Deus Ex Human Revolution is the property of Eidos/Square Enix

Mass Effect is the property of Bioware and Electronic Arts

Mass Effect: Human Revolution

Chapter 23: The Masque of the Black Queen Part IV

or

Heaven and Hell

~[h+]~

"Goddamned lazy pendejos!" cursed Vega as he fixed the Mako II's suspension with just an Omni-tool. That low-orbit drop had not been kind to the machinery, and the ash kicked up by the wind had gummed up some of the works. Finding that Mining station on the way to the artifact site had been a blessing - or it should have been, if those damned miners could be bothered to get off their lazy asses. They were nowhere to be seen around the garage, but he had been told they were everywhere else on the station that didn't involve any physical work whatsoever.

Vega took time to admire his handiwork, and the Mako II itself: the design was basically the first Mako IFV, but with modifications based on user feedback straight from the field. It was roomier, had better traction, and had rear mounted micro-jets to give it that extra push needed to climb that steep cliff. If the Mako I had heart, then the Mako II had soul. Still, it had quirks of its own, and a shitty suspension was one of them. The filter-less intakes were another.

"Vega to Anderson?

"Anderson here. Got something to report?"

"The suspension's fixed and I'm about to spray the engine with some cleansing fluid to clean out the ash. Should be ready to go in half an hour."

"Good work, Vega. We won't be long, just as soon as we figure out what happened to the miners."

"They're not dead, just lazy, sir."

~[h+]~

"They'll be dead soon if we can't snap them out of this lethargy, Vega." said Anderson over the TAC-Com. He was with Jondum Bau in the Foreman Dobson's office, looking over an email correspondence between him and Foreman Parker, the leader of the miner's rights movement. Near as they could tell, Parker had decided to completely shut down the flow of raw Element Zero by going on strike. The contents of the last email read as such:

Redwater and the Temps don't want to deal? Fine. Tell everyone to STOP WORKING. The fat cats want their eezo? They can mine it their own damned selves until they give us what we want.

And Dobson and his men had taken the 'stop working' part quite seriously. Too seriously. Dobson was asleep at his desk, smelling of sweat, piss and shit, and no amount of prodding could wake him. The other miners and techs were in their quarters or in the rec room, either getting high on weed or just watching an huge playlist of vids on a shuffle loop. They were conscious, but attempts at communicating with them were met with disinterested mumbles. Taylor had tried using a stim on one, but it only succeeded in raising the miner's heart rate by one beat per minute.

"Benezia's influence over these people is... stronger than I imagined." commented Bau. "Whatever brainwashing technology she used on these men, it seems to be affecting the whole planet."

Bau and the Normandy team had boarded the Ascalon, before making a drop onto Caleston's surface. They spent hours investigating the ghost ship, fighting the occasional Geth. From the crew's personal logs, it was obvious that Benezia had mentally compromised them somehow, and then did the same to certain members of Caleston's communities, if the security logs were anything to go by. But exactly how she accomplished this? That part eluded the Spectre. Anderson was a bit skeptical, naturally.

"I'm still not sure I buy this whole hypnosis thing. If she had that ability, She would have captured T'soni with the Templars at her disposal, and taken the artifact with the help of the miners. Instead the miners choke up the supply of element zero, ruin the local economy and Syneu becomes a police state under Templar rule. If the news stream we've been catching is any indication, it's chaos down there."

"We assumed that T'soni and the artifact were her primary goals, mostly because those were what I would be after in her place. Maybe the true goal is to sow chaos. Saren... had always been vocal about humanity's growth, and in one of his more infamous rants he claimed that Sol was one bad day away from becoming a small Terminus system. Maybe Caleston is a test to prove that theory..."

Anderson shook his head. Saren, planning to destroy humanity through sociology? What was the point of marshaling a force of synthetics, then?

He decided to check on the rest of the Squad. Maybe they had found something more concrete: a canister of sleeping gas, maybe.

"Anderson to squad, report."

"Vega here: still working on the IFV, sir."

"Taylor here: I tried every med combination I can think of. Unless you want me to risk heart attacks I can't get these people out of their funk, sir."

"Wrex here, still looking for decent loot."

"Jenkins here, err- nothing to report, sir."

"Williams here: I'd just like to report that Wrex and Jenkins just stuffed some bags of weed into their packs. Sir."

"What?" asked Wrex. "We asked if we could take it. The guy said yes!"

"He just grunted and drooled!"

"No blazing on the job, you two. I shouldn't have to remind you of this."

"I wasn't going to blaze!" protested Jenkins. "Honest!"

"I did see a lot of Marijuana plants in hydroponics, sir. " Commented Taylor. "Maybe they modified it, or Caleston's soil altered it? We should bring some back to Dr Chakwas for analysis, just in case."

"Agreed; Jenkins, you mark those bags as bio-hazardous samples, got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"I think we've seen all that we needed to see and done all that we can here. Everyone, head back to the garage. Once we've secured the artifact, I'll be sure to call Alliance Command to send relief efforts."

"Agreed," replied Bau. "We've lost enough time as it is."

~[h+]~

"Man, this Mako II handles like a dream!" exclaimed Vega.

"Watch out for the river of lava, goddammit!" screamed Williams as Vega swerved the vehicle a little too close to a cliff for comfort. "Ever heard of convection?! I don't want to cook inside this thing!"

"Aw, quit your bellyaching, woman!" chuckled Wrex. The Krogan was sitting in the auto-cannon turret, having taken on the job of gunner due to his 'extensive experience in heavy weapons'. "A little pants-shitting terror goes a long way towards keeping your mind sharp. It's good for ya!"

"And it's a straight way to the Artifact site, in any case." said Vega as he stepped on the accelerator. "So relax and enjoy the ride!"

The mission had changed. Lord-Captain Bafford's logs detailed a working Prothean artifact excavated by RedWater Mining, and the Asari archaeologists that the company had consulted had, strangely enough, omitted to mention that in their reports to the University of Thessia. Bau thought he should look into this, as withholding functioning Prothean tech was a severe crime in Council space. More urgently, neither Bau nor Anderson wanted to see a repeat of Eden Prime, and decided to secure or destroy the Prothean monolith before Saren got wind of it.

T'soni... T'soni was now a secondary concern. Bau hoped to find her at the dig site, but judging from the logs on the Ascalon and from the situation on Syneu, he didn't expect her to be alive.

"Sir!" Taylor called out to Anderson. "I've got a huge contact on the scopes! Displacement is frigate class, profile is Thessian... It's the Waking Dreamer, approaching fast from our six o'clock!"

"Patch me through to the Normandy!" commanded Anderson.

"Already done, sir!"

"Joker, we're going to need air supp-"

"Wait," interrupted Taylor. "It's ignoring us!"

"They can't have missed us!" exclaimed Vega. "We're in the middle of a field kicking up ashes at seventy kilometers an hour!"

"It's dropping something on our way: heavy mass signatures, five of them, half a click in front of us and closing!"

"I see them!" shouted Wrex. "Geth platforms, huge ones!"

"Colossi?" asked Bau.

"I see them too! Two arms, two legs... No..." muttered Vega. "They're Wanzers. Geth Wanzers!..."

Everyone in the passenger cabin looked at each other in horror.

"Urdnot." said Anderson, his voice cold. "Fire at will."

~[h+]~

Earlier...

After hours of radio silence, Hein had finally decided to communicate with the Deep Eyes. Apparently, the Normandy had arrived early, and Hein had been forced to run the ship as silently as possible to avoid being detected. Apparently the Alliance vessel had just dipped low to make an orbital drop, and the window of opportunity to speak with the ground team was only ten minutes long. From within the Spooky truck, Grey relayed the events of the past few hours in as few words as possible, and Hein processed everything he said.

"We're still go for the recovery mission, sir. We've still got a covert route into the Prothean Monolith and a way off planet should we need it. Alternatively, we could use the IFF for a quick airdrop near the dig site."

"And alert every Templar in the area. I'm not interested in sending you on a suicide mission, Captain." Hein's frown flickered on the monitor. "Secure your Copperhead and then proceed to the Prothean Undercity."

"Is it just me," whispered Garrus to Jensen, "Or is the Colonel being... reasonable?" Jensen shushed him.

"There's also the matter of T'soni's safety. There isn't a spot on Caleston that the Templars won't find her and while she's safer with us than anyone else, we're headed into harm's way. We could have Highwind fly her to you, but once we take off the Templars will be onto our hijacked IFF fairly quickly. It would be a one way trip, but the mission would be mostly successful and we'd be on our way to accomplish our second objective."

"And then you'd have to take on an entire Templar battalion to get off the planet. Again, not interested in a suicide mission."

"...Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Always."

"We've made the situation on Caleston worse by staying here. And Benezia's... abilities are an unknown we're simply neither trained nor prepared for. T'soni's safe. We should cash in our chips and go home."

"Hm hm... Mr. Shadow? Do you share that sentiment?"

Grey and Jensen frowned under their helmets, surprised by the question. What did Hein care about Adam's input- and why?

Jensen put some thought into it, and found himself agreeing with Grey. "I think he's right. I can get in and out of a highly secure facility or even a military bunker well enough, but dealing with a nearly omniscient Asari that can get inside your head thanks to an alien device is outside my area of expertise."

Hein snorted derisively. "What's the matter, you two? Thought you'd shoot up some aliens and save the day, Captain? And you..." he then eyed Jensen. "...probably thought you'd crawl in a few vents, hack a few terminals and then go home, hm?"

"Ah, there's the Hein we know." Neil whispered to Garrus, who nodded quietly.

Grey gritted his teeth, repressing his anger at being toyed with. "Sir, we don't have the experience to-"

"You have no idea what's at stake here, what Benezia really represents. There is no training module, no VR sim to help you deal with the likes of her, and the fate of the galaxy may very well depend on all of you earning that experience, the wisdom to face that insanity." Then, Hein's expression softened, and Grey was unnerved by how quickly he could switch emotional gears. Aki swore to Grey that Hein wasn't a psychopath, but sometimes he wondered... "But you're right. It's a bit too much to handle, isn't it? The sane thing to do is to leave, but the important thing to do is to stay the course. Let's bring in a tie-breaker. Ms. T'soni?"

The young Asari girl's eyes widened in surprise. "Y-yes?"

"Seeing as these two gentlemen are so concerned for your safety, what do you think we should do now? Should we abandon the relic to Benezia and save everyone in this truck, including yourself?"

Manah was not used to this, to be asked to make such a major decision. She had always followed the path others had set for her: Her mother's, the Justicars'. And now these strange, short-lived aliens were giving her such an important choice to make. It was almost overwhelming...

"I don't want to see anyone else get hurt for my sake... But I...I just want to be safe."

"Well," said Ryan. "I'd say that settles it. Let's get out of here."

"No, wait! Let me finish..." Manah took a deep breath. "The Prothean monolith is... it represents an aspect of Prothean civilization that we've never seen before... Something that might be even more powerful than the manipulation of Dark Energy! I can't allow my mother to take it, and if you are going to take it away from her, then for you to succeed I MUST come with you. Opening up the Monolith requires my expertise, as will walking through the maze of the Undercity."

"We'll be going up against Templars, your mother's personal guard, maybe even the Geth." stated Ryan. "Do you understand that we can't guarantee your safety should we encounter them?"

"I understand... but my life, in the grand scheme of things, is not important."

Hein smiled approvingly. "Well then, there you have it gentlemen. Are you going to show less spine than a petite Asari?"

"...No, sir." said Grey. "We're going to proceed with the mission. If we personally encounter Benezia, what are we to do? Capture her?"

"If you can, yes. If not... then kill her. Durendal out."

~[h+]~

On the Durendal's CIC, Dr. Ross glared daggers at Hein.

"You should have ordered them to come back!" she rebuked. "The situation on Caleston-"

"The situation on Caleston will only get worse as long as that artifact remains on the planet."

"Then we should let the Alliance handle it! You've seen that orbital drop vector, they're headed there right now!"

"The Alliance?" Hein voice ran cold, his usual devil-may-care attitude gone. "I had faith in the Alliance, once, and I gave them my finest creation. And do you know what they did with...it? Do you know what they did, hm? They threw it away."

Ross wasn't sure what Hein meant... was he talking about the Durendal? No, that wasn't right, the Durendal was a United States project, and the Alliance had been the one to pick up its pieces.

"The Alliance..." Hein continued, his voice dripping with a bitter venom. "...has failed me, completely and utterly. It has proven itself undeserving of the true gift of the Protheans... We're on the edge of a revolution, Dr Ross, and I intend to leave the Alliance and its masters behind to stew in their own obsolescence... And besides..." Hein put his smile back on. "Anderson seems to have an intense dislike for me."

~[h+]~

While the GARDIAN system protecting the airspace above Syneu was an ironclad web, the Starport's security was... less so. The area reserved for small VTOL craft like the Copperhead was protected by a chain link fence and barbed wire. Hashmal infantry support mechs patrolled the area, but for a stealthy cyborg with two hackers and a pilot in tow, they had proven surprisingly easy to deal with. Jensen approached them cloaked, stuck a small wireless device on their software maintenance ports, and Moody hacked into the mechs using a computer mounted in his arm, an old ORION-COMP 2080 modded to have the full functions of an Omni-Tool. Thanks to Moody's hacks, the Hashmalim would be staying perfectly still, completely blind, but the data they transmitted back to their control center would make them appear to be functional and on patrol.

"Couldn't you hack those to be loyal to us?" asked Neil. He and the Spookies were hiding in a ditch while Jensen sneaked about. "My pals could use the firepower when they go down there."

"Sure, I could!" said Moody. "But then I'd have to cut off the Hashmal's data feed to its Command and Control system, and that would send the whole place into high alert."

"Just be glad they're not shooting at us with those heavy machine guns, dude!" added Manuel. "Or those plasma throw-Whoa!"

Manuel yelped as Jensen landed besides him and decloaked. "That's the last of them, the way to the Copperhead's landing pad is clear. Let's go."

They made their way to the landing pad and, once again, the Spookies had to hide while Jensen took down a few patrolling Templars while Neil covered him with his DMR. The dark-armored cyborg rendered four Knights unconscious with ease, but a Crusader would have nearly spotted Jensen's handiwork had Neil not distracted the heavily armored soldier by shooting out a nearby light. Adam quickly dispatched the Crusader by kicking him in the back of the knee, tearing off his helmet's faceplate, and shoving a stunner right into his face.

"Thanks." said Jensen through his wireless, grateful for the support.

"Anytime," replied Neil as he signaled the Spookies to come out of hiding and get to work. "Hey, Je- I mean, Shadow... I've been meaning to ask: how much time have you spent under cloak just now?"

"...I'd say about ten minutes, why?"

"...Ten minutes?! And you haven't gone bonkers?"

"I'm missing something here. What are you even talking about?"

"EM-based personal cloaking systems like yours tend to cause severe psychosis through overuse. Look, are you sure you're okay?"

"...I'm fine. Cloaking for long periods of time has never been a problem for me."

"Well, that's just... huh, you know what? Never mind. We still have some work to do."

~[h+]~

"Moody to Spooky Truck, come in, Mister Wolf?"

"Wolf here," replied Grey. "Got something to report?"

"The IFF pulse beacon is plugged in and your bird is ready for a big damn rescue. Shadow's on his way back and Highwind's at the pilot's seat. Hey, Wolf? Once this DARPA fella has us sign his paperwork, you think we can drop the whole codenames nonsense? I can barely keep those stupid things straight. Maybe we could do a proper round of re-introductions over a beer when this is all over? What do you say?"

Grey smiled at that: A beer did sound real nice right then. "Sure. First round's on me."

"Count me in," said Neil over the wireless. "I think we could all use a drink after this."

"You going to be okay stuck in that cockpit, Neil?"

"Aw, don't you worry about me, I've got company... But, I'm not sure I feel okay about leaving you guys to do the hard work while I just sit here..."

