And we're back for the next chapter in the Feros arc. I hope you enjoy.

I have a few random announcements this time. One is that the dialogue is now a little weird. It goes like this:

"Speech"

"Thoughts, flashback speech, or comm. chatter"

"Mind controlling life form thoughts/speech" (including but not limited to the Thorian)

Okay now consider what the Thorian is and what it does. Let's look at what the Supernovas present have dealt with in the past:

Cole: Sasha's mind control tar, turning regular people into her personal army.

Alex: the Infected Hive Mind, of course.

Master Chief: Gravemind

Ryan: Look closely at Bioshock 1, and you'll catch mention of a pheromone that Andrew Ryan had created and pumped through the ventilation of all of Rapture. While not telepathic like the others, it still let him control every ADAM-affected being from his office, so it's similar.

Lastly, I threw in a little reference to the Final Party from Mass Effect 3: Citadel. Find it, and I'll congratulate you in the next chapter.

Summary: The investigation continues, as the three teams search Zhu's Hope and ExoGeni for the truth. Unfortunately, the truth doesn't want to be found. It's a good that our Supernovas all have past experience this kind of thing.

Spoilers: Mass Effect, inFAMOUS series, Prototype, Bioshock series, Halo series, KotOR, and Fallout series.

Disclaimer: The concept of Uniques and Supernovas is mine, but every piece of media seen here is property of those with much fatter bank accounts.

Please Keep Off the Grass

Feros

Prothean Skyway

Team 1

Leader: Cole MacGrath

"Could you please try not to ram the armatures, Ryan?" Cole shouted from the top of the Mako. Ryan had just driven straight into one of their quadrupedal adversaries in an effort to kill it. The conduit had almost gotten crushed when the walking tank's legs gave out and it fell forward onto their vehicle.

"If you have a better idea," Ryan retorted while shifting into reverse, "I'd love to hear it!"

Cole smirked. "Fine." Summoning a kinetic pulse, he lifted the Mako off the road and magnetically hurled it straight at the armature. Despite the vehicle's relatively light weight, the force Cole had applied was enough to crumple the machine easily. Of course, this didn't necessarily mean that the passengers inside were pleased with being used as a projectile.

"Cole," Ashley began, trying to catch her breath. "I don't care how bad the Commander drives. Do that again, and I'll shoot off your-"

"Ash," Ryan interrupted, uncomfortable just thinking about that image, "Just get back on the gun and feel very grateful that it wasn't the Alex Mercer approach!"

Against her better judgment, Tali asked, "What exactly is the Alex Mercer approach, Commander?"

Cole laughed as he jumped back onto the Mako's roof. "He picks up vehicles and throws them. If there's no explosion, he does it again. Rinse and repeat."

"Oh, Keelah!"

The Splicer King grinned at their antics, having missed this kind of banter. Turning his attention back to the geth blocking the road ahead, he yelled up to Cole, "We're gonna need a lot of heavy artillery to get past all this. See if you can keep that cannon on ice, would you?"

Just like Ryan would use his Winter Blast to passively cool down his shotgun, Cole was now using his own frosty talents to provide unlimited use of the Mako's primary weapon. In short, Ashley was suddenly able to fire 155mm slugs from their tank with no wait time in between.

BOOM

BOOM

BOOM

BOOM

"I want a turn, Ashley!" the quarian mechanic whined, looking up from the sensor readouts. Tali was extremely pleased to see so many geth being scrapped, but she wanted the feeling of doing it personally too. Before she could further insist, though, a weak signal came through on the comm. "Never mind, I may have something here. Listen."

"She's my daughter. I'll wait as long as I have to."

Ryan twitched slightly at the mention of "daughter" though nobody was in a position to notice. Whoever this was, their family was being threatened, and that was not okay in his book. "You guys might want to hang onto something!" The Splicer King floored it, using a ruined section of bridge as a makeshift ramp, sending the Mako off the ground. Once they were airborne, Ryan engaged the tank's thrusters, propelling them even further up. "Cole!" he yelled. "Thunder drop!"

While this alone wasn't enough height for Cole to catch their remaining enemies in a proper hit, the conduit was able to take himself higher. Back in New Marais, he developed the potential to use vehicles as electric launch pads, able to rocket him well off the ground. That was only with cars, so the Mako would be even more impressive.

Electromagnetically blasting clear off the tank, Cole soared into the air and maintained his altitude with static thrusters. Now floating directly over the geth forces, he dropped like a high-voltage stone, blowing out the circuits of all platforms caught in the resulting shockwave.

The Mako pulled up, and Cole jumped back on just in time to catch another transmission.

"We've got movement… some kind of vehicle, with… somebody standing on top? Well, it's certainly not geth."

