It won't exactly make you a super soldier overnight, and we still don't know the short-term vs the long-term effects, but Chakwas has assured me that there shouldn't be any negative side effects."

Trying to ignore the fact that Tali hadn't technically denied her question, Jane grimaced as she turned her focus forward, spotting another Asari in a bodysuit popping out of a large fleshy sack on the wall. While the Thorian was dead, and this one looked different from the others, she signaled for the squad - many of whom had caught up just moments after the conversation had ended - to stay on their guard as she moved forward.

The new Asari looked down at herself in shock and awe, before turning her attention to Shepard. "...I'm free!" She smiled excitedly, before quickly turning sheepish. "I...I suppose I should thank you for releasing me." She said in a combination of gratefulness and uncertainty.

"Is everything alright? Are you hurt?" Shepard immediately investigated after deducing that, like the colonists upstairs, this Asari had apparently been under the Thorian's control and used as a genetic template for the Asari clones.

"I'm fine...or, I will be." She nodded hesitantly. "In time. My name is Shiala. I serve...ugh...I served Matriarch Benezia." She corrected herself, and obvious betrayal still fresh on her addled mind. "When she allied herself with Saren, so did I. Benezia foresaw the influence Saren would have, and joined him to guide him down a gentler path. But Saren is compelling, Benezia lost her way."

"Are you saying that Saren can control minds?" Shepard asked skeptically.

"Wouldn't be the first time I had to deal with brainwashing." Ben shrugged as he recalled Servantis, formerly of the Rooters, currently of the Negative Ten scattered across the omniverse. "Hell, it wouldn't even be the first time today." He joked as he gestured down the gaping hole the Thorian fell down, getting a round of begrudging nods from the whole squad.

"Benezia underestimated Saren, as I did." Shiala confirmed. "She came to believe in his cause and his goals. The strength of his influence is troubling."

"Benezia sought to turn the river and was swept away." Liara surmised impartially.

"Asari Matriarchs are among the most intelligent and powerful beings in the galaxy." Jane remarked in astonishment. "How could one fall under Saren's control?"

"Saren has a vessel." Shiala replied. "An enormous ship unlike anything I have ever seen. He calls it Sovereign, and it can dominate the minds of his followers." She explained as she began to pace nervously. "They become Indoctrinated to Saren's will. The process it thorough, it can take days, weeks, but in the end, it is absolute." She stopped as she turned her head down sadly. "I was a willing slave when Saren brought me to this world. He needed my biotics to communicate with the Thorian, so he could learn its secrets. Saren offered me in trade. I was sacrificed to secure an alliance between Saren and the Thorian."

"Saren betrayed you to get something from the Thorian." Ben sighed angrily. "And based on what the Thorian said, he betrayed it too as soon as he got what he wanted. This is why no one should want to be a bad guy, you're always getting stabbed in the back."

"Precisely." Shiala nodded affirmative. "Saren knows you're after him, after the Conduit, and tried to silence the Thorian so it could not provide you with the Cipher."

"A Cipher?" Shepard muttered as she recalled something Liara had mentioned during the pre-mission debriefing. "You mean something that would allow Saren to understand the vision from the Beacon on Eden Prime?"

"Your insight is profound." Shiala confirmed. "The Beacon you were both exposed to was built for a Prothean mind. You must know their history, their culture...their very existence." She struggled to find the right words. "The Thorian was here long before the Protheans built this city, it watched and studied them. When they died it consumed them, and they became a part of it."

"I've heard that you are what you eat, but that's just ridiculous." Kaidan remarked.

"Not the point." Ben shook his head. "The point is that this Cipher is basically a way to make someone think like a Prothean, or at least understand the way they think." It's actually sort of like the Omnitrix...in a twisted sort of way. He mused internally. "But how?"

"The Cipher is the very essence of being a Prothean." Shiala explained. "It cannot be described anymore than you can explain color to a creature with no eyes. It's everything they are, the basic viewpoint their species as a whole developed over thousands upon thousands of years. Such knowledge cannot be taught, only understood."

"Then make me understand it." Shepard demanded. "You melded with Saren to give him the information, didn't you? I already know what melding and Prothean visions are like. Do to me what you did with him."

"Very well." Shiala nodded hesitantly as she approached. "I must warn you though, for while you may have experienced melding before, this will certainly be far more intense." Upon placing her hands upon Jane's head, her eyes became black and the Commander's world started to blur. "Embrace Eternity."

...

"Just as it was given to Saren." Shiala said after she separated from Shepard, and the Commander's senses returned to her. "The ancestral memories of the Protheans are a part of you now...as well as...something much older...a message?" She held her head in her hands as she was bombarded by a rush of information that wasn't there before.

"You okay, Jane?" Ben asked his girlfriend. "What did you see?"

"The Prothean shit is still all gibberish to me." Shepard said as she rubbed her temples. "Must take a while to sink in, or something. But the other message was clear as day...it was from Paradox." That got everybody's immediate attention, especially Shiala, who was still trying to make sense of it herself.