Left unsaid was the reminder of the events of Akuze, from Neil's perspective. With only a lightly armed drop ship, he was unable to help anyone on the ground. The Thresher Maws made landing impossible, and Neil was forced to hear his comrades scream over the wireless as they were devoured by the acid spit of the Maws.

"Don't you worry, Neil. We're all coming back. Count on it."

Jensen entered the truck, and Grey started up the engine.

~[h+]~

To pass the time on the way to the nearest elevator to the Undercity, Jane had decided to show Manah the coins she had taken from Atkins' stash, if only to figure out what was so special about old pieces of bronze with a worthless yellow green gem set inside of it.

Manah finished eating her second ration bar, and examined the coins that Jane set on the table. "Prothean Macca, from the hundredth and seventh era."

"Are they worth anything?" asked Jane.

"Most of them? Nothing, but the see the glow in these ones?" Manah set aside seven of the Prothean coins. Their gems, indeed, glowed a faint light. "These are considered priceless, since the gems are full."

"Full of what?"

"Energy. Each Prothean Macca coin contains about, let me do some conversion..." Manah did some quick mathematics in her head, counting with her fingers. "...Around seven of your gigajoules in potential thermal and electrical energy."

Jane whistled. "That's... wow, that's easily half as much as what you get in an OVO can. Wait, Protheans used super-batteries as currency?"

"Protheans apparently saw little worth in paper or precious metals. Energy was far more useful to them, and they centered their economy on it."

"You'd think they'd base their economy around Eezo."

"And Element Zero itself is worth little without electric energy."

"Hm, I guess you got a point there. So uh, how much to these things go on the market? A lot?"

"That depends on who you're selling it to. Artifact collectors are willing to pay at least a million credits for a fully charged Macca coin, and only five thousand at most for an intact but discharged one."

"Well damn, if I had known ancient batteries were worth so much, I'd have taken a whole lot more!"

~[h+]~

While Manah and Jane were discussing ancient batteries, Ryan was busy dealing with modern-day ones by swapping out the Bio-electric gel from one of the Spooky truck's spare OVO tanks into Garrus' salvaged particle gun. The Longinus, instead of using regular OVO cans, had a 600ml rod-shaped container fitted on the length of the gun's barrel, insulated from the gun's heat by a thin layer of Aerogel. It made wielding it in its sword mode less awkward to wield, but replacing the battery was tricky. Having no spare Bio-electric gel rods, swapping out the gel was the only way to bring it back into full charge.

"Alright, that should give you twelve shots to work with," said Ryan as he handed to freshly charged weapon back to Garrus. "Try to keep at least some power in the battery: the gun's sword mode also needs some juice."

"Sword mode, huh?" said Garrus, as the weapon folded back into storage mode. "Can you explain to me something? Why do the Templars like hand-to-hand combat so much to the point of integrating melee weapons into their guns? Those Katara rifles they use look like big knives, and then you've got this particle rifle here. I mean, I get the idea: Guns are cool. Swords are cool. But bringing the two together? It seems a bit... silly."

"It's not a new idea. I mean, back on Earth? We used to fix bayonets on muskets a few centuries back."

"Right, but times have changed: swords and spears are outdated weapons on the battlefield."

"Times are changing right now, too. The armor I'm wearing can absorb a great deal of small arms fire, shield or no shield, and it's not even made with modern CNT materials. Personal protection technology is starting to catch up with kinetic offensive technology, and soon the only reliable way for a soldier to kill another soldier is by using high-energy melee weapons, like heat knives or high-frequency blades."

"I guess the Templars want to be ready for when war changes back to constant, bloody hand-to-hand carnage."

Certain that Garrus was all set up, Ryan approached the Asari archeologist. "Excuse me, Mrs. T'soni? Seeing as you'll be coming with us, I think you should put this on." He put a thick belt with a heavy buckle on the table. "Moody had this laying around. It's a civilian-grade personal kinetic barrier, could you put this on so we won't have to worry too much about you getting hit by a stray bullet?

"Oh! Yes, of course, thank you." She proceeded to strap the belt around her waist and pressed its activation switch. The shield belt calibrated itself to her form, and a blue aura flickered across her body for a moment.

"Don't go thinking you're invincible with that thing on, okay?" said Jane. "If there's shooting, you run and hide or, failing that, hide behind the thickest piece of cover you can find."

"Everyone!" Grey said out loud from the cab. The truck slowed down, and parked in front of a factory owned by RedWater. "We've arrived at the access points. Double check your gear, and let's get moving. Shadow, Jane? Moody tells me this place is guarded by a handful of security guards. Take them out quietly and non-lethally."

Grey opened the side door that led out of the semi-trailer, and stepped out. Everyone followed him out, ready to head deep underground into the unknown.

"Let's get to work, people."

~[h+]~

Caim sat near a pile made out of the corpses of the young fools that thought they could take on the might of God's own army. It had only been thirty minutes since the hostilities ended. The gangs had fought bravely, and had fought to the bitter end. Of course, Caim was a master at making ends so very bitter.

He examined his favored weapon: a curved, wide black blade the length of a man, like a cleaver but thicker and longer. Its edge cooled, and Caim proceeded to wipe off the burnt blood caked on it with a dry cloth. He had done this so many times it had become a sort of ritual.

Then the hunger came again.

Ever since Mindoir, ever since he had witnessed the terrible fate that the Alien priests had put his family through, the hunger had been there. It was not a hunger of the body. Food did not sate it, no matter how much he ate.

When Inquisitor Grissom had taken him in, he had said that it was a hunger of the soul, and that only a life spent in the service of God could fill that terrible void. Caim had believed him, and had gone through the torturous training regimen that made all Templars a force to be reckoned with. He had learned the mantras and the prayers, learned the bibles by heart, and had faithfully observed the holy days. Yet that screaming void inside of him did not subside.

And then a man had died by his hand for the very first time, and he felt the hunger still itself for a moment. The relief had been so... palpable, so soothing, and yet his blood still ran hot. Death, violent and bloody, was what Caim needed to relieve the pain, and the stronger the kill, the more his spirit was soothed. He threw himself into combat with such wild Zeal that his superiors had taken notice, had examined his worth as a leader of men, and had not found him lacking in the least.

"Lord Commander?" a timid young Scribe came up besides him and gave a proper Templar salute by crossing his arms over his heart and taking a slight bow.

Caim nodded in his direction. "Scribe? What news do you bring me?"

"The Artisans sent me to report to you that your Wanzer has been repaired. Lord Major Vael also reported that he has dealt with the situation in the Alienage by dispatching a dozen Hashmalim to suppress the gathering crowd. They've returned peacefully to their...business."

"Hmph. Vael always was too bloody soft. He should have just killed them all."

"...Is, that an order, milord?"

"No." after all, what sport could a bunch filthy alien hedonists offer him? "What of my Coterie? Are they well?"

"Ah, the healers have begun reattaching the legs of Ser Hart, and he should recover within two days. Ser Osha's injuries are more severe, her spine is cracked, and careful work will have to be done to restore her."

"Good... Good. Anything else to report?"

"Nothing else, milord."

"Then you are dismissed, Scribe."

"Thank you, milord. May the god Bapho- ungh!" The scribe lost his balance for a moment, and shook his head in confusion. "...May... may the Black Queen watch over you." The scribe saluted again, and left Caim to ponder his next move.

The hardened Templar's thoughts wandered back to the Abomination that had taken T'soni from his grasp, and defeated both if his companions so... completely. Thoughts of vengeance begat feelings of eagerness. He wanted to face him again, and destroy him so utterly.

He hoped the Black Queen would give him another chance...

~[h+]~

The Matriarch sat cross-legged in front of the Prothean Monolith, meditating on its form as its power hummed through the air, a forbidding, electric aura that challenged anyone that came near it to glean secrets from it at the risk of their sanity. Heat from Caleston's core made it warm to the touch, while the air that came from above through the wide shaft that RedWater had built above it cooled it down.

The Matriarch kept her distance, paying heed to that aura, denying herself the power, waiting patiently for the researchers under her command to unlock the device and allow her to bring its knowledge to her Lord Saren.

The Black Queen drank from that aura, whetting her own appetite, eager for the men under her thrall to force the Grimoire open and allow her to claim this portion of the power of Aleph for herself.

Who was Aleph, she wondered? The name echoed in her thoughts, but she could not recall who it belonged to. She had been asleep for far too long...

The Matriarch had wanted Caleston under her control, and when she planted herself into the minds of the Senior Templars on that world she had commanded them to do as they always did, but for her sake.

The Black Queen wanted Vulcanus lost to all dominion, to all reason, and when she wormed her way into the souls of every pillar of Caleston's community, she had seduced them into indulging their true desires, at the cost of everything around them.

The Matriarch did not oppose the Black Queen.

The Black Queen did not thwart the Matriarch.

The Matriarch realized how odd this was... how could one person want two mutually different things? How could she serve Saren, with her mind so divided?

"Ah, Benezia... Even now you long to please your master, as you indulge your personal envies." the matriarch felt someone press behind her, and a hand with a skin of liquid metal, dark blue with a red glint, reached out and caressed her left breast. Another hand caressed the small of her back, and Benezia's skin became flush with blood. The Black Queen's ghostly touch was electric, soothing, and disarming. "Saren is far, far away from here, and right now, right here, there is only you..."

The Matriarch looked around her: no one paid heed to the regal, dark figure behind her. Only she could see her, hear her...

"...Ah!"

...Feel her, as she bit her ear.

"You could have called upon him the minute you saw this prize, but you wanted it all to yourself... No, that's not right. You wanted Manah all to yourself."

"I want Manah to serve Saren, as I serve him."

"Serve? Oh, she will serve him, indeed. How long before your so-called Lord Saren would fall for her innocent charms, and his thoughts turn to her more and more, and her whispers begin to take hold in his black heart? She was always beautiful, and so, so very fragile, like a flower... so unlike you, an old, imperious pillar of stone, ever calm. Her heart burned with the flame of youth while yours withered into a block of ice as age began to show its marks on the texture of your skin. Even as she smiled at you lovingly, you wanted nothing more than strangle the very life out of her!"

"No, it isn't true... I... I have always loved my daughters."

"Was it love that made you send Manah away to be locked up in a tower of pale stone, never to be seen again? Was it love that drove you to put her in the tender care of the Justicars to be beaten, scarred, and violated into submission?"

"She has a condition, she needed to be protected..."

"Does it still hurt, the sight of your poor little wing's eyes, empty of all spirit for all eternity? Does it still hurt to remember what it feels like to see her life flee her body as you held that pillow tight against her face?"

"It was an accident!... She couldn't help it!"

The dark figure hugged her from behind. "Oh, you poor thing!... I see that it still does! And the knowledge that Manah would spend a lifetime imprisoned brought you such succor."

"...Yes. It felt... good. It felt good to watch her cry and scream as the Justicars came to take her away..."

"Yes, open yourself to the shadows of your heart..."

"Yes, it felt good to know that she would suffer for the sorrow she had wrought... and then I heard the news: Manah had seduced her jailors with the promise of a deeper understanding of the ancient Protheans, and all I wanted to do at that moment was hunt her down and make her pay..."

"Yes, embrace what you are, embrace your dark desires, and I shall give you all that you wish for... I shall grant you an eternity of pleasures, a perpetuity of youth, and power everlasting... and most importantly of all..."

"...We shall make Manah suffer for an aeon."

"Yes, I shall..."

The dark figure became as smoke, and melted into the body of the Matriarch, and just like that, she became as much a part of the Black Queen as the Black Queen became part of her. Her awareness of the world increased ten-fold, and she could feel... everything in it. It was almost overwhelming, this power to turn the souls of everyone around her to whatever purposes she required. She could feel the electricity that ran through her Biotic nodes, every single one of them pulsed in unison. She lifted herself up, and she floated just a few inches above the ground, and the exercise did not tire her at all. Yes, this was proper. When next Saren saw her he would see her as an equal... and perhaps, something more.

As if inspired by her newfound focus and presence, the Templar sages around her redoubled their efforts, and managed to unmake one of the locks on the Monolith. It opened slightly, and a beam of orange-red light shot up above.

~[h+]~

"See?" shouted Wrex as the last of the Geth Wanzers fell into a lifeless, smoking heap, its shell ravaged by a three-shot burst of 15 mm tungsten carbine slugs accelerated at two kilometers per second. "You can't beat a tank when it comes to armored ground combat."

"We're in an IFV." corrected Taylor.

"Whatever!"

"Mako: Four! Wanzers? Zero!" Williams agreed, happily.

Vega, on the other hand, while thrilled to be alive, had to outmaneuver skating Wanzers on a wheeled vehicle on dusty terrain irrigated by lava. "Yeah, well, it was touch and go there for a second! Whew!"

"Settle down, everyone," said Anderson. "The mission's not over. Anything on the scopes, Taylor?"

"Nothing, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled."

Jondum Bau and the rest of the team had just arrived at the edge of a small prefab town. It was built around the hundred meter wide mouth of the deep pit RedWater had dug above the monolith, with the intention of extracting the artifact AND the huge battery it was attached to. Apparently, it would have revolutionized the energy industry. With such a prize at stake and with the need for secrecy, RedWater's operations on Caleston had run themselves ragged trying to undertake both the project AND maintain a steady supply of Element Zero.

Just two kilometers through the town and a long, twelve kilometer elevator ride down the planet's crust later, and Bau's mission would be nearly complete.

Anderson gave everyone their orders. "Vega, Urdnot, Taylor and I will go on foot to escort the Mako while it makes its way through the town. Williams, man the gun. Jenkins, you'll be driving - remember to keep it slow and steady. Bau, I know I can't give you orders, but..."

"I shall stay inside and operate the vehicle's sensors. I think I'll be able to spot trouble before it spots us."

"Thank you. Alright, let's get-"

The ground shook and trembled for a few seconds, then stopped.

"Aw, dammit!" cursed Jenkins. "Just what we needed, an Earthquake!"

"Sir?" interrupted Vega. "I think you should see this!"

Most of the Team stepped outside of the IFV to see with their own eyes what was happening. A beam of orange red light emanated from the center of town, and where the beam and the sky met, dark clouds gathered in a swirl. Thunder split the sky, and for the first time in an eon rain fell on the ashen plains of Caleston.

"Sweet Mother of God in Heaven..." muttered Williams. "Do you think... do you think we're too late?"

"No." said Bau as he cocked his handgun, checking the ammo block. "It is not too late to neutralize Benezia, at least."

"Everyone," commanded Anderson, "to your positions, and move out!"

~[h+]~

"Holy shit." muttered Jane at the sight.

"Yeah." agreed Ryan. "No kidding."

Twelve kilometers within Caleston's crust was a empty space 3 kilometers high and 18 kilometers wide, and built on its floor was the Prothean Undercity. Evenly spaced tall pillars of white stone, engraved with bas-reliefs of mighty beasts, held the ceiling in place. A faint blue glow, emanating from a dense flora of bio-luminescent fungi formations that grew on both the ceiling and the curved walls of a dense forest of buildings of incredibly detailed architecture, reminiscent of the Śikhara style of middle-age India blended with modern Thessian. The forest's buildings got progressively taller the closer to the city's center they were, and right in the middle of the spires was the Ziggurat, where the Monolith was kept.

The Deep Eyes' breaths were taken away, their hearts overtaken with awe. While they had all traveled to different planets, exiting that elevator had felt like stepping into a completely different world.

Manah smiled a little sadly; she had hoped she would return here under better circumstances.

As for Jensen, he felt an odd sense of deja-vu that irritated the back of his head, along with a sense of loss that weighed down his heart... And he realized those were odd feelings to have, considering he had never been here before.

"This place... it's seen better days." he said.