Cole chuckled. It didn't matter where he went. The reactions people had to his method of transportation never got old.

Feros

Zhu's Hope

Team 2

Leader: Alex Mercer

"Fai Dan," Alex said, walking up as if he owned the place. "I'm Dr. Alex Mercer, and I believe I can help you all with your colony's problems. To do that, though, I'll need a few answers." With each word, the virus carefully gauged Fai Dan's every expression, looking for the subtle tells of deceit. The mention of "problems" had gotten an almost imperceptible rise out of the man. A step in the right direction.

With a calm and polite demeanor unusual for one whose home was under geth attack, Fai Dan nodded. "Of course, Doctor."

And the hunt began in earnest. "First, just tell me a little about this colony."

"Life is hard and often brutal," Fai Dan sighed, "even without our current problems."

"Pure truth, but with unspoken implications." Now for a follow up question. "So why don't you leave? If it's so tough to stay, why stay?"

Fai Dan shrugged. "Despite everything, there's something tranquil about this place. Unlike anything I've ever experienced before."

"Lie of omission with a half-truth." Alex pressed further. "So what if we tried evacuating what was left of the colony onto the Normandy? At least until the geth were gone?"

Fai Dan shook his head vigorously. "The geth fighters are too dangerous, and I won't be driven off this world. It is… our home."

"Subject displays attachment to colony that contradicts both present circumstances and known facts. Conclusion one: Subject is in denial as a result of geth assault. Unlikely due to tone of voice and patient behavior. Conclusion two: Subject is suffering from outside influence not unlike Matriarch Benezia. Obviously not identical, but certainly similar. Noticeable symptoms are consistent with those reacting to positive punishment stimuli. Cause is likely the 'Thorian' mentioned by Master Chief. Conclusion two is the more probable hypothesis. Extrapolation: Entire colony is the same, minus Exogeni staff due to their observational role. More information on Thorian necessary to validate theory." Alex smiled in mock politeness. "Thank you for your time, Fai Dan." The predator's eyes took on a dangerous gleam. "I assure you, we'll soon have everything under control."

Deep below the surface of Zhu's Hope, a gargantuan mass pulsed in the shadows.

"You will kill the machines for me, invader. After that, I will cease to tolerate your presence."

Alex halted mid-step. Something in the air just shifted dramatically. It was an alien feeling, yet something about it felt unnervingly similar. Seconds passed as the virus looked from person to person. Each individual present looked away immediately – almost apologetically – as he turned his gaze to them. The Thorian had made him, just as expected. They were all maintaining the façade of unassuming colonists, but Alex was no fool. Despite a lack of proper training, each one was an Infantry or Nimbus-class combatant waiting to strike. The question was: Why were they still waiting? He shrugged, not really caring. The Chief would be finished on his end soon, and if Alex was right, all hell would break loose anyway.

Feros

Tunnels

Team 3

Leader: Master Chief

"Shaped charges, Master Chief? What's going on?" Garrus was no stranger to explosives, and this looked insane. Tall, green, and deadly was rigging all of their remaining grenade discs along the ceiling where the geth transmitter had been. "If I didn't know better, I'd say we were about to breach the room above us from the worst possible angle."

"Good thing you don't know any better then, Garrus," Wrex snickered from his place against the wall. "Because that's exactly what we're doing." The battlemaster turned to face the Chief. "How much longer until those things are set?"

"Ten minutes," the Spartan said, not even halting his work.

Garrus' dry tone held no small amount of amusement. "That makes twenty minutes in total. You need that long to blow a hole in the ceiling with grenades that detonate remotely?"

Still not pausing, the Master Chief calmly replied, "No. That only takes half a minute, tops."

Now Garrus was confused. "So why-"

"These tunnels aren't stable," the super soldier continued. "If I'm off by so much as a millimeter, I'll end up bringing twenty tons of Prothean rock down on our heads."

"In other words," Wrex droned, unfazed by this announcement, "Shut your bony jaw, turian."

Garrus didn't say a word, but opened his omni-tool. Apparently, he knew much less about explosives than he thought. Now was a good time to learn more. "Micro-filaments? Interesting…"

Feros

ExoGeni HQ Entrance

Team 1

Leader: Cole MacGrath

Ryan was feeling two very strong emotions right now. The first was his burning hatred for corporate slime like Ethan Jeong. The second was a fierce determination to locate one Lizbeth Baynham and reunite the girl with her mother, Juliana, back at that weigh station. And of course, the nonchalance with which Jeong had written Lizbeth off as a casualty had only increased Ryan's urge to toss the sniveling weasel over the bridge and call it a day.