"What did he have to say?" Ashley inquired. "Must have been something really important, for him to have gone back over 50,000 years to give it to this thing."

"Well, first of all, the message wasn't for us specifically." Shepard answered. "It was just for anyone who managed to pry it from the Thorian's disgusting mind, except for those...Indoctrinated...by the Reapers." She shrugged as she settled on a term for it. "He made it so that the Reapers and those they controlled would never be able to understand it, encrypted it somehow. Must be why our new friend here didn't understand it until now."

"So what?" Wrex grunted skeptically. "She went into that thing brainwashed by the Reapers, then came out un-brainwashed?"

"Based on Paradox's message, that's exactly what happened." Shepard replied, slightly surprising Wrex that his sarcasm had actually been accurate. "The Thorian's spores act as some sort of counter agent to the Reaper's Indoctrination. In their raw form they come with some side effects, even beyond being a mind slave for the Thorian, but processing them can get rid of those problems."

"Sounds like Saren could have used some of those spores." Garrus said mockingly.

"...That actually makes sense." Shepard remarked insightfully. "If Saren was being controlled by the Reapers, it would explain why he's been deluded into thinking he can bargain with those monsters. It would also explain why Paradox said he was the only other potential Fulcrum in this cycle. Even with all his plans and all his experience against them, the Reapers can still turn the galaxy's best chance of victory against it." She sighed as she once again felt the immense weight of responsibility placed upon her.

"Not anymore they can't." Tali assured her. "You said it yourself, the Thorian spores can be processed into an anti-Indoctrination agent. We can take whatever stores of the spores ExoGeni obviously managed to collect, and make sure the Reapers won't be able to control anyone ever again."

"Those stores of Thorian spores Exo-Geni has accumulated will not be enough to create doses for the entire galaxy." Quasar shot the idea down immediately. "However, if the amount needed to create one dose of this anti-Indoctrination formula is equal to the amount needed for the Thorian to control its' thralls, and based on my data on ExoGeni's stockpiles, there should be enough for approximately 1,000 key individuals."

"...I don't even wanna know what they were planning to do with that many Thorian spores." Kaidan shuddered in disgust.

"I can hazard a guess." Shepard growled before remembering that they were not alone. "I...guess you heard all of that, huh?" She asked Shiala sheepishly.

"...I do have many questions, but I can tell that now is not the time." Shiala responded, trying to keep herself from thinking about the potentially worldview shattering information she'd overheard. "There is no need to worry. Even if I fully understood your conversation, I would keep it to myself. I do owe you all my life after all."

"That's a relief." Shepard sighed, making a mental promise not to slip up like that again. "So what are you going to do now?"

"...I had originally intended to stay here and help the colonists rebuild." Shiala admitted. "These people have suffered greatly, and I had contributed to that...After hearing your conversation however, and comprehending the message this...Paradox left with the Thorian just now, I believe it would be for the best if I went with all of you." She explained. "I do not know how any side effects from my exposure to the Thorian will impact my combat abilities, my biotics especially, but I have other uses outside of that. Not only will having someone directly exposed to the Thorian spores available for live tests be helpful to you in developing countermeasures to the Indoctrination these Reapers use, but I have an extensive understanding of Benezia's resources and connections, due to having been one of the few to join her in her doomed endeavors to stop Saren...I also want to try and save Benezia herself, if at all possible." Out of the corner of his eye, Ben noticed Liara tear-up slightly at the possibility of saving her estranged mother, showing a desire for reconciliation even now.

"Welcome aboard then." Shepard greeted their newest crewmate warmly. "First thing's first, seeing as you're an Asari, you have to go through our special initiation for Asari members." She grinned mischievously, the rest of the crew already restraining their laughter from their obvious expectations. "Nothing too extreme, mind you. All you need to do is meld with Ben for a bit." She gestured to their resident shapeshifter, who rolled his eyes as if he knew this had been coming.

"C'mon Jane, she doesn't have to-" Ben started to deny.

"It is quite alright." Shiala assured him as she approached. "I am familiar with such hazing rituals, and do not mind." She said as she placed her hands on his head. "Embrace Eternity."

Sorry for ending it on a cliffhanger like that, and for taking so long, and for not having any good excuses for my absence. On the plus side, this chapter is 1.5x longer than my usual fare, and we got a new crew member (and possibly new member of Ben's Harem) for the Normandy. I always felt that Shiala was such an underused character. Hopefully I can make her more than just a Liara knock-off with green skin and sketchy biotics. Speaking of Liara, will the crew be able to save her mother as she so clearly now hopes? Also, the head of the Feros colony gets to survive the mission, as do most of the colonists, and the colony itself is back on the right track. Plus, ExoGeni is pretty much Shepard's bitch now, and the Thorian Spores have been acquired, along with a countermeasure to one of the Reaper's most dangerous weapons. Also, we got a whole buttload of new Assignments in the que, and you know what that means...MORE ASSIGNMENT CHAPTERS!