"Yes, it did." replied Manah. "One hundred thousand years ago... and it's held up quite nicely, I think, considering its age. The Protheans were master builders. Even when they used the most primitive materials: Stone, wood... their artifices lasted far, far longer than anything we could build using modern technology. See the Ziggurat?" Manah pointed at the central building. "I guarantee you won't see a scratch on it."

"What's with the ugly looking metal cylinder on top of it." asked Ryan. "It kinda stands out..."

"That is part of the shaft RedWater dug to pull out the city's power core. The Monolith is set right on top of it."

"Why didn't they just take it out through one of the elevators?" asked Grey.

"Because it's too big." said Jensen.

"Yes, the Core is a hundred meters wide and over a kilometer long. RedWater was worried removing it would cause a surge of lava to flow out of the hole, and they thought to funnel the flow of lava to the surface and into a lake of lava through irrigation.

Grey became aghast. "Wait, we're only a kilometer away from Caleston's mantle?! This place should be hotter than an oven!"

"I feel fine," said Ryan.

"My...face isn't melting, sir." said Jane as she felt her skin beneath her Revenant tactical mask. "I think we're good."

"I cannot answer why the air of the Undercity is so cool," said Manah. "I suspect it might have to do something with the Core absorbing the heat... but that is just a theory."

"Well, it's no use speculating. Alright, everyone... we've still got six klicks to go on foot."

"It's a shame we can't keep using the Quad..." said Jane, pointing at the vehicle that had been waiting for them at the elevator. Apparently RedWater's prospectors used them to get around the Undercity through its system of obsidian roads. Many of them had fallen into disrepair, and many more were blocked by small mountains of fallen rubble.

"No complaining, soldier. We-"

The ground beneath their feet shook and trembled, and a wave of orange light burst out of the Ziggurat and washed over them harmlessly. The shaking stopped... and began shaking again more violently. The faint blue glow that illuminated the Undercity became a bright orange, and it took a moment for everyone to realize that it wasn't the fungi that had changed color.

The orange glow came from the lava swelling up behind them.

Garrus encapsulated how everyone was feeling at that particular moment with two simple words. "Oooooooh crap."

"RUN LIKE HELL!" screamed Grey.

~[h+]~

The Black Queen drank deep from the power that bled away from the monolith, even as the Templar Sages and their underlings fled the scene. Her presence became stronger, but something felt wrong. Someone was coming, intent on stopping her... yes, she could taste their defiance in the air.

High above was an old soldier, his tired body host to a heart full of quiet rage cloaked in sorrow. He was determined to exact revenge - any kind, even the littlest morsel would do - against Saren... even if it meant the men following him were to perish.

And slightly below, and far off in the distance, was a young broken warrior, his soul filled with sorrow masked by anger, intent on proving himself and the men accompanying him worthy once again... Even if it meant sacrificing his own life.

Besides that one was Him, the one that had resisted her whispers. And besides Him was... her...

That little whore.

Uncloaking beside her were several Geth platforms, and they stood there, silently waiting for her commands. She could not use her mind to command them, and that was something she would have to correct, soon.

"There are six interlopers, several kilometers west of here. One of them is my daughter... Marshal all the platforms you can spare to capture her, and kill the rest." As she said the words aloud, the Templars patrolling the Undercity received similar mental commands.

The Geth platforms proceeded to follow her orders, and the Black Queen smiled. Soon she would have gained more power than she had ever lost. Soon, she would have that vile little monster born of the void in her grasp again, and she would make her suffer.

But what to do with the old soldier?

Ah, yes.

"Caim..."

~[h+]~

Caim shivered with delight. His mistress was calling him, her disembodied voice echoing in the hunger, its sound soothing the void... Yes, besides satiating his bloodlust, the Black Queen's hold over him brought him relief. It was why he had forsaken his oath as a Templar and...

Wait, he thought. did I truly forsake my oath? When did I ever...

And then, just like that, the hunger deepened. Had she abandoned him?

"Fear not, my sweet Caim, I have not abandoned you... But there is blood to spill, and I want your thirst at its peak. Come! Come and slay all that wish me harm, Caim. My one, my only... my Champion."

Caim grinned from ear to ear. It was time to fetch his Angelus.

~[h+]~

"Keep moving!" screamed Grey. "We are not out of the woods yet!"

For the members of Durendal team, running through the labyrinthine streets and walkways was difficult enough when molten rock was dogging their footsteps, but fountains of lava burst all around them on top of their troubles, warming the air to a nearly unbearable level of heat.

The six-story high stone walkway they were running on had effectively turned into a bridge that connected both sides of an incredibly wide, newly-formed river of lava.

The path crumbled at the center, blocking their way. The gap was incredibly wide, but Jensen leapt across it easily, leaving the rest of his comrades on the other side. Garrus was ready to follow his partner, not to be outdone, but Ryan grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him.

"No!" he shouted. "You'll die!"

"I can make that jump, easily!" Garrus shot back.

"There's a lava flow right underneath us! The hot air will eat through your cheap Agent suit and cook you alive!"

"If we stay here we're going to cook anyways!"

Jensen deployed the Fandango blade and started slicing into one of the decorative pillars that once held up a glass roof. He cut a wedge into it, punched it off, and the pillar fell with a loud thud, bridging both sides of the gap. It was thick and wide enough to shield anyone walking onto it from the hot air, but only just.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" shouted Grey over the din of bursts of lava. "Move across it, everyone!"

"Wait!" Ryan shouted back. "It's starting to crumble, we can't go all at once!"

Grey cursed under his breath: why couldn't anything be simple? "Fine! T'soni, you're the lightest, you go first!"

Manah was hesitant to cross at first, scared out of her mind, and started walking carefully across the makeshift bridge.

"Hurry up!" urged Grey, and Manah ran, quickly understanding that if she took too long, the others would perish quickly. Adam took her hand as she neared the other side, and she crossed safely.

Jane followed suit, then Garrus, and Ryan had insisted that Grey go next, since he was lighter. Grey passed through, and he beckoned Ryan to traverse. The walkway crumbled behind him, and the large, heavy soldier ran on the crumbling span of the makeshift bridge, and the weight of his footfalls caused it to crack and break as he reached its middle. Grey and Jane screamed as he fell to his doom...

So this is how it ends, he thought, as the world slowed down around him. Fallen into perdition's very flames. It's... proper. It's just what I deserve...

He closed his eyes, and waited for his body to burn... and waited... and waited... and, wondering why he wasn't bathed in agonizing pain, he opened his eyes.

He was floating. Erratically, but floating, and he was slowly coming up.

He looked up, and got a glimpse of Manah's body flaring with dark energy that emanated from the element zero nodes in her body. She didn't reach out with mnemonics - she simply stood there, her body straight and breathless, a statue of alabaster wrapped in Saint-Elmo's flames. She was struggling: she had never manipulated anything as large or as heavy as a man before, and Ryan stalled due to her lack of training, his body aloft over the intense heat of the lava. She needed to hurry, or else he would be roasted alive.

"Take a deep breath." said Shadow at her side, his hand on her shoulder... but his voice sounded...different. "The dark flow of Starfire is more than just a field, it is your hand. Feel his mass as you would holding a stone, touching it, feeling its weight in your palm..."

His words took root in her mind, and before long she could feel Ryan, somehow... and it made it easier to keep him steady and pull him up. Shadow left her side and, along with Garrus reached out for the large Terran soldier to pull him up, and she gasped, trying to recover her lost stamina. She had never, ever used her biotics for so long before, and her inefficient biotic skills burned her out.

Now that Ryan's feet were on solid ground. he let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks; you three are God's own angels," he said to the Cyborg, the Turian and the Asari.

The other side of the walkway crumbled completely. "No time for that, keep moving!"

Just as they were about to reach the end of the walkway, it crumbled in front of them again, and just behind them as well. The six of them now stood on a platform held up by a rapidly melting pillar, and the whole thing was starting to wobble in the directions of a lake of fire and a small building some thirteen meters away.

"Everyone on the left!" shouted Grey. "We need to make this thing fall near that roof!"

"It's gonna be a rough landing!" said Garrus as he carried out Grey's order.

"It's better than the lava!"

"Not really arguing that, sir!"

The platform eventually lost all balance, and fell towards the building.

"Everyone, get ready to jump!"

"I-I-I..." Manah stuttered in terror. She didn't know if her bones could handle that landing. "I don't know if I-eek!"

Jensen picked her up a bridal carry as the platform started to fall, and on Grey's signal everyone leapt. He quickly overrode his Icarus Landing System and switched it on, intent on softening the landing to spare Manah's relatively fragile bones. They were both wrapped in a powerful golden electromagnetic field, and Manah gasped as the energy interacted with her nodes, causing them to flare and burst in a wide mass lightening field that wrapped the whole Durendal team. They all landed softly on the roof of the building, shocked at their suddenly lightened weight. They looked at their bodies, wrapped in blue energy, almost fascinated by the experience... well, almost everyone: Garrus had acquired a distaste with being tossed around by Biotics.

"Everyone alright?"

"Yeah..." said Ryan, his breath short. "We just need to catch our breaths."

Jane, doubled over and gasping, agreed. "We've been sprinting for over a kilometer and then some, sir. I think we're safe from the lava here."

"Take ten, everyone... or as long as this building doesn't collapse. Shadow? Didn't know that Icarus Landing System of yours could extend that far."

"It doesn't." Jensen replied as he set Manah down.

"I think that was me..." said Manah.

"Is that right?" Grey smiled, approving. "Well, seeing as you spared us quite a few broken bones... thank you, Ms. T'soni." It occurred to him then that maybe the United States military should look into investing in Biotics. The Alliance Navy certainly wasn't shy about it, and now he could see why.

"Oh, that's not..." her stomach gurgled, interrupting her attempt at modesty. She held her stomach with both hands, trying to quiet it down. "Oooh..."

"Are you... hungry? You just ate a whole daily ration not even an hour ago..."

Garrus explained on her behalf. "Biotics have an increased metabolism, and they need a hell of a lot more calories to burn."

"And she is pretty thin and small." noted Jensen.

"Right, not enough fat to burn. Here..." he withdrew a bar of flavorless concentrated protein and tried handing it to her, but recalled what Jensen said about her condition, and handed it to him instead. "...I don't need it."

"Oh, thank you..." Manah bowed with her hands in front of her, showing her gratitude.

"Hey! Is it just me, or is it getting dark now?" said Jane after a few minutes of rest.

Everyone looked up and around, and indeed, the Undercity returned to its dark blue glow, although many of the tall spires were lit from below by a dim and hellish orange-red light from below. The lava had cooled into magma, and the air became lukewarm.

"Well, that's one less problem. Is everyone rested?"

"I'm good to go, sir." confirmed Ryan.

"Ditto." said Jane. Garrus simply nodded, as did Jensen. Manah, unable to complain about her state, simply nodded as well.

"Alright then, we're moving out. Let's try and stay as far away from the ground level as possible. It's cooler now, but it's still pretty damned hot down there."

...

The large circular room they had arrived to was part of some kind of temple... or maybe a mausoleum, Grey had no idea. As for Jane, she was reminded of one of the many rooms of the St-Joseph's Oratory back home in Montreal, or its basilica as she recalled it, only with more of a hindu feel to it, and more bas-relief murals. The dome-shaped roof was separated into eight overlapping petals, and Jane figured they opened up to let the glow in or something.

"Do you..." Manah took a breath. "Do you still have those coins? I only need one - a charged one."

Jane shook her head. "Hm? Oh, sure. She took one out of her leg pack and dropped it into Manah's waiting hands. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do with it, however. When Manah slotted it in an indentation on the wall and the place became illuminated, she remembered.

"Oh, right. Battery coin." Jane sighed. "Well, there goes ten thousand platinum."

"You still got six, Jane," reminded Ryan. "Besides, you were probably going to spend all that coin on Quasar. Might as well use those Prothean, err...Marquis?"

"Macca."

"Right, Macca for something worthwhile, like getting us away from here. Place gives me the willies with that blue gloom all over the place."

Garrus snorted. "I prefer 'blue gloom' to 'red hot lava', but hey, I'm just picky that way."

Jane chuckled at that. "So, what are you using my coin for anyways, T'soni?"

Manah knelt in the center of a black stone circle, seven meters wide. It was, strangely enough, blank, and it stood out from the extremely detailed and decorated walls.

"I'm trying to activate this platform. It should be able to take us to the Ziggurat safely... or at least with little risk of us falling into magma."

"... I don't see any controls there, T'soni." commented Grey, skeptically.

"Well, that's because..." she put her hands on the circle, but nothing happened. "That's because... I... oh, curses! It's not working!"

Jensen stepped on the circle to see if he could help at all, and just then the circle generated a complex holographic mandala that glowed teal, with a complex yellow green sphere of interlocking parts in the center. Manah was joyous. "There! These are the controls for the floating platform!"

"Good, then take us out of here." commanded Grey.

"I-I need some time to solve this security puzzle, first..." said Manah as she grabbed the sphere. "I've solved things like these before in... in my spare time, this might take a few minutes."

"As long as it's not an hour." said Grey.

"Oh! It won't!... It might be a third of an hour, though." Manah manipulated the sphere, trying to figure out which pattern she had memorized would work on solving it.

"Great, gotta wait on the egghead figuring out an ancient Prothean video-game. Sir? Can I just say that I didn't sign up for any of this Indiana Jones crap? I'd rather be shooting shit."

Just as she said that, the Geth hoppers that had been stalking them sprang into action, and Templar soldiers burst into the room.

~[h+]~

"Hah! I am loving this shit!" shouted Wrex as his 300M Shotgun's slug tore its way into a Geth Juggernaut's main power core. It fell like a rag doll, and Wrex propped it up with his Biotics and threw it into a fire team of Geth wielding rocket launchers. Jacob detonated its residual dark energy field, causing an explosion of blue light that engulfed all four Geth within it.

This. This is what he loved. He hadn't been in a fight that good in a long while. He hadn't been part of a team worth a damn in a long while either, not since the good old days with Aleena. Vega proved to be handy with a GEP gun, Taylor proved to be very good at using combined Biotic techniques, and Anderson was a killer with an LMG, firing tight streams of high-velocity metal steadily and on target. The power-suit helped with that, of course, but old warriors needed every advantage to keep up in a young man's game.

Also: they had a tank. Having one on your side was always a good thing.

Wrex thought that maybe he should offer his services to Spectres more often. An Asari one, maybe, or a human should the Council ever make up their minds.

"Die, Alien scum!" screamed a charging power-armored Templar wielding a huge, two-handed melee weapon. Wrex did a quick double take at that one.

Wait, is that a rocket-powered axe? he thought. Are you serious?

"Die, idiot." Wrex replied coolly as he leveled his shotgun at the Templar's face and fired off another shot. The human's kinetic shields proved to be far more resilient than anticipated, and by the time the ammo shaver had put another round in the firing chamber, the Templar had come close enough to take a swing. Wrex attempted to block with his weapon, but wound up destroying it. The Templar swung again, and this time Wrex caught the axe's haft with his bare hands, dropping the ruined shotgun in the process. To his surprise, the human and he were evenly matched in strength.

Before he could take advantage of his weight to wrestle the uppity human to the ground, Anderson fired a burst from his light machine gun into the Templar's armored head. The bullets ricocheted inside, shredding his brains, and he fell over dead, leaving Wrex with a new weapon.

"Quit screwing around!" shouted Anderson. Lightning from the storm came down and struck a Geth Juggernaut standing on a rooftop, and the Captain ordered Vega to blow it up while its shields and actuators were completely scrambled.

"And again!" shouted Vega as the Geth platform exploded into shrapnel and liquid. "Is it just me, or are the Geth lightning bait? This is the seventh time I see them getting struck by it!"

"I like to think God's watching over us from on high," quipped Williams over the TAC-Com.

"Four incoming Geth stealth assault platforms from the north!" shouted Bau over the radio. "Marking them on your HUDs!"