Luckily, Ryan's emotional threshold was incredibly high. Even when pissed, his judgment never clouded, and he never let his feelings take control. Even Darth Traya had complimented him for his immunity to the Dun Möch style employed by Sith. Thus, regardless of anger, the Splicer King moved ahead with business as usual, taking a request from a freelancer named Gavin Hossle to retrieve data involving prototype weapons modifications from ExoGeni Headquarters.

So here they were, standing right outside the entrance, and the hoppers inside had all equipment jammed worse than downtown Los Angeles in gridlock. Ryan stopped and facepalmed when he realized that such metaphors no longer worked when cars drove through the air instead of the streets these days. "Cole, give Tali your dataphone." He was referring to the 22nd century stand-in for Cole's original phone back on Conduit Earth. Just like then, this newer device was held in a sling across his torso, even though the backpack was absent.

Ashley frowned. "Why the hell would you even have something like that in this day and age?"

Cole looked at her as if the answer was obvious. "Because when lightning comes out your ass, omni-tools are unreliable at best. I thought I'd spark-proofed my last one, but apparently I was wrong, so I've set everything up on this dataphone." He tapped a key on the phone's underside, and a holographic grid encircled the whole thing, much like an omni-tool did for an arm. "It performs all the same functions, and I don't have to worry about frying it every time I light up." He handed the little gadget to Tali. "Link all frequencies through mine. I act as a walking signal booster to overcome jammers like those things." Tali nodded and got to work.

Ryan grinned. "While you guys are doing that, Ash and I will clear the room." He pulled out his hooks and marched through the crack in the wall with the Gunnery Chief in tow.

Tali, good enough at mechanical application to multitask, cast a glance in the direction her Captain had just gone, wishing for his safe return. This did not go unnoticed by Cole. Ryan may have been the expert at reading people that wore masks, but the conduit was no slouch either. None of the gangs he'd fought in Empire City or New Marais ever went without concealing their faces with something, be it hoods, trash bags, gas masks, hockey masks, or the things Vermaak 88 wore. He couldn't read all the nuances like Ryan, but at the moment, Tali was pretty much an open book in her "concern" for her Commander. Cole was about to inform her that Ryan was not the kind of man she'd want to get involved with but stopped and considered something. The usual heartbreaker routine had been absent in Ryan's personality as of late. "In all honesty, ever since we became Spectres, he hasn't been the shameless flirt that stole the hearts of women in each territory he visited. I know it was always a defense mechanism, but still it was ingrained in his personality. Has this one job changed him so much that he doesn't even need it anymore? I'll be damned. The great Splicer King really is looking for penance here on Shepard's territory." Still, Cole felt bad for Tali. Kessler had made it abundantly clear back in Empire City, long before Cole was even a Supernova: Romance was not part of the job description. Ryan bought into that principle more easily than most due to his origins, but that struck the conduit as weird. "So what does he plan to do when the job is over and it's time to up and leave? There's no way I'm seeing this and the guy who speaks fluent mask has missed it. He knows, but he's not doing anything about it. Why?

Cole shook his head, deciding to let the matter be for now. The Splicer King had enough on his plate at the moment. Throwing in the Normandy's personal brand of high school drama was the last thing either Supernova needed.

On the other side of the wall, it was party central. The geth hoppers were good, but not good enough. With numerous gene tonics enhancing his body's physical capabilities, Ryan was a close second to Alex Mercer in the mobility department. Cole and the Master Chief were both superhuman in that category as well, but neither one could top the Splicer King's utterly dizzying agility. Not even teleporting, he jumped from wall to wall, anchoring onto vantage points with his combat hooks and fighting like the supreme spider splicer. The geth never had a chance, and Ashley just stood there in awe.

When her commander jumped down the marine glared. "I thought we were both here to clear the room?" All she got in response was a chuckle. By now, Cole and Tali were making their way inside.

Ryan motioned for them to follow him when Cole began to gasp and clutch his head in pain. "That's not a regular occurrence." He waved his hand at his fellow Spectre, and was promptly hit with a fully charged Electro Bolt. "Thanks. Obviously, the geth spaceship blocks signals better than I can boost them. I tried to force my way through, but the geth amped up the jamming system's power for the express purpose of kicking me in the brain. I'll be fine now. I just needed you to jolt me out of a nasty feedback loop."

Ryan nodded, but as Tali and Ashley went over to examine a geth energy barrier, the man patted Cole on the arm. "That's the kind of thing that works against shoddy Wasteland tech, not stuff used by a race of sentient machines. Exactly like I said back at Zhu's Hope."

Tali turned to look at the Commander. "It's no good. We'll need to cut the power to get by this thing, but that's hard to do when the power is coming from inside the ship."

Cole was about to offer a solution when Ashley turned her rifle on the small hole in the wall below on the left. "Did anyone hear that?"