"I got'em." said Wrex as his Biotics flared and he Charged at the four icons in his helmet's Tactical HUD. The lead Geth he slammed into flew off and crashed into a prefab house. He took one swing with his newfound melee weapon and the other three large machines were torn by the axe's head, propelled by micro-plasma jets, which also sent their mechanical guts flying around in a splatter of silver white blood. One of them survived and lamely crawled away, so Wrex drew out his new Executioner pistol and fired a slug straight into the synthetic's power core, finishing it off for good.

Wrex had to admit, using a huge melee weapon in a firefight might not have been smart, but it was certainly fun.

Too bad the fight was pretty much over: Ashley fired off a burst from the Mako II's cannon, and the Armature that had been harassing them with those damned slow moving balls of explosive dark energy went down.

"No more contacts on the scopes." radioed Bau.

"Everyone, back in formation." ordered Anderson. "We're just 3 minutes away from the pit."

"Hold on, there's a reason why I had us take this route. Mister Jenkins, stop the IFV."

~[h+]~

"Take your time, Bau." said Anderson sarcastically, "It's not like Benezia just activated an ancient Prothean artifact of unimaginable power."

"Your men have been fighting non-stop for close to an hour." he said as he rummaged through T'soni's things, his Venom shotgun hanging from a strap around his shoulder. "They could use some rest before we make our way down into the RedWater pit. Perfect opportunity for me to gather some intel."

Vega didn't want to contradict Anderson, but he silently agreed with the Spectre. Gene-mods or no, they were still human in the end. And waiting on a Spectre was a welcome change of pace from going from one chest-high wall to the next while Anderson kept the enemy suppressed. An hour of that got a bit boring fast.

Manah T'soni's lodgings (a thirty-six square meter room encased in thin metal walls) were pretty spartan, with only a few workdesks and a bed for furniture. And judging by the three cots on the floor she was forced to bunk with three others. That must have sucked.

He sat down a plastic chair near a desk, took off his helmet (it was hard to breathe in those things, sometimes) and caught sight of an e-book. With nothing much to do until Bau found what he was looking for or the Geth attacked again, he read it.

It was an article on, of all things: Adam Jensen. The pad was full of them, dated around seven years ago. The first one was titled 'Pre-Collapse cyborg awakens from cryo sleep and escapes Europa laboratory'.

"Huh."

"What is it? asked Williams. She was going through T'soni's trash bin, but all she founds were the burnt remains of a book.

"Apparently T'soni had an interest in everyone's favorite Augmented Popsicle, our boy Adam Jensen."

Williams narrowed her eyes. "You don't say."

"Yeah, she's collected quite a few extra-net articles on the guy... makes sense, seeing as he's from a time gone by and she's an archeologist."

"Hmph."

"You... don't sound like you approve."

She laughed, disingenuously. "Hey, if the alien wants to get her rocks off to a machine, she's welcome to it."

"Do you mind keeping that, Mister Vega?" asked the Spectre. "Might be valuable...Ah! Found something! T'soni's audio log... or so I hope."

He played the first entry, and a harsh woman's voice spoke from the tiny speaker. "This is Justicar Custodian Circe. I hereby permit my charge, Manah T'soni, to make use of this device as a log of all she finds here on Caleston, with the understanding that everything recorded within it becomes the property of the Justicar Order. Do you understand, T'soni?"

Another voice, soft and young, answered: "...Yes, I understand completely."

"Then speak."

"Very well...Entry 1: I've already inspected Dr Lanteia's research notes and I've already identified their main problem. They assumed the Undercity was built in the 87th Era, due to it's architecture. The murals, however, are obviously done in the bas-relief style of the 107th Era and-"

Bau skipped to the latest entry. "Entry 31... The foreman gave us the new code to the express elevator. Shouldn't be too hard to remember... four, five, zero, one, one, zero, five, four... and there. Memorized. Oh... Oh no! I probably shouldn't have said it aloud... h-how do you erase entries on this thing? Circe is going to be so mad..."

Bau smiled. "There you have it, this should make our trip down the pit a bit faster."

From the audio-log came three knocks on a pane of glass. "What? Who could... Noel? What are you doing here?"

"Hey, I wanted to see you again! Is this a bad time?" The voice was male, young, probably in his late teens.

"No, but- Hey! don't come in here!"

"Why? Are the scary ladies in red around?"

"They're right outside!"

"Then we'll have to be very very quiet, then. I came to give you this."

"Fine, but you have to... oh, i-is that a book?"

"Yeah, you said you loved storybooks, and I managed to dig this out of our attic. My mom used to read this to me. It's called The Little Prince."

"Oh, thank you...but, I can't take it. I can't have anything of my own! Please, I beg you, you must forget about me and stop..."

"But, I want you to have it!..."

"NO! DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!"

"What is going on here!?" shouted Circe. "Who are you, alien?!"

"Uh oh, gotta bail!" quipped Noel. "See ya!"

"Run, Noel!"

"You, catch him!" ordered Circe ordered.

"I'd like to see you try!" Noel's laugh became distant, and another woman cursed in frustration in an untranslatable language.

"Please, he's just a boy!"

"O Geis, phionósú an gceann seo -"

"No..."

"- agus a dheonú ar an leibhéal seachtú fulaingt aici!"

Williams' eyes widened "What was that? Freakin' Voodoo?"

Jondum Bau put his finger on his lip, silently asking her to be quiet.

T'soni screamed horribly, then whimpered, and choked back tears. "I-I'm sorry... please make it stop!"

"...It gives me no pleasure to do this, Creature. But pain is the only way to stop your evil nature from coming to the fore... You seduced that boy, I could see it in his eyes."

"N-no... we just... spoke..."

"And now we must find him and save him from your dark influence, as the Sutras ordain. His death, and any death that follow, will be on your head, not ours. Stay here, Creature, and dwell on that fact as the Geis does its work."

Anderson, Vega and Williams said nothing as Bau switched off the recording of Manah's sobs and pocketed it. Williams glanced at the trash bin, thinking about that book. It was Vega that broke the heavy silence.

"Jeez, talk about overreacting... What the hell was that all about? Some kid wants to give a girl a present and they try and kill him? And torture a girl for turning heads... This is all kinds of fucked up."

"And here I thought the Asari were so very enlightened," said Williams scornfully. "I don't know who the fuck those Justicars are..." Her mind dwelled on her younger sisters, and she imagined someone doing that to them. "...but if I ever meet one she's getting a face full of buckshot. Mark my words."

"...Let's just get out of here." said Anderson. "We've wasted enough time as it is. Move out, Marines."

~[h+]~

As the Normandy team arrived at the metal edge of the dig site, Anderson looked down, careful not to fall in the twelve kilometer drop. Apparently, RedWater thought that guardrails were an unacceptable luxury. He turned back to his men, save for Jenkins, who was tasked with staying with the Mako. Up above the storm raged on, and its interference prevented communication with the Normandy. Damn that storm, Anderson thought.

"Well," said Bau. "How shall we proceed, Captain?"

"We could take the elevator," suggested Wrex. "We've got the code, after all, but the Geth and the Templars might be in full control of it, and if not they'll definitely be waiting for us at the bottom, or will have trapped it."

"We could jump in with the Mako, sir." suggested Vega. "It was made to handle orbital drops, after all."

It took a few seconds for Anderson to make his decision, but before he could say anything, the sound of high-powered thrusters rumbled through the stormy sky, and out of nowhere fell a heavy red Wanzer, with huge vernier thrusters mounted on its back and a huge clod of sharpened metal in its hand. It swung at the Mako, and it flew off and crashed into a nearby construction crane. The Red Wanzer opened it's mouth, and a globe of hot plasma gathered inside of it.

Caim had arrived.

"Come, Alliance dogs." said the fearsome Wanzer's pilot. "Show me what the so-called guardians of humanity can do... for I long for good sport..."

Anderson had only one thing to say: "To the elevator! NOW!"

And from its mouth the Red Wanzer unleashed hell upon them all.

~[h+]~

"You wanted something to shoot, Spirit?" shouted Ryan as he fired his M-358 Talon pistol into a Geth hopper's face. His Omni-Shield held fast against the bursts of warp ammo the Geth soldier's pulse rifles spat out, but only because he kept tapping into his Omni-Gel reserves to repair the damage. "Well, there you go! Go nuts!"

"I would!" shouted Jane over the din of gunfire. "But those bastards Sabotaged my Vector! All I've got is my sidearm!"

A Templar Sniper's head exploded, and Garrus whooped victoriously as he loaded another chemical round into the Greatsword. "Thank you for standing still, idiot! That's twelve! How many did you get, Grey?"

"If Zorah's correct..." He fired a charged shot into the chest of the Juggernaut coordinating the Geth's efforts, and its torso melted into slag. "I'd say about two thousand! T'soni! How's that puzzle coming along?"

"I-I'm almost- AH!"

A Geth Hopper leaped at Manah, and Jensen caught it by the throat before it could reach her. He wrestled it to the ground and buried his suit's plasma claws into its chest, ripping out a cord with glowing blue power cells plugged into it like bulbs of garlic on a string and promptly discarded it. Manah tried to keep her hands steady: she had never solved a Prothean geometrical puzzle while under attack by robots before.

"Just a few more moves and... Done!" She pushed and buried the glowing sphere into the center of the Mandala, and set a course for the Ziggurat. "Everyone, get on!"

The stone petals above opened, and the platform rose slowly. Jane and Ryan, who had been outside of it, had to jump and mantle themselves onto the floating piece of rock. Garrus and Jensen helped them up while Grey rained down covering fire.

"Gee, Thanks for you waiting for us, T'soni." said Jane, a little peeved.

"...Err, you are welcome?"

"I was being sarcastic."

"Oh. Oh! I'm sorry, but I panicked and..."

"No harm done," said Ryan. "We're out of that hell hole, and that's what matters. Thank you, T'soni."

"...Are you being sarcastic?"

Ryan laughed. "No, no, I mean it."

"Three Seraphs, incoming!" shouted Jensen as he pulled out his revolver. He fanned the hammer, firing a quick six round burst at the two flying Templars, but their barriers held. Garrus managed to shoot one out of the sky by hitting him in the verniers, but the other two managed to rise above the floating platform. One of them aimed a grenade launcher at the Durendal team and fired.

For Adam, time slowed down as the Quicksilver kicked in. He drew out the Carnifex he picked up earlier and fired a round into the explosive slug just as it left the wide barrel. The grenade, filled with White-Phosphorus, exploded in a ball of white gas, consuming the flying grenadier, who went down screaming. The last remaining Seraph roared, intent on avenging his fallen comrade. He flew in and rammed Jensen with his body, wrestling him down on the platform, straddling him. Jane attempted to bury her hatchet in his face, but the Templar shoved her off. Before Jensen could shove the Fandago in the Seraph's belly, the Templar's head fell off, and the body slumped over like a puppet with its strings cut off. Garrus stood over them both, the Longinus in sword mode in hand.

"You could have just shot him." said Jensen as he pushed the body off. "But thanks."

"I only have so many shots." He held out his hand and helped Jensen get up. "Say what you want about those sword-guns of theirs, they do save ammo in a pinch. And you're welcome."

The platform had risen twelve stories above the ground and floated towards the Ziggurat, Grey had everyone double check their weapons. He swapped out his Serpent's empty power-cell for a full one, while Jane set about fixing her Vector. Ryan, curious about the workings of the platform, decided to take a scan of it.

"Huh."

"What is it?" asked Grey.

"I'm not getting any Element Zero readings from this thing. How does it float?"

Everyone turned to Manah, who became flustered at the sudden attention. "I do not know," she said. "I am an expert on their history, not their science."

Grey shrugged. "Well, as long as it works and gets us where we're supposed to go."

~[h+]~

The floating platform settled inside a half-circle cut into a raised rostrum, meant to serve as a dock. The entrance to the Ziggurat was just a long staircase away, and welcoming the Deep Eyes were huge metal double doors made out of some kind of bronze, both four stories tall. They had been molded with the bas-relief of twin blacksmiths hammering a sword on an anvil, while seven thunderbolts struck it from above.

"Kind of old fashioned, these Protheans." commented Grey. "T'soni, any ideas as to how to get this door open? I don't want to have to walk three kilometers around this thing just to find another way in."

"We could just knock?" quipped Garrus.

"Quiet, Vakarian. T'soni?"

"There should be emergency switches on each side of the doors," said Jensen. The Deep Eyes and Manah glared at him curiously. "Well, it seems logical."

"...There are." agreed Manah.

"I don't see them." said Jane as she looked at the sides of the doors.

"Look up."

"Aw, crap. All the way up there, huh?"

"I am afraid so."

"Spirit, Shadow, you're both good at climbing things." said Grey. "Get up there."

Adam and Jane proceeded to climb the walls on each side of the door, the complex detailing providing plenty of good gripping points for a climb. Jane had tried to make a race out of it, but thought better to challenge a cyborg in a power suit to anything remotely physical.

"C-Careful!" Manah shouted from below, worried that they would fall and hurt themselves.

"We'll be fine!" reassured Jane. "We're up to the levers. Now what?"

"You will have to pull the cylinders, rotate them clockwise, and push them back in simultaneously."

It took a bit longer for Jane to pull the cylinder, and she had to put her whole body into it. "On three, we push!" she commanded. "One, two..."

They pushed the cylinders in, causing the emergency hydraulics to make the doors open out. Waiting on the other side was a mob of dead people, shambling, staying upright by the virtue of cables and implants that glowed a sickly blue. Their eyes and eyelids had been scorched away, replaced by metallic orbs. Their gaping, gurgling distented mouths were filled with cables that connected to various points in their chests. Manah screamed, having never seen such horrible creatures before. They charged out of the gate, their arms outstretched and grasping for anything living to squeeze the life out of.

Grey, Garrus and Ryan opened fire into the small mob immediately, stemming the tide of bodies by shooting them in the legs, making the creatures fall over each other. Jensen jumped from the switch to the top of the door, then leapt down into the mob. His Icarus landing system activated, but he overrode it and funneled the EM field into his fist. A burst of kinetic energy announced his landing, and the living corpses were scattered all over, their bodies broken. The few that survived the blast were easily finished off.

"What the hell are those?!" asked Jane as she fired a burst into the skull of the last cyborg zombie.

"Husks." said Grey. "Hein briefed us about them, remember?"

"Right, but those were naked, these..."

"...Were once RedWater workers." said Garrus, pointing at their clothes. "And by the look of those ones over there, Templar scientists."

Jensen stood over the broken, desiccated bodies, and Garrus picked up on that. "Err... anybody you knew in there?"

...

"There has to be a way to help these people!"

"Yeah. You give them the mercy of a bullet to the head!"

...

"...No." Adam replied.

"Then why are you staring?"

"It's just..." Adam shook his head. "No, it's nothing."

Garrus knew better than to pry, and left it alone.

"I think Benezia's running out of options: she's scraping the bottom of the barrel, now." Grey said confidently.

A gust of wind rushed out of the door, and the evil laughter of a woman echoed. Manah whimpered at the sound.

"...Yeah. Let's not kid ourselves." said Garrus. "She sent out these... things to screw with our heads."

"Load some fresh ammo blocks in your weapons, everyone... because this is it, the last stretch: third of a klick to the artifact. Shadow? Paladin?"

"Sir?" answered Ryan.

"You two take point."

The Durendal team crossed the threshold of the gates, and the doors closed behind them. There was no turning back now.

~[h+]~

The elevator's doors opened, and out came a crowd of Husks, as Shepard described them to Anderson... only fully clothed. Wrex, Bau and Anderson gunned them down, and they were forced to clear out some of the bodies to make room. That took time, precious time that Jenkins was buying them by the skin of his teeth.

The Mako II had, amazingly, survived the Wanzer's initial attack and landed on its wheels, so Jenkins had switched the controls to single pilot mode and began a furious counter-attack. Right now he was harassing the Wyvern with both Auto-cannon and heavy machine gun fire that simply wouldn't breach its impressive kinetic shields. The Mako dodged and weaved through the makeshift roads of the settlement as the red giant destroyed every single prefab Jenkins could use as cover.

"Yeah, come on! Eat Tungsten, you prick!"

As Wrex cleared the last of the bodies out of the elevator. Williams activated her suit radio. "Jenkins, come on! The elevator's up!"

"Belay that." said Anderson, his voice cold.

Williams looked at Anderson in horror. "...S-sir?"

"Vega, Taylor, get in the elevator... Jenkins, keep harassing the Wanzer, buy us some time."

"I... I understand, sir. You make Benezia pay for her part in Eden Prime, sir!"

"We will, son. Mark my words, We will."

"Sir!" protested Vega. "I'm trained in anti-armor tactics! I can help him!"

Anderson entrained the notion for half a second before dismissing it: That Wanzer was simply too powerful and attempting to destroy it on foot was suicide. He had done the math. The mission came first. He needed to put as much distance between the giant machine and his team, or they would die and the mission would be a failure.

And Saren would win. The thought alone set Anderson's heart on fire.

"That thing is a monster! You're no match for it, none of us are! Get in the elevator, Marine. That's an order!"

"But..."

"GET IN THE ELEVATOR NOW!" Anderson roared. Vega was taken aback by the glare of his red optical sensors, and he obeyed.

No one said anything as the mag-rail elevator accelerated down into the depths of Caleston, and Jenkins' radio transmissions became more and more scrambled with static.

"Come on!... I'm ... over here!... try ...catch...argh!...all... got?..."

~[h+]~

"Spirit? Spirit, where are you?" Grey called out to her, but got no response.

The Durendal Team had come across another locked door, and T'soni got to work on unlocking it. He had just ordered everyone to keep the area secured when he realized that she had gone missing. How could he have been that unobservant? He chided himself mentally at his failure. He tried contacting her on the radio, but it was no use.

"Vakarian, you were with her just a moment ago! Did you see her leave?"

"I was a little too busy scanning the area for Husks... like you ordered me to."

He was right, of course. In the tall and wide main hall they had seen more of these impalement spikes the Geth used to create Husks, and they had counted far more of those than the number in the mob that greeted them at the entrance. The thought that Jane had been killed by one of these things - or worse been turned into one of them - horrified him.

"She always too stealthy for her own good." said Ryan. "Shall we look for her?"

"Do we really have time for that? Benezia's doing spirits knows what to that artifact, and the ground's starting to rumble again. This building is huge, if we get sidetracked..."

Grey grabbed him by the collar and glared at him with his glowing blue optics. His voice was low. "I don't care if the whole galaxy burns. I'm not leaving any of my soldiers behind, under any circumstances."

"I'll go find her." said Jensen, defusing the situation. "I've got an advanced sensor suite: I can cover more ground."

"Do it." commanded Grey.

"Grey, if I find her dead... What do you want me to do?"

"... then bring me her dogtags."

~[h+]~

Jane tried to tell herself that it wasn't possible. But she saw what she saw, and she needed to be sure. She had skulked off when no one was looking, just to check it out, and then she'd come right back, or so she told herself a dozen times over.

The dark, silent rooms of the Ziggurat hadn't quite been what she expected: she had thought that this was someone's palace, but after seeing the various primitive tools on the tables and diagrams on the walls, Jane decided that this place looked more like one big workshop. Or even a school.

And somewhere within these walls, Tiffany was around here somewhere. But Tiffany had died on Mars... That didn't stop Jane from catching a glimpse of her pale skin and long dark hair. And after a few more minutes of wandering, she caught another glimpse of her going down that hall. She followed her there, but it led to a dead end.

She heard the sound of bare feet hitting the stone floor, and she turned around, knife and hatchet in-

...Where were her hatchets? She thought she had them, but-

"Jane..." whispered the curvaceous, yet powerful figure in front of her. She was nude, pale like the moon and covered in splatters of dark, dry blood. Her eyes were as black as her hair... but it was her. And while the vision should have brought Jane such joy, it was terror that gripped her heart, and the strength left her limbs.

"T...Tiffany?..."

"Yes... it's me..."

"No. No no no no... I saw..." Jane whimpered, "I saw you die!"

"Shhhh, it's okay..." Tiffany slowly approached.

"Get away from me!..."

"I forgive you..."

"Stay back!"

"I forgive you for leaving be behind."

Tiffany took a step forward.

"I forgive you for moving on..."

Tiffany took a step forward...

"But what I can't forgive..."

Tiffany took another step, and the skin on her arms melted to reveal bones of black metal, wrapped in barbed wire as her face contorted and twisted with pure rage.

"...is you suffering that machine to LIVE!"

Tiffany grabbed Jane by the throat and forced her on her knees, and the soldier could feel her claws sinking slowly into her neck seal.

"Did you like what you see, as rivulets of water caressed the black plastic carved into his flesh?! Did you forget what his kind did to me, after they tore me out of my Wanzer?! Or did you look away, even as you played dead while they ravaged my body and soul?!"

"I..." Jane choked. "I would never forget..."

"So claim your revenge for my sake and kill him!"

"...Blind revenge is for fools... Tiffany... I loved you...more than you know..." Jane's eyes bled out the tears she thought would be her last "...but I won't murder for you."

A moment of silence passed before the ghostly apparition spoke again with a voice boiling over with venom. "Then DIE, you filthy little DYKE."

Tiffany squeezed a bit harder, and Jane's sight went black...

Bang.

The Husk's head exploded, and he slumped forward, then fell by Jane's side. She massaged her neck as she gasped for air. Jensen knelt beside her to see if she was okay, his revolver still smoking at the barrel.

"Jane?"

"Jensen?" W-what happened? How did I even get here? How did you find me?"

"You were letting a Husk strangle you." he pointed at the fallen Husk, wearing a Templar's lab coat. "You wandered off, and I found you by following the trail of weapons you left behind. Here they are."

Jensen handed Jane's weapons back and she re-equipped them.

"Who's Tiffany?"

"Who?"

"Tiffany; you called that Husk by that name."

"...It's... it's personal. You don't talk about Elysium? I don't talk about Mars...but, one of its ghosts reappeared before me."

"...Fair enough. He tapped the side of his helmet, contacting the rest of the Deep Eyes. "Grey? Jane's fine... but I think Benezia tried to pull a mind-screw on her."

"Oh, thank god she's alright. Get back here! T'soni's almost got this thing... Paladin? PALADIN, STOP!"

~[h+]~

"Welcome to Hell, Ryan..." said the Black Queen.

He was back home, the ground burnt to cinders as an inferno blazed around him. Embers hung in the wait, blown by the hot air. And there were the children. Children on fire. Even as the flesh melted off the bones of their tiny bodies, their hate, that terrifying hate kept them running, and they were intent of sharing their agony with him.

"They've been waiting for YOU... won't you give them a warm embrace?" she laughed cruelly.

Ryan fired his Talon wildly, terrified out of his mind. The burning, hateful children vanished into ash as he hit them, but their damning howls remained, echoing in his mind.

"YOU did this to us!"

"I tried to stop it!"

Snap out of it marine

"The weapon was in your hands!"

"I... I had no choice."

It's not real

"We were your brothers and you made us burn!"

"They... they..."

She's messing with your mind pull yourself together

Ryan fell on his knees, and let the children embrace him in the flames. The pain was unimaginable.

He put his hands together.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake... Yea... Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."

It was getting hotter.

"...I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. T-Thou, preparest a... table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with...oil; m-my...my..."

"Your words are empty of belief and power. Did you think prayer would free you from your guilt? From me? Abandon all hope... Oathbreaker... Murderer. There is no forgiveness in the heart of a dead god for the likes of YOU."

"I have... never prayed for myself... but for the grace of the souls I have sent to hell... You have... no power over me, demon."

"Wrong."

The flames intensified, and Ryan lost all hope. But then, even as his eyes melted from the heat, Ryan caught a glimpse of a robed figure striding towards him, with teal and green lights hovering around it. The man stood within the inferno untouched by the flames, and perhaps, Ryan thought, the angels had seen fit to save him after all.

And then the figure struck him in the face.

...

"Snap out of it!" shouted Jensen as he shook Ryan by the shoulders.

"What?" muttered Ryan confused. He looked around, and he was back in the Ziggurat, only there were clusters of holes all over the walls. "The flames! The flames! Where are they?"

"There are no flames! Benezia's messing with your head!"

"I... I knew, and yet... Oh god..."

"Was it Mars?" asked Jane.

"...No. Not Mars. Something else. I... I think I'll be okay, now."

"Will you?" asked Grey.

"...For now, yeah. I'm sorry sir. I lost control."

Grey put a hand on his shoulder. "We weren't trained for this, don't blame yourself. T'soni!"

Manah peeked out of a pillar. "I-is it over?"

"...Yeah. Just finish unlocking that door..." When Jensen had returned from the Alienage spewing nonsense about Benezia being some of kind of super-psionic capable of whipping up a whole crowd into a crazed frenzy, he had been skeptical. But then Jane supported that statement, and T'soni confirmed it... but even then there was a shadow of a doubt. Not anymore.

"I have a few choice words to say to your mother, if you don't mind."

~[h+]~

As they came out of the elevator into the last stretch of the Pit's spiral staircase, Ashley shot Wrex in the back, then Vega's. Then she aimed her shotgun at Anderson's head and screamed.

"My family has served the Alliance for generations with loyalty and valor and all YOU DO IS SPIT ON OUR NAME!"

She pulled the trigger, but she had already been Thrown back into the elevator by Wrex's biotics and the shot went wide.

"You shot me in the back, you bitch!" he roared. To his surprise, she was conscious, even though she left a dent in the elevator's metal cage.

"Will you sic me onto danger like a dog while you flee?!" her eyes glowed a sickly purple and crimson. "Is that what awaits me in the end?!"

Bau silently fired a Neural Shock dart into her neck, and she went limp like a rag doll. Taylor checked up on Vega. His Defender had absorbed the impact, and he managed to get back up with some help, wincing in pain.

"Man, that stung like a motherf-"

"Give me a good reason why I shouldn't crush that bitch's head with my boot!" screamed Wrex, livid at being shot by friendly fire.

"It's Benezia!" answered Bau. "The Prothean artifact is no doubt amplifying her melding abilities, somehow! We cannot delay any further!"

"Don't give me any of that space magic garbage!"

"What possible reason could Williams have to murder you, Vega and Anderson of all people? Only Benezia stands to benefit from us turning on another. You should stay focused on the task at hand." Bau was careful to word his command as a suggestion - It was never wise for a Salarian to be too authoritative with a Krogan.

"...Fine." said Wrex as he backed off. "But just so you know, I'm getting paid double on account of the dents on my back! So what do we do with her? I'm not carrying her backstabbing, deadweight ass!"

"None of us can." said Anderson. "Taylor, tie her up and make sure she doesn't hurt herself when she wakes up."

"We're... leaving her behind? Sir, if there are any more of those Husks out there..."

Anderson was starting to get a little fed up with justifying his orders to his subordinates.

"We can't face Benezia and worry about her at the same time, Lieutenant."

"I... understood, sir. I'll lock her in the cage while I'm at it." Taylor silently flash-cuffed Williams and closed the door.

"And then there were five." quipped Vega, darkly.

Anderson ignored him. As he started the descent down to the source of the beam, Benezia's dark influence began to dig into his mind. He didn't know it, but he kept her at bay by focusing on his hatred: He would make Benezia pay for her part in Eden Prime, and once he was done with her he would make Saren pay for his. He would pay for Camala, and he would pay for Shepard. He was convinced Saren had a part in her death, regardless of the obfuscating fog that surrounded the facts behind it. He was certain of it.

...He was certain of it. Saren had to be guilty. He had to be.

~[h+]~

The Mako II was done. Finished. The Red Wanzer was done toying around with Jenkins, and had unleashed a payload of sixty micro-missiles from its shoulders. Jenkins hadn't veered in time, and the Mako's shields were overwhelmed. One of the missiles exploded beneath the IFV, sending it flying into a nearby prefab.

Jenkins pulled himself from the wreck. His right side hurt like hell: he felt as though his ribs were broken and were poking at his lungs. His suit's VI confirmed the damage. If only he could get some Medi-Gel in there, but his Onyx mk II wasn't equipped with a First Aid system let alone gel conduits. On top of all his troubles, his helmet's visor was cracked, marring his vision.

As he removed his helmet, he heard the hiss of a Wanzer's cockpit opening, and the loud thud of a man landing on his feet. He turned to find the Wanzer pilot confidently walking up to him, his power-suit's chest deprived of all armor plating save for the gauntlets and the disc-shaped cowters, the CNT cables exposed. Jenkins couldn't believe his luck: The Templar was intent on finishing him off personally, and with a sword, no less. It was a huge sword, but Jenkins had a gun.

I just might come out of this in one piece.

The Alliance soldier withdrew his Predator sidearm, switched on the laser sight, took aim at the Templar's head, and pulled the trigger three times.

And each time, the Templar blocked the shot with his wide, curved blade.

Jenkins fired again and again, but the pilot's honed reflexes (aided by Jenkins' own mistake in declaring his shots with a laser beam) prevented each shot from finding their mark. The pilot laughed cruelly, and strode even faster towards the young soldier.

After twelve shots, the gun went into cooldown, and Jenkins attempted to insert a rod of coolant into the overheated weapon, but then pain shot up his arm, and he looked at the smoking stump of his left hand in shock - The pilot had been so fast...

Jenkins screamed, but the pilot wasn't even close to done with him: he kicked him in the knee, causing the soldier's leg to bend backwards. He grabbed him by the throat, slammed his head against the ruined armor of the Mako, and held him up against it. Jenkins had a good look at the Templar: he was young, in his mid to late twenties, with a messy mop of black hair. His face was tanned and marred with a few scars, the most prominent of which cut across the bridge of his nose.

"I congratulate you, Marine." said the Pilot. "You've led me on a merry little chase. It was good sport... while it lasted. Hmph... What is your name?"

Jenkins grit his teeth, intent on taking the pain. "Corporal Richard L. Jenkins, Alliance military. ID code One, one-"

"Spare me. This is no interrogation. So... I've decided to reward you, Richard L. Jenkins of the Alliance military. It is the reward of all who are conquered. I... am going to let you live."

The pilot pressed his white hot blade against Jenkins' eyes and swiped it across, blinding him.

~[h+]~

"... in woe and suffering!" shouted Caim venomously as he let go of the corporal.

Jenkins screamed in terrible agony, and Caim simply stared at him while he writhed on the ground. Suffering, Caim believed, was like water: obedient to gravity and longing to fall and settle in the lower, darker places of the world. Inflicting suffering unto others below allowed him to keep his head above it, and not dwell overlong on the butchery that had been Mindoir... and the death of his family.

He was sorely tempted to silence the screaming marine permanently, however; He had a most grating, nasal voice made worse by bawling... but then the Black Queen made her presence known, stalling his bloodlust.

"Caim..." she spoke ethereally in his mind. "The interlopers approach. Do not tarry and come to my aid... my champion."

"As you wish, my Queen." answered Caim, not knowing nor caring if she could hear him. He turned his back on the whimpering Alliance soldier. "You are fortunate, Corporal! You still have your life. Your compatriots? They won't be so lucky..."

He climbed back into Angelus. "I guarantee you that they will die, screaming harder than you did!"