Her CO nodded. "Sure did. Let's go check it out. Cole, Tali, hold here for a moment." Ryan froze his hand and grabbed his shotgun with the other.

It was only a few seconds after the two marines had left before a single shot rang out, and both quarian and conduit sprung into action. What had occurred was perhaps anticlimactic to Tali and Ashley, but to Ryan and Cole, it was beyond weird.

There stood Elizabeth "Lizbeth" Baynham, apologizing profusely, but nothing she said registered to Ryan. "She's got the name of one 'sister' but looks remarkably like the other."

Cole saw it too, having met both Elizabeth (aka: Anna DeWitt) and Eleanor Lamb. This Lizbeth woman bore an uncanny resemblance to what Eleanor would probably look like a few years from now. Frankly, it freaked the hell out of both Supernovas.

At the mention of the girl's mother, Ryan snapped back to reality. He could reminisce later, right now he was working. "You'll be happy to know that your mother is safe at a weigh station between here and Zhu's Hope, but before any family reunion, what can you tell me about the geth's interest in this place. More specifically, what's a Thorian, and why do the geth care? I can't help without answers."

She had offered him her ID badge to find out from the ExoGeni VI, but Ryan declined. "If it's your badge for clearance then there's nothing the VI can tell me that you can't."

His tone said it all: "I know you know."

Lizbeth sighed and began to spill what she knew, how the Thorian was a sentient plant with mind control capabilities, and it was likely older than the Protheans themselves. She explained everything to the last detail, including her involvement in the infection of Zhu's Hope. When she finished, Lizbeth hung her head in shame.

Naturally Tali and Ashley were disgusted with such research, but Ashley's more immediate worry was strapping on her helmet for clean oxygen. Cole was feeling very fortunate to have a naturally powerful resistance to toxins like this. He had needed it back in Empire City when Sasha was using her mind controlling tar against him.

Ryan, unconcerned for the air he was breathing, couldn't help but remember the last time he saw a nearly identical face expose him to an equally awful truth. A time when "level-headed" wasn't even in his vocabulary…

Flashback

New Solara

Station of Initiation

Ryan's induction into the Supernovas

The Splicer King shook his head confused as all hell. He was unable to accept what the real Jack Ryan had just said to him. "You're telling me that my world is just one among millions out there, and that she," he pointed at Elizabeth, "is the one that dumped a massive gargoyle bird in the water outside my city?!" He guffawed. "How is that even possible? How is any of this possible?" He turned away from the man he was based off of, now facing Eleanor. "I know you're from Rapture too. Why are you okay with this?"

Eleanor Lamb smiled gently. "Because I've joined the Supernovas, and now we hope you will-"

"NO!" The man screamed, eyes taking on a reddish glow. "I don't have time for this! If that bird is just sitting there, I need to get back and keep the splicers and Big Sisters from salvaging it! Why won't you send me home?!" He rounded on Elizabeth. "You sent the bird there, right? Send me back the same way! Please!" He was frantic now. "Undo whatever you did, and let me get on with my life!"

Elizabeth looked down, totally at a loss. She really didn't know how to explain that there was a difference between what she had done then and what he was asking now. All the reality-warping lady could do was let him yell at her.

Eleanor tried once again to intervene. "I don't think you understand. First of all, you only just discovered that bird an hour before getting brought here, but the Songbird has been at the bottom of Rapture since a time when Sander Cohen was still alive." This was enough to get the Splicer King's attention, and now she appealed to his human side. "Second of all, you can't go back to Rapture just like that. We've brought you here for something bigger than mindless slaughter day in and day out. Isn't exploring countless realities a preferable life to fighting splicers in the wreckage of an underwater hell?"

She may have gotten through to the Rapture Raptor, but before he said anything his Unique counterpart sighed. "We'll give you a while to think about it, but not here." He nodded to Samus Aran and Zero. "These two will escort you to a separate location in Solara. You can sit there and come to terms with everything we've told you about Halla, the Supernovas, and the Uniques."

As Samus put a hand on the Splicer King's shoulder, Eleanor's eyes widened. To all of them, the concept of armed escorts was a mere concern for security. To the man in front of her, it was nothing short of declaring war. "Samus, don't!" But it was too late.

The entire ethereal room was thrown into disarray as seven geyser traps went off simultaneously. Eyes now a furious red, just like the Big Daddies in his home, the Rapture Raptor took all of the water created by his plasmids and directed it at the two Supernovas meant to escort him. Samus was knocked back, but Zero remained on his feet. The armored huntress rolled into morph ball form, intending to rush the Raptor while Zero kept him occupied. With his telekinesis, the Splicer King lifted the morph ball off the ground and launched Samus directly into her Reploid ally's midsection. This sent them both flying backward into a pre-prepared fiery cyclone trap. While they were stunned, Raptor searched for a way out.