~[h+]~

The Durendal team had finally arrived at the heart of the Ziggurat, a four-story tall circular chamber one hundred meter across. Its floor was patterned with a complex array of interlocking of Mandalas carved into dark gray stone. The entire room was colored blue by the gloom of the bio-luminescent mushrooms that grew onto ancient statues of a winged, horned woman, mounted on the walls. Their looming figures highlighted in red-orange by the burning shaft of light generated by the Monolith at the center. The Prothean artifact, a five meter tall piece of sculpted alabaster with silver inlays, stood in the middle of a circle of arches, itself fifty meters across. Hundreds of little streaks of blue light rushed to its base, while tongues of flames sprouted from its top. Glowing embers surrounded it, flying under the sway of a whirlwind.

There was something about the monolith... It's low hum seemed to vibrate with an emptiness inside Jensen, close to his heart, and he felt as though the artifact would somehow fill that void and make him more complete, somehow. Was it Benezia messing with his mind again, trying to lure him into a trap? The thought made him resist the urge to run up to the Monolith and touch it.

"Oh, no..." muttered T'soni as they approached the arches. "The monolith - It's ajar!"

"We noticed," said Grey. "Part of our job is getting it open to get to the goods inside, remember?"

"No, you don't understand! There's a proper procedure in handling active Prothean technology, and whoever did this violated the most basic of them all!"

"Which is?"

"To switch the main power off before opening it! This could be cata-"

When Manah failed to finish her sentence, Jensen turned to her. She was completely frozen in place, with a blue aura washing over her like the shifting water of a pool.

"What the-" Garrus couldn't finish his sentence before he was frozen in place himself, and then the entire Durendal team save Jensen had been put in stasis.

"Come closer, Adam." The voice, an amalgam of two women, resonated through the room like a whisper. "I long to see you in the flesh."

Jensen attempted to snap Garrus out of Stasis, but without Biotics of his own it was futile. It looked like he would be alone for this.

Benezia appeared in a rush of coalescing shadow and smoke in front of the Prothean monolith, her figure a dark silhouette against the bright red orange glow. She wore little save a black choker to match a black silk gown cut open to expose her abdomen and her inner halves of her breasts. A mask of gleaming dark blue metal covered her face just above the lower lip, and her eyes were pools of black obsidian. Spiral seashells, colored dark purple with flecks of crimson could be seen under the shawl that covered the head and blended with the gown.

The sight of her... he had seen her before. A feeling of deja-vu crawled in the back of Adam's mind, but he mentally shook it off, focusing on the here and now.

"Ah, but you are a fascinating construct... And powerful, I can tell..." her voices subtly enticed on many levels, promising untold pleasures even as she did not speak of them. "Tell me...Why have you come here?" she asked as he approached.

"I made a deal with someone to save a life. Clearly, I should have read the fine print."

"Is she your love?"

"No, but considering you can read minds, you already knew that."

"Ah, but you are SUCH a tantalizing mystery to me... You could have left, and yet you still brave the dangers of the Undercity to be here. So I ask again, and you must answer truthfully. Why... have you come here? You could have left... why stay?"

It didn't take long for Jensen to dig deep and come up with a much more honest answer, straight from the heart. Yes, he could have left, could have convinced everyone in the truck that leaving would be the best option, but...

"I stayed because you're the reason this planet has gone to hell, and you must be stopped."

"Ah, there it is, the righteous anger..." she walked around him like water, caressing his shoulder while appraising him. Jensen kept his sight fixed on her wary of any sudden movement. "Do you know what I did, Adam? I merely provided what everyone desired. Is it my fault that the miners desired an end to their toils? That their masters desired to keep what they took from them? That the young and impoverished desired what their parent's masters had? That their parents wanted to drink and fuck with wild abandon? Is it my fault that Templars, in their arrogance, desired dominion over a whole world with a handful to seize it? That their champion craved blood more than control? No... I am not responsible for their wants."

"But you are responsible for them going out of control." countered Jensen. At this, Benezia - no, the Black Queen - laughed cruelly.

"Let's skip the part where you offer me everything I've ever wanted, and let's get down to my demand: surrender and come quietly."

"Oh, but I have more to offer than dreams of a house on a hill... my Adam." she passed behind him, and Aya Brea came into view.

"I can make your reality, far, FAR more blissful..." she tapped the side of his helmet, causing the faceplate to open, and she caressed his upper lip. "She would have never loved you, you know? She had made her loathing for you very clear... But I can turn her heart... Or perhaps?..."

Aya's pale skin and elegant clothes exploded in streams of shadow and smoke, and gathered into the shape of an olive-skinned woman clad in an orange and gray flight suit.

"Or perhaps you'd like to resume the affair you entertained even as you desperately searched for your Dulcinea?" asked Faridah. Adam tried his best to hide the shock seeing her again after all these years. "Or maybe..." She exploded into smoke, and it gathered back into the shape of a gaunt man in a leather jacket and a long brown hair tied back into a ponytail. He opened his arms, presenting himself.

"Or maybe you'd like to indulge in unspoken fantasies?" said Pritchard. "No... that's not for you... You want something else besides companionship..."

Pritchard morphed to a woman in a white silver coat, with her brown hair tied back in an elaborate explosion of curled hair. Jensen's breath stilled at the sight. Of all the people to see, here and now...

"No...you want to turn the clock back, and take back your worst mistake..." said Megan, caressing Adam's cheek. "I forgive you, Adam... I forgive what you did to me... become my champion, my knight, and we can have a future together, just like you always wanted..."

...

"...You were nothing more than a science project to me."

...

"You have nothing that I want."

Jensen's faceplate closed as he slapped her hand away, his decision made. Megan morphed back into the Black Queen, and while her expression was hidden by the Masque, he could feel the fury emanating from it. She floated away from him, rising to loom overhead.

"Again, you deny me!? I, who has seduced the immortal Akasha Lords themselves?! I, who tempted the Mesian high priests from their Machine Idol?! I, who sundered EMPIRES with naught but a whisper?! You are NOTHING compared to them, and you are nothing compared to ME! So be it!" She screeched to the heavens: "CAAAAIIIIM!"

The roar of thrusters thundered above, fast approaching. Jensen looked up, and leapt out of the way of the falling red form. The huge machine landed on its two feet with a loud crash, and as his own feet touched the ground Jensen immediately recognized the Red Wanzer that he had encountered immediately after he crash-landed on Caleston. It rose, staring at him with its bright blue optic, it's mouth open, ready to spew plasma at him.

"Abomination!" challenged the pilot through his Wanzer's loudspeakers, "I've awaited impatiently for a chance to finish what we've started! Have at you!"

Jensen deployed the Fandango and charged towards the man-shaped war machine.

~[h+]~

"Holy shit!" exclaimed Vega. "Was that...?"

"The Wanzer, yes." confirmed Bau.

"It just ignored us..." commented Taylor.

Gunfire and explosions echoed down below. "Someone's fighting down there!" shouted Anderson.

"Who else could be down there?" asked Vega.

"Whoever they are," replied Wrex, "Then they're hogging all the fun! Let's hurry!"

~[h+]~

Jensen took cover behind a pillar - his attempt at negating most of the Wanzer's firepower by entering close-quarters had backfired dramatically when the pilot decided that yes, machine guns and mid-caliber auto-cannons were better ways to deal with a power-armored infantryman. Adam threw his last Snowblind grenade at the Wanzer, intent on robbing the Wyvern of most of its sensor suite. To his utter shock, the Wanzer was quick enough to catch it.

"Not this time!" shouted the pilot victoriously as his machine's metal fist crushed the grenade. It 'popped' harmlessly inside its palm, and the Snowblind particles spread to an area far too small to be of use. There would be no cloaking for Jensen: a Wanzer's active sensors could spot the EM field of a cloak far too easily. He was pinned down.

On the other hand, the stone arches withstood the gunfire easily. In fact, the stone wasn't even chipping. The Wanzer's pilot lost patience, and decided to destroy both the arches and Jensen with an overhead swing of the giant clod of metal that served as the bipedal war machine's sword.

"You think mere stone will protect you from me?!" the pilot shouted as the Wanzer dashed forward and brought the mighty weapon down. It made a loud metallic thud as it hit the stone, and the Wanzer was knocked back by the force of its own blow being reflected back at it. Jensen, knowing that the pilot wouldn't be stupid enough to make the same mistake twice, saw his chance to climb onto of the Wanzer and pull his opponent out of the cockpit.

He was just about to bury his wrist-mounted high-frequency blade in the Wanzer's chest when Benezia's biotic bolt hit him from above, knocking him down back on the floor, giving the Red Wanzer a golden opportunity to stomp him flat, which it took immediately.

Jensen rolled away from the incoming metal foot, and jumped back up on his feet. Benezia floated next to the Wanzer's head, caressing it like a pet.

"Give me your fire." she commanded, and gentle plumes of plasma rolled out of its mouth. Benezia's body flared, generating eight micro-singularities around the Wanzer's head. They drew in the plasma, and quickly the black spheres wreathed in reddish-purple flames became tiny suns. Benezia outstretched her arms, and the Wanzer's own Mass Effect core contributed to the feat by propelling the balls of plasma at Jensen, one by one.

Jensen managed to dodge seven, the last had exploded a little too close, and he could feel both the heat and the eddies of dark energy wash over him. If he had been just a little close, he would have been torn apart and vaporized at the same time.

"You are quick to save yourself, but are you quick enough..." Benezia fired the last ball of energy at - to Jensen's horror - The frozen Durendal team. "To save THEM?"

With little time to think, Jensen ran full speed at them, outrunning the fireball, but as he stood in front of them, he realized that there was nothing he could do to save them. Even with his considerable strength, moving a person in Stasis was downright impossible. They were doomed, and he would die as well unless he moved out of the way. He had to move out of the way; if he died now, then Benezia would win, and she would do god knows what with the Prothean relic.

No.

You can save them. Think, Jensen! How do you stop a ball of plasma? How do you stop a ball of biotics! There has to be a way!

He took a quick glance behind him. Manah was right behind him, frozen with an expression of surprise.

...

He quickly overrode his Icarus Landing System and switched it on, intent on softening the landing to spare Manah's relatively fragile bones. They were both wrapped in a powerful golden electromagnetic field, and Manah gasped as the energy interacted with her nodes, causing them to flare and burst in a wide mass lightening field that wrapped the whole Durendal team.

...

Shadow? Didn't know that Icarus Landing System of yours could extend that far."

"It doesn't." Jensen replied as he set Manah down.

"I think that was me..." said Manah.

...

Jensen activated and brought up the Pelta shield on his left elbow and braced himself. The ball of dark plasma was inches away from him when the torrent of electromagnetic energy stopped in its tracks. The plasma bled out, following the flow of the electromagnetic maelstrom in its way. Jensen knocked the Singularity away, and it detonated far away from him, the Deep Eyes, Garrus, and Manah. He barely had enough time to savor that small victory when the Red Wanzer suddenly appeared in front of him in a blue flash, its giant blade raised high. Time slowed down as the thick clod of metal came down on him. If he moved out of the way, what would happen to T'soni, in stasis or not?

...

"Well, you should start thinking about using your O-Tools more." said Ryan. "Those things can be a real lifesaver. Trust me, I should know. That Omni-Armor feature alone should really increase your odds of survival the next time you enter close combat with Seraph wearers."

...

Jensen set the 108's power output at one hundred percent. The suit's integrated Omni-Gel systems quickly conjured glowing plates of hardened gel around Jensen, and his body was covered in an armor of light. He brought his two gauntlets up above his head. As the three ton blade landed on the glowing plates, Jensen felt the considerable pressure buckle his knees, and he silently thanked Zorah's work on his knee actuator when he started pushing the blade back. The strain on his body and the power-suit was immense, but there he was, going toe-to-toe with a giant robot in a contest of strength.

Benezia brought her right hand up, then lowered it, and Jensen found himself struggling to lift the giant blade more and more.

He was losing.

~[h+]~

As Benezia's power levels dropped, the Stasis field she had been maintaining around Manah had dissolved into nothing, and the young asari archaeologist felt gravity wash over body once again and she fell on her hands and knees. As she looked up she saw Shadow struggling to keep a giant sword wielded by the Red Dragon from cleaving them both in two.

Shadow looked down at her. "Run."

"W-what?"

"I said run! This mission is a failure! I..." his knees started to bend and tremble, the floating golden plates of light started to flicker. "I can't keep this up forever. Run, save yourself!"

"No! I can't leave you here!"

"Oh, by all means, my dear, sweet thing." her mother laughed cruelly - had she ever heard her mother laugh? Manah wondered this briefly. "Stay, stay and watch as his strength wanes and he perishes for your miserable little life! Stay, and learn this final lesson: No one will save you from me in the end! NO ONE! You are MINE, and shall keep you in a cage until you wither and die!"

Manah rose up, and stepped in front of the struggling dark-armored man and put her hands on the giant blade.

"He may not be able to save me, but I can save him!" Manah's body flared blue with an intensity that surprised even herself. She countered her mother's mass-increasing field over the blade, and pushed up with her own telekinesis, easing Shadow's burden considerably. "With the gifts you gave me!"

"You little... bitch! How DARE you defy me?!" The Black Queen floated upwards, and glowed red-purple as she brought both her hands down, a gesture that tripled the mass of the blade. "I should have abandoned you in a ditch and left you as a dry-blooded little monster!"

"I..." Manah's could feel the Geas in her skull revolt at her surging biotics, but she ignored its lash.

"...am not..." She fed on the pain, and her body glowed brighter.

"...a MONSTER!"

A burst of blue light surged out of Manah, and Shadow easily lifted the blade with one hand, freeing the other to slice into it with his arm-mounted sword. The thick slab of metal flew off, and Shadow leapt at the giant machine's head, grabbed its brow for leverage, and punched it so hard and so fast that the barriers triggered. Undaunted, he punched it again and again and again, until the barriers lost all power and the metal caved in from the onslaught. Every impact sent the ambulant machine reeling backwards, and on the final blow it fell on its back while Shadow jumped away and landed on his hand and feet.

The Black Queen was livid, and screamed. "Fools! This is not a victory for you, not in the least!" Sixteen micro-singularities formed around her, and she rose her hand skywards, ready to project them. Both Shadow and Manah were winded by their struggles, and could barely move. After all this, were they still doomed?

The whistle of a rocket grew louder and louder, and Manah saw a plume of white smoke streak across her sight to strike and explode into the Black Queen's back. The barrier she had erected around herself soaked up nearly all of the force, but and was knocked out of the air. Her concentration ruined, the dark energy spheres dissolved, and the Deep Eyes were freed of their Stasis.

~[h+]~

"Suck on that you crazy blue BITCH!" shouted Vega victoriously as he cycled another mini-rocket into his GEP gun's firing chamber. "Yeah!"

Bau had not exactly appreciated the young human's initiative: he had hoped to capture Benezia alive in order to interrogate her. However, She had shown an impressive display of Biotic power, which, to his shock and amazement, involved making a Wanzer execute a Biotic Charge.

All things considered, perhaps shooting her with a rocket was the more prudent course of action. Now all they needed to do was deal with the combat mech that had punched a Wanzer into the ground... Bau wasn't quite sure if intervening in their fight before Benezia scrapped it was the right call. Then again, T'soni had been in the line of fire as well...

On second thought, perhaps he should commend Vega for his initiative later.

"What do we do about those mercs, sir?" Taylor asked Anderson.

"First," Anderson replied, "we make sure Benezia and that Wanzer don't get up again, we secure T'soni, and then there will be time for questions."

"That's assuming they let us secure T'soni."

"If they don't let us take her, then we kill 'em," said Wrex. "Simple."

"Hmph, agreed." said Bau. Finding T'soni here had been a welcome bit of good fortune: It looked like his mission would be a success after all.

~[h+]~

Coming out of Stasis was an experience that the US marines were simply never prepared for. One minute you're doing something, then all of a sudden you feel disoriented and everything around you feels different, like time passed you by in a split second. Grey fell on all fours, trying not to puke in his helmet. He shook his head, got back up once the world stopped spinning, and took stock of the situation.