Neither Eleanor nor Elizabeth could stand watching him like this. Unable to see behind the doors of Ryan's choices, Elizabeth failed to provide any words of wisdom. As Unique Jack Ryan materialized a wrench and a blue flame, preparing for the worst, Eleanor made one final plea. "Jack! Please don't do this!"

That was the last straw. Looking at a woman that he would call "sister" in the future, the Raptor's eyes went from anger-red to warning-yellow. "Your precious Unique has the name Jack. My name… is Ryan!" Unafraid of what would happen, Jack "Rapture" Ryan jumped into the writhing vortex that Zero and Samus had come from.

When he hit solid ground – an alien concept in and of itself – Ryan was standing outside of Vault City, and nobody looked happy to see him. Noticing the guns aimed at him, he shrugged. "Don't pull that trigger unless you feel suicidal. I've had a really bad day."

End Flashback

Looking back now, Ryan understood that they were only trying to protect him. But as a man who had yet to learn anything outside of violence, he acted on instinct, only sparing what he saw as a threat because of Eleanor's presence. He knew all she had been put through, and even back then, as the Raptor, he wouldn't dare lay a hand on her.

Returning to their current concern, Ryan knew that the same would undoubtedly apply to Lizbeth, both for the name and the appearance. Regardless of what the girl had done for ExoGeni, he wouldn't even raise his voice. He couldn't because, despite his aforementioned emotional control, he would do absolutely anything for his family. Placing a comforting hand on Lizbeth's shoulder, Ryan said, "We'll deal with the Thorian and make up for what ExoGeni has done, but first, the geth have to go."

Lizbeth nodded, but then she paled and ran like a woman possessed. Ryan turned to see that a krogan field commander had apparently heard them talking. "Does she know how to get that stupid machine upstairs to work?!" the hulking Nova-class soldier demanded.

Ryan stepped in the field commander's path. "You'd need an ID badge with the proper clearance." The Son of Rapture took on a threatening stance. "Unfortunately, it's got her name and picture rather than yours, so you'll just have to get one of your own.

The field commander charged straight at them. "I really need to kill something!" he bellowed.

Cole grinned. "He's all yours, Ryan."

The Splicer King calmly walked forward, ignoring Tali and Ashley's hysterical screaming. The krogan was on him, and that's when Ryan went into motion, giving mental thought to each action. Time seemed to slow as he brutalized his opponent.

"Hook strike across eye ridge to blind target." His right combat hook sliced apart the field commander's capacity for sight. "Teleport away from rising arms and shotgun." Shattering from existence, Ryan had evaded the krogan's crushing blows. "Rematerialize in same position. Use both hooks to sever primary nervous system at the throat." The Splicer King reappeared in the exact same spot before sinking his hooks into his adversary's throat. "Electro bolt to cancel blood rage." A simple lightning strike from his left hand stopped the krogan's evolutionary second wind before it even began. "Quad kick." He nutted the field commander, sending the big guy to his knees. "Sink hooks into each side of head plate, and twist. Neck has been snapped. Krogan is dead."

Ramming his right hook into the right side of the plate and the left hook into the other, Ryan spun around, forcing the krogan's head to turn at an impossible angle, producing a sickening cracking sound. Yanking out his hooks and wiping them off, the Splicer King looked at Cole. "Next time, why don't you just blow it up with a lightning rocket?"

"Like you would have let me," Cole chuckled. He had seen the look in Ryan's eyes, and he knew that the guy was in full "Brother" mode. Nobody called it "Big Brother" even though it broke the naming pattern. All knew the negative connotation associated with such a title, so it was either "Brother" or "Foster Brother" to those Ryan would tolerate saying it.

"Well," Tali said. "As impressive as that was, shouldn't hurry up and find something to do about that geth dropship? We can't communicate with the rest of the crew while it's here, and if you teleport back, that still leaves the geth in a fortified position." While this was a logical reason for wanting to move on, it had little to do with her motives. Tali didn't want to admit it, but she was more than a little uneasy with the looks Ryan had been giving Lizbeth. It was like he'd known her for years, and it irked the quarian.

Ryan smirked inwardly at his mechanic's blatant jealousy. He'd address that later, but for now he played ignorant, knowing it was better for everyone. "Agreed. Once we get rid of that thing, we can alert Teams 2 and 3 to the danger they're in. The Thorian won't like us snooping around, and we're likely to be regarded as a threat. Cole, you're up. Bring down that ship. We'll case the area, finish off the geth inside and gather any useful intel we see along the way."

Cole nodded and clambered back up the way they had come. Once he was back at the geth barrier, he electrified both hands. Then he did something that he knew was possible for the strongest of biotics, but only if they were crazy enough to try. The conduit punched through the barrier with his fingers, gripped the barrier from within, and tore open a hole that he could squeeze through before letting go. The barrier snapped back shut as if he'd never touched it (A/N: Think of Aria's awesome scene in the main reactor trap from the ME3: Omega DLC).

Vaulting up the staircase, Cole fried the few geth in his way and entered a room with one of the dropship's landing claws. It seemed to be anchored through an open shuttle bay. "That could work," Cole muttered. "Apply a little ice, and use the door controls to…" the conduit's plan died the moment he turned to look at the sparking remains of the control console. "What was I thinking?" he groaned. "They're called artificial intelligence for a reason. No way they'd be dumb enough to leave their ship vulnerable to something like this." Cole rolled his head to the left and then the right, popping a few joints and loosening the tension. "Fine. We do this the hard way, assholes."

The self-taught traceur leapt from the remains of a stairwell onto the geth dropship itself, which had very few handholds. Of course, Cole was just now realizing that it probably had to do with the fact that it was a geth frigate shaped like a dropship. If he took this out, it was game over for the geth on Feros. Coming to a stand on the top of the landing claw's metallic arm, Cole wreathed himself in blue lightning.

"Attention all passengers," Cole mocked. "We seem to be experiencing inclement weather, and there is no hope of survival. Make your peace with pissing off humanity in the five seconds you have left."

With that, he brought the wrath of the sky down on the frigate, pounding it repeatedly with ribbons of lightning from high above. The geth ship first began to shudder. Then it started smoking, and soon its bow erupted in flame as the whole thing began to lose all functionality. Not letting up, Cole grinned as he kept attacking and shouted, "Yippee ki yay, mother- woah!"

That was the moment the claw he'd been standing on gave out. Cole engaged his static thrusters immediately and watched as the locust-shaped frigate plummeted through the ocean of clouds to the surface far below. Descending towards the waiting Mako, Cole stuck the landing. Three seconds later, he blacked out from pure exhaustion. He never hit the ground though, as Ashley Williams had jumped out of the tank the moment he landed. "You did good, Cole," she whispered. "We've got it from here."

Ryan opened a comm. line with Alex and the Chief. "Teams 2 and 3, this is Team 1. The geth are history but you need to GTFO. The Thorian is-" He was interrupted by Alex.

"The Thorian is pissed off. That's what it is!" The predator's voice held traces of confusion, agony, guilt, and fear. It took something beyond description to evoke such feelings from Alex Mercer. This was very, very bad. Get your N7 ass back here pronto!"

Ryan didn't hesitate for a moment. "I'll be there ASAP. I need to reunite a family first." He turned to Ashley. "I can't take all four of you, and I don't have time to drive. Keep watch over Cole, and if he tries to come help, I order you to shoot him in the leg and stuff his ass back in the Mako." Now facing Tali, he said, "I know you hate this, but I need backup that already has their air filtration unit running." He grabbed her by the arm before doing the same to Lizbeth. All three shattered as he made the teleport back to the weigh station where Juliana was waiting for her daughter.

Ashley sat still, unable to do anything but worry. As Ryan had teleported away, she caught one last message from his comm. It had been Alex yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Fine, just hurry the fuck up, and bring Cole! Garrus! Wrex! I could use your help here! What do you mean the Master Chief stayed behind? Dammit!"

Ashley deduced that Alex, a one-man army, was so desperate, he was asking for help to win. Second, the Master Chief was MIA somewhere in the colony. "Not good," she sighed.

Feros

Tunnels

Twenty-Five Minutes ago

Team 3

Leader: Master Chief

CRASH

The IED that the Chief had set up made minimal noise as it brought down a large portion of the ceiling. No noise came from the other side, so after thirty seconds of waiting, the Spartan crouched down and jumped straight up through the hole.

It was incredibly dark in the breached room, but Spartan-IIs practically had night vision after their augmentation procedures, and the Chief was no exception. Gun drawn, he activated his helmet's VISR system for improved situational assessment and slowly scanned the room for any hostiles. "Vegetation, but not a lot else," he muttered. As he reached down to lift Garrus and then Wrex through the hole, the Master Chief couldn't shake the eerie déjà vu vibe that ran down his spine.

The three searched, but after spending several minutes finding nothing but plant material and a vine-choked staircase, the Spartan decided they needed a little insight before proceeding any further. "Cortana, give me something."