There was a Wyvern Wanzer, painted red, lying on its back with its head smashed in, and Benezia lay near it, her silk clothing smoking. He wondered if Jensen had done that all by himself... but then he noted the presence of another armed band. Mercs? No, Alliance, judging by their colors, along with a Kroc and a Gecko. They were approaching them - carefully, with their weapons in hand.

Jensen had been kneeling, and recovering from a great deal of exertion. "Are you alright?" he asked T'soni.

"I'm fine... what about you?"

"Honestly?" he got back on his feet, and Grey noted that his legs made some funny noises... I could use some rest."

The rest of the Deep Eyes, along with Garrus, had recovered their senses as well, and saw the defeated Wanzer, the fallen Matriarch and the approaching group of Alliance troopers.

Jane grimaced as if tasting a piece of bile. "Great... Allie comes to the rescue at the last fucking second. Again."

"Spirit, Mr. Blue, Paladin... go and make sure Benezia and that Wanzer stay down. Shadow, T'soni? You go shut down that damned artifact and open it properly. I'll talk-"

Benezia rose in air and shrieked like a banshee, her bleeding body surrounded in a purple aura. Tongues of flame sprang from the monolith and were sucked into her mask, making it pour out a black liquid that veined her skin and quickly covered her completely in dark liquid metal, forming a seamless armor in the shape of a woman. The Wanzer rose as well, but it looked like he was being torn apart, limb by limb.

The pilot was spared the carnage, amazingly enough, and he landed on two feet while his twelve swords hovered about him, slave to the Lorentz force generated by the disks on his elbows. The Wanzer's wreckage began to take shape around Benezia, and the liquid metal sprang out to form a web of veins that melted the metal into the shape of a giant headless woman with six metal wings and a serpentine tail.

The Deep Eyes fired their guns at the reformed machine, but it was no use, a powerful Barrier had been erected around it, and Benezia laughed.

"Fools! A moment's weakness and you think yourselves victorious?!"

The Wanzer's element zero core floated above and behind the machine, and Benezia sat on a throne where its head should have been. Huge eyes mounted on the insectile limbs the wings were mounted on opened, and each one tracked a different person.

"Look upon the true form of the Black Queen! Am I not beautiful?!" she cackled madly. "Kneel before me..." Biotic orbs - dozens of them - appeared and orbited around her. "...or suffer!"

"TAKE COVER!" screamed Grey as the Black Queen began her biotic artillery strike.

~[h+]~

Dark Energy erupted all around Wrex as he sprinted for cover at the ring of arches that surrounded the artifact, and he cursed Bau for thinking the mission practically over. They were now dealing with a Biotic Wanzer.

A Biotic Wanzer.

A normal one would have been enough trouble for a small squad of infantrymen, but a Biotic one? This... This was going to be a challenge.

"Open fire!" shouted Anderson. His battle-suit was connected to his LMG through a coolant tube, allowing the gun to fire indefinitely by using the suit's own heat sinks. Vapor emerged from vents on his back. "Bring down that thing's barrier! Vega, ready your GEP gun for a full barrage!"

"Aye-aye, sir! Give me an opening and-whoa!"

Vega was interrupted when a sword-wielding Templar - that damned Wanzer's former pilot - appeared in a burst of biotic energy and slashed at him with a pair of serrated blades. Vega's reflexes, boosted by his Adrenaline Rush, allowed him to block with his large weapon. The GEP gun was slashed in half, and Vega fell on his back. The Templar was about to finish him when Wrex Charged in and knocked the Templar away. To the little human's credit, he landed on his feet. Wrex followed it up with a Heavy pistol shot to the chest, but the swords that hovered about the Templar - was he a biotic? Wrex wondered - formed a wall that blocked the shot. Anderson tried to overcome that metal barrier by firing his LMG at it, but it held fast. Taylor tried to knock it away with his biotics, but it held against that as well.

Wrex drew out his new greataxe and smiled. This was going to be settled in melee combat. "You folks take care of the witch. This uppity human is mine!"

"Try and last more than ten seconds, Lizard!" challenged the Templar.

"You try and last more than one, monkey!"

And the two warriors charged at each other, roaring.

~[h+]~

Garrus and Ryan fired as many Overload tech mines at it, but the Black Queen's barrier just wouldn't go down.

"Dammit! It doesn't matter what we throw at it, nothing works!" shouted Ryan.

"She's tapping energy from the artifact!" added Garrus. "Wolf, we have to put a stop to that! I still have the high explosives!"

"We might need those to take HER out!" replied Grey. "T'soni! Do you think you can shut the monolith down?"

"I... I think I can close it, yes! The mandala's still intact, I can simply turn one of its dials back in the proper config-"

"Don't care how you do it, just do it! Paladin! Shadow! Give her cover! Blue! Spirit! Fire everything you've got at Benezia! Keep her attention on you!"

~[h+]~

For Garrus, 'everything he had' now meant his modified Mongoose heavy pistol. The Steiner-Bisley Greatsword that Grey had provided him was now fresh out of gunpowder ammo, and while the Templar beam gun Jensen had given him still had a full charge, he wasn't keen on wasting it on Benezia's impenetrable barrier. Particle guns did about as well against that kind of defense as kinetic energy weapons.

So, he was down to firing his Mongoose pistol at a Biotic Wanzer... which didn't even annoy it. Benezia quickly took notice of the two large men escorting her daughter, and she needed to be distracted, and fast.

What do I have? My beloved Mongoose, and a Particle Gun/Sword that's a bit too awesome to use. None of these will do.

What else do I have?

I have a couple of LAMs, and... A satchel case with six cylinders of custom made explosive.

Oh yes, this will do.

He took out one of the explosive charges and, lacking a detonator, stuck a LAM on it, armed it, and drew back his arm for a throw.

"Vakarian!" screamed Grey. "What the fuck are you doing?!"

"Getting her attention!" replied the Turian cop. He gave the throw all he had, and when the bomb interacted with the dark energy of Benezia's biotic barrier, it exploded into a ball of plasma and kinetic energy that briefly sundered the barrier. The shockwave was felt by everyone in the Ziggurat's central chamber.

Benezia had felt that shockwave through her Barrier, and now all of her eyes stared daggers at Garrus.

He had gotten her attention, alright.

~[h+]~

"The mercs got heavy explosives!" shouted Vega. "They've got a shot at finishing this!"

"Keep firing!" ordered Anderson. "Keep Benezia off their backs!"

Anderson replaced the ammo block in his LMG and continued firing. At the same time, Bau desperately emptied his Venom's omni-gel tank firing explosive sub-munitions at Benezia, while Vega and Taylor fired their Avengers into her back. It was no use; her armor regenerated quickly, and it wasn't long before the globe of biotic energy surrounded her again.

Meanwhile, Wrex was wrapped in a Barrier of his own, keeping the crazy Templar swordsman at bay... and getting visibly tired. It would not be long before he would be cut down, and then nothing would stop the madman from chopping them up into ribbons.

"Anderson!" screamed Bau. "The mercenaries and T'soni are doing something to the monolith! I think they're trying to shut it down!"

The captain understood that if they were to have a chance in hell of stopping Benezia, they needed to cut her off from the monolith's energy. "Taylor! Detonate any micro-singularities that come their way!"

"I'll try, sir!" replied the Vanguard.

"Don't try, DO IT, marine!"

"Aye-aye!"

~[h+]~

A dark energy bolt exploded above Jensen as he shielded Manah, while Ryan protected them both with his Omni-Shield. They hurried to the spot that Manah had pointed out, a circle some five meters away from the Monolith. The Asari archeologist knelt and began altering a hologram conjured from the ground.

"This will just take a minute!" she said, trying not to lose her calm as her mother raged.

"Hurry up!" shouted Ryan. "My friends are -ugh!" Another biotic bolt detonated above him, and his overpowered shield absorbed the shockwave. "They're almost out of ammo!"

Jensen himself was running on fumes; his suit's power was down to one percent. If Benezia or even that Templar attacked, he wasn't sure if he could stop either of them.

~[h+]~

The two warriors were evenly matched in skill, and while the Krogan had strength and resilience, Caim had far more speed. Still, that wasn't enough to defeat the blasted Alien that had challenged him.

"What's the matter?!" shouted the Alien as he made a horizontal strike, triggering the axe's rockets for that extra bit of speed. "Never fought a Krogan before?!"

"I fought plenty!" Caim ducked under the blow - the plasma jet barely singing his hair. "I have plenty of crests mounted on my wall!"

"Ha! You're a bad liar, human!"

"It's no lie! It's pathetic, really! You Krogan act like nothing could possibly faze you, but if someone so much caresses those things with a knife, you panic and mewl like kittens!"

"You're trying to make me mad?!" The Krogan focused his biotics into the head of the Greataxe, and slammed the ground with it. A shockwave rode the floor and hit Caim in the legs, causing him to fall. The Krogan stepped up and rose the weapon, ready to finish the duel by beheading him. "Well, you SUCCEEDED, idiot!"

Caim rolled out of the way and quickly got back to his feet. The Queen's voice rang in his head.

"Caim, my daughter plans to rob me of my power. Stop her. Ignore the Krogan and STOP HER!"

"As you wish, my Queen." he replied, calmly.

Caim positioned himself between the Krogan and the trio near the monolith, and goaded the Battlemaster into striking again. He succeeded, and the Krogan made a wide horizontal swing. Caim jumped on the weapon's shaft, and he added the Krogan's power to his leap. He landed right in front of the Asari girl. Her eyes widened in shock and horror, an expression Caim savored.

"Hello, little bird..." he swung at her neck, but the serrated blade only found the humming steel attached to the Abomination's arm.

"T'soni!" it said. "Don't stop!"

~[h+]~

Grey saw both Ryan and Jensen engage the Templar swordsman. The Krogan he had been engaged with was charging at them, intent on joining the fray. Before that he noticed that the Alliance soldiers had a biotic with them. A plan formed in his head, even as he came under fire from these blasted exploding orbs.

"Vakarian! Get ready to throw another of these explosive charges at her on my mark!"

"Gladly!"

Grey ran from cover to cover, and linked up with the Alliance soldiers. One of them, had a red stripe over his arm, and he assumed that he was in command. "Hey! Are you in command?"

"Captain David Anderson," boomed the power-suited marine. "Alliance Military! Who the hell are you?!"

To hell with this mercenary cover. "Edward Gray, United States Marine Corps!"

"Grey?! What the hell are the-"

"No time for questions! I got a plan, but I need your biotic to make me float! Can he do that?"

"Are you insane?!"

"I'm going to distract Benezia while my man with the explosives brings down her barrier again. Once I distract her, you shoot at her Eezo core! All the energy in the world won't do her any good if she can't make a barrier with it!"

"Sir!" called out the Biotic. "I can do it!"

"It's a sound plan!" agreed Bau.

"...Fine." agreed the Alliance captain. "But it's your ass on the line."

"I know it is." Grey replied. "Oorah."

"Taylor, do it!"

"Aye aye, sir!" The Biotic lifted Grey up, freeing him from Caleston's gravity. Grey activated his micro-jets, and darted around and above Benezia, annoying her like a fly. "Now!" he shouted, and Vakarian threw a double dose of explosives at Benezia. The blast destroyed her barrier, and Grey dodged biotic orbs as he propelled himself towards the Biotic Wanzer's head - Benezia herself. He landed right in front of her, grabbed her by the neck, and fired his Serpent point blank into her belly. Just as he did so, the Alliance marines focused their fire on the floating Element Zero core. It cracked under the onslaught of kinetic energy, and Benezia was left without her first line of defense.

"Die, you goddamned witch! DIE!" Even as he shouted the words, Benezia's wounds sealed back up. She grabbed the Serpent with her own hands, and crushed the barrel.

"DIE?!" Benezia grabbed Grey by the throat.YOU WANT ME TO DIE?! I HAVE DIED A THOUSAND TIMES OVER AT THE HANDS OF BEINGS FAR MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU FILTHY LITTLE MONKEYS, AND I HAVE RISEN AG-AAARGH!"

The arm that held Grey by the throat was severed by a lance of energy. The biotic field that kept him free of gravity faded, and he fell on the ground. As he recovered, Garrus rushed to him, Longinus rifle in hand, and helped him up.

"Nice shot," said Grey.

"Sometimes you get lucky." replied the Turian as he dragged him back into cover.

~[h+]~

Jondum Bau was, to be honest, quite impressed with the audacity of the Terran Marine. He had failed in killing Benezia once and for all, but his plan had mostly worked: Benezia's defenses were failing, and her liquid metal armor was starting to fail under the combined gunfire of his Venom shotgun and the Alliance Marine's weapons... and the occasional beam of light that came from the Turian in the service of the US marines.

Yes, they were going to win this.

"Benezia!" He called out, even as he kept firing at her. "Shut down your Wanzer and surrender! I promise you that the Council will show you leniency!"

"Surrender?!" Benezia landed on her machine's feet, and one of her giant hands created a ball of plasma, formed out of the wisps of flame that emanated from the Prothean artifact. "I cannot be caged!" She threw it at him. "I cannot be controlled! Understand this as you die, fool!"

Bau and the Normandy team hit the deck, as the ball of plasma exploded against the arches.

"You just had to piss her off, didn't you?" said Anderson.

And then Benezia set the stone on fire.

~[h+]~

The Krogan had been the first to fall. He had been difficult to duel, but he did not work very well with others. Caim had sliced off his leg from the back of his knee just as he shouted something about never ignoring one's enemy, or some other alien nonsense. Caim was just about to stab him in the chest before the human with the omni-shield bashed him with the glowing plate - His shot-pistol having been cut in half, that was all he could do to save the alien.

That had made him made Caim very, very mad, and rage gave him more focus. The Abomination attempted to slice his head off - an amateurish strike with a blade mounted on the wrist, and easily dodged. Caim kicked him in the back while he dealt with the shield bearer. That one... that one had been trained better in the fighting arts, he could tell, but that didn't stop him from getting his shoulder pierced with one of Caim's floating blades. His stance faltered, and Caim side-kicked him in the neck. The large man fell, limp like a rag doll.

That left the Abomination to be dealt with. Caim traded Popola and Devola (his serrated blades) for Furiae (his curved greatsword). He took a stance, ready to slice the machine man in half. It drew its revolver and fired explosive rounds at him. Caim laughed as his Lorentz Force generators mounted in his cowters automatically put up a barrier of blades in front of him, shielding him from the explosive bullets.

"Go ahead, reload! But while you're at it..." He eyed the Black Queen's daughter frantically trying to solve a Prothean puzzle. "Let me take care of this annoyance, first!"

Devola flew at the Asari, and the Abomination leapt in her way. She pierced the dark-armored man's chest, close to where the heart should be. The machine fell to the ground, unmoving.

"Well, that was easy." quipped Caim. He had expected more out of the cyborg. Maybe the screaming Turian charging him with an Omni-Sword would prove to be better sport.

As he struck the sword away from the turian, and smacked him across the face into a coma, he realized it would not be so.

Oh well.

~[h+]~

"Nooooo!" screamed Manah. Tears streamed down her face as all thoughts of shutting down the monolith fled from her mind. She ran up to her fallen protector to try to do something - anything! - to save him. But the Templar grabbed her by the throat. He shuddered as he touched her.

"Ah... so that's how it feels to touch you..." said the Templar. Manah was horrified. He was still sane. How was he still sane?

Shadow stirred, and the Templar followed Manah's surprised gaze. He threw her away, away from the Mandala, away from her savior.

"I'll deal with you later..." muttered the Templar venomously.

She had tried to come to his defense - tried to fire off a biotic blast... but she had given everything she had saving everyone from that gigantic blade. She had nothing left to give. The Turian had nothing left to give... and from the smoking ruins of the arches that surrounded her, and the mad, victorious cackling of her mother... it was apparent that neither the Alliance, or these Deep Eyes, could come to his aid.