Isolating a small piece of the material growing in the room, Cortana brought up an analysis readout on the side of the HUD. "They appear to be some kind of decentralized feelers. They would act much like a ship's sensor array, but… oh hell!" The readout changed to an enhanced image of one of the pieces of dust in the air. "Chief! This isn't dust! It's a spore. They're all spores. If one inhales enough of them, they'd become susceptible to whatever is making them. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the source is-"

The Chief had noticed movement, and dove to the right with microseconds to spare as a warp field shot by. Foregoing stealth now that they'd been made, the Spartan turned on his helmet's flashlights. Standing before the Master Chief and his alien allies was a small army of greenish-gray monstrosities and a green asari in commando leathers. Chief finished Cortana's sentence for her. "The Thorian."

The Spartan's comm. burst to life as Alex began to shout. "Team 3, this is Alex! I said shake the tree, not kick the hornets' nest! The colonists have gone mental, just like I thought, but these creeper things are pouring out of the woodwork! I took an acid belch from one of them, and it melted my shoulder away. I don't want to know what they can do to our ship. Something's keeping Ryan and Cole out of contact, and you're too far away to help me in time. I'll apologize now for what I'm about to do, and I'll give it to you in writing if you need it, but I have to break my biggest rule. Just get back here now!"

Chief didn't have time to answer before the green asari began to speak with a voice that clearly wasn't hers.

"Invaders. Your every step is a transgression. Thousands of feelers deem you another cold one, but it is simply the union of meat and metal. But metal does not obey the Old Growth, and the useless have no place here!"

"Chief…" Cortana began, getting very worried. She knew this tone of voice far too well. It was like staring at something infected by Gravemind 2.0.

"I know," the Spartan said quietly. He ordered both Wrex and Garrus back down the hole and told them to book it back to Zhu's Hope. When they refused to leave him behind, he grabbed the turian with his left hand and the krogan with his right and dropped them down through the improvised entrance. "Now!" the several-hundred-pound soldier yelled. They didn't have much choice in the matter.

It was mostly to prevent the pair from seeing what was to come. This… thing had just touched one of the few subjects that pissed the Master Chief off. It called him a machine. Exchanging his rifle for his shotgun, the hyper-lethal vector stood his ground against the horde of green. "Say 'I am a monument to all your sins,'" He growled, prepping a carnage blast. "I dare you."

The asari charged forward, the creepers right behind her, but against the Master Chief, it was far from an even fight. When he was the only green thing left standing, the Spartan took a deep breath. He knew that the frightening similarities this Thorian bore to the Flood were unsettling Cortana. But the options were clear:

If they fall back, the Normandy and her crew would be completely overrun, and Team 1 would be left stranded at ExoGeni. If he pushed forward, Cortana would slowly get more and more unstable. Still, he trusted her. "Are you okay?" he asked. She had likely reached this conclusion well before him, so he had to know she'd hold together.

Cortana would have cried if she could. "I will be once we've killed this damn weed. I didn't have you when I faced the Gravemind. I have you now. Just promise me it will be alright."

"Of course it will be alright," the Spartan growled. "You said it yourself: you have me."

"Thank you, John." Having her Spartan this time around really made all the difference in the world.

With that, they ventured into the dark bowels of Thorian overgrowth. Digging until they hit daylight, as usual.

Feros

Zhu's Hope

Eight minutes ago

Team 2

Leader: Alex Mercer

After shutting the comm. link with Master Chief, Alex leapt into action. Kaidan and Liara were doing their best, but it was only a matter of time before this kind of close-quarters action got them killed.

The worst part about facing down a hive mind or anything similar was that the units it controlled no longer had an individual threat ranking. It ceased to be about Infantry-class and Nova-class enemies. Now they operated under the single consciousness of a creature that gave them perfect coordination. Working in flawless synchronization, the overall threat was easily that of a veteran Supernova. All eyes could see what one pair couldn't. There were no blind spots, no moments of hesitation, no gaps in defense, nothing. The worst part? Lethal force on the mind-controlled colonists was unacceptable, even to the viral sociopath. If they were infected like in New York, maybe, but these guys were living pseudo-lives unless the Thorian needed something. Alex wanted the king, not the thralls, and mitigating collateral damage was crippling his usefulness in combat.

It was infuriatingly dangerous, and if he didn't break his most important vow, they were probably all going to die, himself included. Grabbing a creeper by the neck he shortened his claws until they more closely resembled syringes. Then he stabbed the freak in the spine, and after infecting its nervous system with Blacklight, Alex connected his own viral hive mind to the decentralized consciousness of the Thorian.

That brought combat to an immediate halt, and just in time. His two biotic friends – and after this long working together, they were the sociopath's friends – had lost barriers and been overcome by creepers and colonists. The following conversation happened in the span of a second.

"Trespasser! You are not soft meat. Your body does not decompose. I care not what you are, only that you leave me in peace!"

"Fat chance of that, Thorian. I'm not the peaceful type, but I'll make you a deal."