It was hopeless.

The Templar pulled the serrated blade from Shadow's fallen form, and blood splattered over the Mandala as the Templar shook the blade clean.

"Blood?" taunted the Templar. "Red blood? I would have thought your kind would bleed the same mercury as my Mistress' servants." He put the blade against Shadow's throat.

And then the blood glowed green.

~[h+]~

"Did you think some man with a gun could stop a creature such as I?" asked Benezia as she held both Anderson and Grey in her giant, mechanical hands.

"It was worth a shot." replied Grey.

"I could have given you her heart, body and soul, Grey. I could have made Angela love you again..."

"...Go to hell."

"And you David. It's not too late. I can bring her back. I can make her love you as a daughter... and as a lover."

Anderson simply spat at Benezia. "Fuck you."

Grey chuckled at that.

"So you will not submit. You will not become my thralls."

Anderson and Grey said nothing. And Benezia began to squeeze.

Even as his ribs started to crack, Grey felt he needed to say something. "I...argh! I know we only met five minutes ago, but I just want to say... It was an honor, Anderson."

"Like...wise. argh..." The pain was intense for both men, but both of them refused to scream.

Their only regret was that the last thing they would see would be Benezia's grinning face... which quickly turned to surprise as the entire floor began to glow green. She let both soldiers go.

"What...NO! CAIM, YOU FOOL! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

~[h+]~

DNA PATTERN PARTIALLY RECOGNIZED

ANIMA SCAN COMPLETE

WELCOME BACK, ALEPH

I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU... for so long...

...

Was this death, Adam wondered? Was this the Afterlife? A computer voice drones on, and there's nothing but black? He had been raised Catholic, and time had worn those beliefs down to agnosticism... but he had still hoped for something a bit more interesting.

Then another voiced boomed, and yet was gentle on the ears.

Alif.

"Who's there?" Jensen asked the darkness.

Alif... open your eyes.

"That's not my name. My name is Adam."

That is not the name your mother gave you, as she held you in her arms while you were still covered in the blood of her womb. That is not the name that echoed throughout the universe as she uttered it for the first time.

Alif.

Don't be afraid.

Open your eyes.

Adam opened his eyes, and saw an infinitely complicated machine made of impossible configurations of gears and transmissions, surrounded by ever shifting, ever moving caterpillar tracks made out of silver plates. Lightning cracked between the machine and an eternal black void.

It was a throne.

And within that throne stood - no floated- a man. His mechanical arms outstretched, clad in a long, tan robe that hovered over his legs but hugged his chest tightly. He wore a headdress, a strip of metal that curved over the top of his head from ear to ear, and beads attached to each tip floated weightlessly. His eyes glowed green behind a mask that covered his entire face.

I am Aleph.

I am the first of the Prometheans.

And you must listen.

"This... this is nothing but a dying dream. I took a blade in the heart, and now my brain's last neurons are firing off some kind of foolish delusion!..."

You and your companions fought well, but an army would not have been enough. Naamah toyed with you: her nanites would have restored her flesh even if you had unleashed a hailstorm of metal shards at it. The Barrier was simply there to keep her form preserved: a testament to her vanity. Explosives would not have worked. The shadow man tried to prepare you as best he could... but he failed.

A man with a gun cannot hope to defeat what is to come. That is folly, a fantasy conjured up by your leaders.

"Then what the hell are we supposed to do, then?!"

To fight the Reapers, the Children of Nazara, you must be armed with knowledge.

And this... this is the first tome you must study.

A small tablet of stone appeared between Adam and Aleph.

This is the Grimoire of the Divine Fire.

Images flashed in Adam's mind:

The Molten Earth.

The Rain Transformed.

The Air Ignited.

Adam's head felt like it was on fire.

This is the knowledge of the flow of energy.

With it you can cut out her heart: her true heart, the one that sleeps in the darkness, and reclaim the Anima that she took.

Awaken, Alif. And take your first steps on the Path.

What you are now is but a stepping stone to what you can become...

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE.

~[h+]~

"What diablerie is this?!" The glowing green blood that came from the machine followed the grooves of the mandala, and they began a circuitous trip towards the Prothean monolith. It's shaft of light had turned from a flaming pillar of orange flame to a bright blue solid beam of light. Lightning crackled between it and the metal cage

"What...NO! CAIM, YOU FOOL! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" screamed the Black Queen.

Caim was panicking, but he could fix this. He could fix this! He still had a blade at the Abomination's throat - It was causing it, he knew it! All he had to do was swipe the blade and cut off its head and it would be ov-

The cyborg grabbed the blade with its hand, and dug its plasma claws into it, momentarily blinding Caim with the bright flash of light. It forced the blade away from its throat and got up, his fingers buried deep in Caim's wrists. When Caim's eyes recovered, the cyborg was covered in teal glowing Omni-Gel. Its faceplate opened, revealing eyes that glowed a yellow green. It put a finger on his forehead, and Caim knew that he was doomed.

~[h+]~

Adam could feel the pulses of electricity that coursed through his body. He could feel the circuits in his implants, and in his suit. He had never felt so awake, so alive, and aware of everything around him.

He could feel the pulses that ran through the Templar's brains - Caim, that was his name, yes. Caim, despite all his rage and fury and thirst for blood, was a pitiable creature that simply did not wish to dwell on the horrible death of his family. Naamah had offered him some relief, and that had been enough for him to swear loyalty to her. Through him Leon and Ari, bound to him in ways that they could not comprehend, followed suit.

He was nothing but a pathetic thrall, and Adam took pity on him.

"Sleep," he said, and the pulses in Caim's brain stilled, and the boy fell into unconsciousness.

"...No... no! No! NO! It cannot be you. IT CANNOT BE YOU! I SAW YOU PERISH ON THAT PRIMITIVE WORLD! MY CREATOR STRUCK YOU DOWN ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

"Naamah. You should know better. Death is not the end. How many times has Nazara seen fit to restore you into a..." Adam laughed. "...a piece of clothing? What was it this time? An undergarment? A hat?"

"HOW DARE YOU! I..."

While Naamah ranted (as she always ranted when her inflated sense of worth was called into question -wait how do I know that?) Adam looked around for a weapon. Finding none that would do. He decided to make one with what was at hand. Shards of Starfire littered the ground, and a huge slab of titanium lay there, some distance away. Adam's star fire cores in his armor flared, and the ingredients were brought together.

This room... This was not a place of communion, as the primitives would like to think. Nor was this a chamber of power, as Naamah liked to believe. No, this room was a forge, the final test for the students of Vulcanus, before they moved on to the higher secrets of Molecular Control.

Lighting struck the metal and the shards, conducted from the Core through the monolith and through the air. The energy melted the elements, and Jensen clenched his fist, forming a mold of dark energy that crushed the huge clod of metal into the shape of a blade small enough for a man, segmented at the lower half. The blade cooled immediately, and Jensen grabbed it, feeling its weight.

It was not his best work - when have I ever forged a sword?! - but for the likes of Naamah? It would do.

"...AND WHEN I CLAIM YOUR ANIMA NAZARA WILL REWARD ME BEYOND MEASURE!"

"Ah, you are done talking." Adam took a stance, bringing his sword high, ready to strike. Adam had never properly wielded a sword before, but.. it felt right, somehow. "Shall I remind you, Naamah? Shall I remind you why Nazara had to put you in a vessel so small?" Lightning surged out of the blade, its metal sang, and its edge became a bright blue. "Come! And remember what it is to fight a TRUE Promethean!"

"You are not a true Promethean!" screamed the Black Queen as she conjured up balls of plasma. "You are the last echo of one, animating the corpse of a bastard as you always have! And I shall make the sound still ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

~[h+]~

They had all opened their eyes, at some point, their bodies were tired, or broken, but they could all open their eyes. And they all saw.

Vega saw Tlaloc, as he imagined him as a boy, cutting off one of the wings of the great beast whose taloned feet had kicked him into a pillar.

Taylor saw Shango, as he imagined him when he listened his grandmother describe him so long ago... He saw Shango, reflecting a bolt of purple light right back at a hideous creature that had made a piece of pillar fall on top of him. She was smacked against the wall.

Whitaker saw the Archangel Gabriel himself, but he was running up the walls, his feet crackling thunder, catching up with Satan trying to fly away and escape God's wrath. Williams saw them as such, passing by twice: once rising, then once falling.

Proudfoot saw an fusion of a Thunderbird and Taranis bring down a great winged serpent that had knocked her away with its tail.

Wrex saw Vaul tear out the wings of Uru, the Void Maw, with his bare hand.

Garrus saw a Myrmidon with the power of a Titan, but he also saw his dearest friend, planting his sword in one of Benezia's giant eyes.

Anderson saw a machine, granted powers beyond his understanding.

Grey saw Jensen, more powerful than he had feared... and yet, he was glad that this power was on his side.

Jondum Bau couldn't process what he was seeing at all. There was no myth for his mind to fall back on.

And Manah? Manah saw what she had always dreamed of, but never dared to hope she would ever see.

And then she saw her mother being torn out of the giant machine she had built, and crawl towards her, leaving a trail of black blood behind.

~[h+]~

"Manah... help me."

"You are beyond help, Naamah." said Adam, his voice not his own. He walked behind her, sword in hand, ready to finish this. "The untold billions I have MURDERED by letting you LIVE." Tears welled up in his eyes. Oh, yes, billions had died to her machinations, her need for idolatry. "Here, in this place, Nazara will not come to save you. Here, in this place, you will not escape. You will die a true - and final - death."

He rose his blade, ready to slice her chest apart, right in the sweet spot, and claim the wyrm of red Anima that animated the corpse of the poor woman.

"Now it ends as you said it would! Once and for all!"

"Stop!" screamed the young girl - Manah, that was her name, yes. The blade stopped just short of her head. She stood defiantly against him, tears in her eyes. "Please," she begged. "That's my mother!"

"...Your mother is as good as dead. Stand aside, and let me end her suffering."

"No! She's in there somewhere! She has to be!"

"Yes, she is. But she is beyond saving. Her soul's Anima is mingled with a Reaper, and that means a death the likes of which you do not know."

"There has to be a way to save her! You're a Prothean! You can do anything!"

"He's right... Manah, I am damned let him finish it..."

"Mother!" Manah knelt by her mother's side. She wanted to touch her, to hold her in arms, but...

"I can still hear her whisper in my mind... Oh, she rages! My body is but a cage, too small and too limited to contain her fury! I thought I was using a Prothean tool, but in fact it was I being used! I tried to seal away a part of my mind, but she found even that sanctum! There's no escape, no escape for me, my child! Let him do his work, let him free what is left of my soul while there is still time!"

"No!" cried Manah in despair. "I can't let it end like this!"

"You MUST!" Benezia's biotics flared, and Manah was pushed away. Manah desperately pushed back physically against the wall of force, her feet sliding against the floor wet with her mother's black blood.

Benezia struggled to rise, naked save for slivers of liquid black metal and the Masque, now empty of Naamah. Adam could see her true form: a wyrm of red fire, coiled around Benezia's heart. He would have to cut deep to reach it.

"Manah, my Little Storm, I'm sorry for everything... but please... close your eyes." Benezia begged.

"Mother! MOTHER!"

"Close your eyes!"

Manah finally obeyed, and shut her eyes tightly. Benezia stares silently at Adam... her executioner.

"Promise me, Promethean... promise me you will take care of her?"

"...I shall. I admire your strength, Matriarch. Few are those that can struggle against the will of a Reaper."

"But they never last long, do they?" Benezia smiled sadly.

"...No. The Reaper always wins out in the end."

"...He is growing stronger."

"I know."

"Do you think you can defeat him?"

"...I can only promise that I will not let him win."

"...Good. That's good..." Benezia took a deep breath, and the wyrm stirred in a panic. It knew the end was coming.

"Finish it." Benezia said finally.

Adam swung down diagonally, cutting Benezia in half. The wyrm wriggled free from her flesh, and Adam seized the creature of fire, spirit and breath. Lightning crackled around his fist as he crushed the abomination, burning it away, releasing the energy from its gorged, swollen form. Adam claimed a portion of it, and the taste of it felt... familiar. He had felt it whenever he broke someone's spirit on his fists. He had felt it when he killed Barrett, felt it when Fedorova's blood spilled on the floor, and he had felt it when Namir took his last breath.

But it was stronger, here.

Benezia's body dissolved to ashes, and from these rose a multitude of white wisps, rising up, fluttering like fireflies.

And there was nothing left for Manah to mourn. That was all she could see when she opened her eyes, after the wall of force faded and she fell on her knees.

Ashes.

Adam planted the sword on the pile, letting it fuse with the stone. It was a final gesture of respect, marking a grave for a poor soul taken over by the Reapers. Another they would answer for.

"Why?" she asked as she approached Adam. "Why couldn't you..." she started hitting him, her hands impacting uselessly against his chest. "You... you could have saved her!" she cried. "You could have saved her!"

"...I'm sorry."

"Sorry?! I am all alone now! My mother is dead! My sister is dead! Even my caretakers are dead! They're all gone!"

"There was nothing I could do for her."

"You're a Prothean! You're supposed to have all the answers! You can't save one life?!"

"I..." Jensen realized that his voice was his own again, and then it was as if the inside of his head had been set on fire. "I... I...argh!"

"W-what... what's happening to you?!"

"My head, I can't..." His blue Omni-Armor flickered and melted into a puddle around him, and his chest wound bled out over Manah's hands.

"No! NO! Not you too! Please, no!"

Adam fell on his knees, and Manah found herself keeping him from falling over completely. A voice boomed from the Monolith, it's shaft of light gone.

"ERROR. HOST CAPACITY INSUFFICIENT. INITIATING ANIMA BACKUP."

Wisps of blue light surged out of Adam's head, taking with them millions of years of a accumulated wisdom, memories, and skills... and rushed into the Monolith.

"GRIMOIRE SAVED."

The monolith split in half, and floating between the two halves was a tablet of stone, waiting impatiently to be claimed.

Adam fell down, and rolled on his back. He felt so... drained, now. He could feel the presence of the Deep Eyes, Garrus, the Alliance soldiers and the two aliens walking up to him, their steps slow and pained.

"No..." muttered Garrus. "Please, Spirits... don't let it end like this. We've been through so much..."

"Please! Don't go!" cried Manah. Adam found her voice so high, so pretty... so close, and so far away. The sound was so pleasant, and he wanted to hear it again.

It was getting darker.

"He's... not gonna make it, is he?" said Jane.

"Please..." begged Manah.

Everything was a blur...

"Stay with me..."

The last thing Jensen heard before the silent brightness took him was the whine of a dropship's engines.

~[h+]~

Author's notes: What? You didn't think I was going to let Jensen KEEP those demi-god powers, did ya? Well, there it is, the end of the Caleston arc. Nothing will be the same for anyone. You, me, the characters. It's all gonna get crazier from here.

Or will it? There's still a conspiracy to unravel. I think it's time for Jensen to walk more familiar environment. The streets of Illium await!... Just as soon as I'm done with the epilogue.

Also, holy crap: 25k words chapter.

Sorry to any folks from Ireland for the use of bad Irish straight out of Google Translate to stand in as Old Thessian, but I didn't have time to come up with random alien words. Besides, coming up with an alien language carries a risk: Try saying "I'd like a glass of water." in made-up Salarian, and you just might be insulting someone's mother in Bulgarian. If you're curious, Circe said: "O Geis, punish this one, and grant her the seventh level of suffering!"

The first part of the Black Queen series got itself a new introductory paragraph. I felt it needed one, and think i'll be making more tweaks to parts 2 and 3 later on. I'll be sure to make note of any changes in future updates.

I really, wanted to have Anderson say Oscar Mike here at some point... but I resisted the urge of slapping in yet another reference. I'm trying folks, I really am.

Special thanks to Vandenbz and Setokaiva for the spellchecking.