"I listened to Saren, and it only brought death to flesh meant to tend my next cycle. No more will I listen to those who scurry."

This was it. Alex had to pull out all the stops and do the one thing he promised Dana he'd never even consider. There was a cozy spot in Hell waiting for him if this backfired.

"I don't scurry. I infect. I am Blacklight Virus Strain DX 1118 C, a chimeric, multi-vector bioweapon that can and will condemn all life on this world to ruin. Codename: Zeus."

Alex flashed several images of the chaos from Hope, Idaho and New York City across their mental link just to prove he wasn't joking.

"You see that? That's what I'll do to your pretty little home if you don't let my allies retreat safely to our ship. Test me, and by this time tomorrow, Feros will be nothing but a sea of black and red biomass. MY biomass."

"And then what, virus? You would face the retaliation of the very flesh you foolishly tried to protect."

"Yeah, humanity sucks like that. But are you willing to bet everything you are on that little detail?"

"…The invaders nearby may go free, virus. You may not. Neither shall the other meddlers that killed the cold ones, nor the hybrid of machine and flesh. It is inevitable that you all die, regardless, thus your gain is null."

The creepers and colonists stood back, giving Kaidan and Liara a clear path back to the Normandy. When they stopped their movement behind Alex, he cut the link, consumed the infected creeper, and faced them. "Get the hell back to the ship! Put her on emergency lockdown and shoot anything in the head that tries to force its way inside."

Not a moment later, chaos returned as the Thorian's forces tried to swarm them. Not wasting time, Alex forced both biotics toward the stairs that led down to their stealth frigate. The second they passed through, he shifted to tendrils and sank a grid of iron-hard biomass into the walls on either side. There was no way anything was getting out of the main colony to the Normandy without literally going through Alex Mercer.

Looking over his shoulder at the hesitant biotics, still standing at the top of the stairs, he screamed at them to go. Liara was conflicted. "But… Alex!"

"It'll take more than this to kill me, Blue. You ought to know that by now! Kaidan, get her out of here."

The lieutenant practically dragged Liara away from the kill zone, but not without taking a few potshots through Alex's tendril barricade.

The Thorian had one last comment to make before severing connection with a mind that rivaled its own in complexity.

"Why save those who could never possibly understand one such as you. They are beneath you, and in time, they will hate you."

Alex chuckled, both out loud and in his head.

"You know, I used to agree with that statement. My own sister hated me for a while. But guess what? She came to terms with it. She said, 'No matter what, you're still my brother.' If I have to tear down the galaxy to protect those who accept me, you can bet your photosynthetic ass I will."

No more words were spoken. Alex simply shifted to his armored form and didn't move an inch. The colonists couldn't harm him with their bullets. The creepers' acid spit might have been a problem if they didn't have to get so close to use it. Each time they moved up to vomit on the predator, they were met with a boot to the face.

His comm. buzzed to life as somebody finally returned his calls. It was Ryan trying to warn him about the Thorian, but Alex interrupted. "The Thorian is pissed off. That's what it is!"

The virus paused to kick another creeper in the face. "Get your N7 ass back here pronto!"

Ryan told him something about a reunion, but the virus was too busy literally biting the bullet to hear the details. "Fine, just hurry the fuck up, and bring Cole!" The conduit's arc restraint ability would get the colonists out of the way so Alex could go on the offensive.

Suddenly, the number of creepers began to thin, and the focus of enemy attention shifted the other way. His confusion lifted as a familiar turian agent and krogan battlemaster tore through the ranks of enemies, carefully avoiding colonists. "Garrus! Wrex! I could use your help here!" He nodded at his little predicament. One thing he never learnt how to do was shapeshift an extra pair of arms, and that would have been really handy right now.

Wrex grunted. "Well don't expect any more than us." He raised a barrier and prepared to fight. You're big green giant forced us to leave without him."

Alex's undead blood froze. "What do you mean the Master Chief stayed behind?" How could he even consider taking on something that obviously reeked of Gravemind? At the top of his lungs, the virus screamed to the sky.

"Dammit!"

The predator retracted his tendrils without letting go of the wall, bringing it all crashing down. That blocked off any passage to the Normandy.

"When I find that damn plant, I'm going to have a nice, sentient vegetarian meal called Thorian salad." The virus shifted to his blade. "Come get some!"

And that's all for now. It's a cliffhanger of sorts, and it's very evil of me. I hope you guys actually enjoyed this chapter, because writing it felt awesome. There was action, but also a sense of helplessness coming from the protagonists. They're tough, but they ain't invincible. Right now each one is wondering what the hell to do. See you next time,

That scene with Ryan's initiation was something I wanted to get just right. I may do the initiations of the other three if the opportunity arises, but until then:

Read, Review, and Enjoy!