Avatar of Victory

by James Golen

The Cycle of the Avatar has held for thousands of years. Other Cycles can stretch far, far longer. An A:tLA/Mass Effect Cross-Over

37. Blood In, Blood Out

"Keep your focus," the Justicars words slid easily through Shepard's ears, as her sweat-coated face grimaced from the strain. She'd been through a hell of a lot of physical conditioning, first when she took her brief stint in R/D/S, and even more when she went through for Vanguard-A. The Month of Hell was a damned-near physically crippling regimen which formed the capstone of N6 training, before they threw you into the fire for N7. This, somehow, was almost as bad. Not physically; besides her cramping shoulder, she was fine. But the rest of her... "This will be easiest if you reduce your mass further."

"If I could do that, I would have by now," Shepard noted through grit teeth, as Samara mediated serenely – upside down to Shepard's perspective. Her entire body was being held aloft by one hand, and it was taking all she had to keep it that way. It was all the more galling that, about a meter and a half away, Thane was replicating Shepard's success, but with none of the apparent effort. "...Don't even see the point..."

"Reduction of mass is a talent which causes a great increase in mobility," Thane said, before breaking off to let out a wet cough. With his other hand, he plucked up a handkerchief and wiped his mouth for the froth that appeared there. "Drell are not blessed with great strength, or even great flexibility, so we must compensate with mobility. Having a fraction of your true mass allows you to walk on glass, thin ice, weak cables..."

"I don't see that as likely," Shepard pointed out, her balance wobbling a bit before she centered herself properly again.

"If you're sufficiently capable, you'll even be capable of walking on Hard-Light," Thane continued. Samara turned to him at that, an eyebrow raising.

"I had not heard that was possible," the Justicar noted.

"I have only managed it twice," Thane said. "And I have failed many, many more times. It seems desperation can make for a powerful motivator."

"Don't need to tell me twice," Shepard said. "Crap... crapcrapcrap... I think my shoulder's locking."

"You are making incredible improvements," Samara said.

"I'm not feeling it," Shepard grunted.

"Then you should be more perceptive," Samara said, pointing to the hand which connected Shepard to the deckplate. The sole human in the room did look up – down, by gravity's reference – to her hand. And contrary to her belief, it wasn't a palm pressed flat against the mats. She was holding her entire body-weight up by three fingertips.

The instant she realized this, her balance slipped, her focus fled, and she landed face-first on the mats.

"Ow," Shepard said, before slowly pushing herself upright, and rolling her arm to a succession of pops and crunches that made her wonder if Samsara had snuck a concrete mixer in there while they were piecing her back together.

"I believe we have progressed enough for the moment," Samara said. Thane lowered his other hand to the floor, and more gracefully rolled to a sit. "If you will excuse me?"

Shepard nodded, and Samara left her room behind. She swiped her hand over her face, feeling the skin which had, for the most part, closed completely over her wounds of self-mutilation. Hell, her sweat didn't even sting anymore. "You show a remarkable degree of progress," Thane said.

"Avatars learn fast, or a giant-spirit-man-thing kills them," Shepard said. Thane just stared at her. "It was a thing back in Korra's day... Never mind."

"I should have liked to meet this Avatar Korra," Thane said. "From the descriptions, she calls to mind the Goddess Arashu."

"You're a polytheist?" Shepard asked. "I thought all drell were Illuminated."

"So you have some curiosity toward your crew," Thane said. "Yes, many drell now follow the hanar religion of the Enkindlers, or otherwise the asari philosophies. Others, such as myself, still cleave to the paths of Rakhana. Arashu, for example, was a goddess of motherhood and protection. When I pray to Amonkira, it is to ensure a successful hunt. Beasts and men, Amonkira cares not which. Kalahira accepts the souls I take, as the goddess of both Oceans and the Afterlife."

"Weird combination," Shepard said. Then she shrugged. "Then again, the asari have one goddess over sex, law, and travel, so..."

"Your insomnia is making a wiser woman of you," Thane said. "The oceans teem with life, but not life as we know it. It is a fitting symbol for a psychopomp," he fell silent for a moment. "If I may ask, how is the quarian in engineering?"

"Tali's... taking her father's death badly," Shepard said with a shake of her head. "She's tough, and she'll sort through it, but... I'm not going to push her."

"Perhaps better you did not," Thane agreed. He coughed again, scaled face pulling into rictus. "I believe I should also retire; I seem to be particularly full today."

"You look after that," Shepard said, finally taking her feet. She rolled her shoulders – one of them painfully, before making for the door. She only made it out the door before she practically ran into Chambers, who was approaching at a brisk walk. "Chambers?"

"Shepard! You need to have a word with Grunt in the cargo-bay," Chambers said urgently. Shepard's brow drew down. "Time is of the essence, Commander."

"I'll take your word on that," Shepard said, passing the woman by and thumping her way into the elevator. Lawson was already in the lift when it arrived. "Lawson. Any word from Weaver or the Illusive Jackass where the Collectors are going to pop up again?"

"If the former called, I'd pass him on to you so I wouldn't have to deal with him," Lawson said evenly. "If the latter had, he would probably usurp control of this ship, and force you to speak to him. So no."

"Keep an ear open," Shepard said, as the doors opened to the cargo-bay. As they did, there was an immediate crash coming from her left. Shepard pointed that direction, and Lawson simply shook her head, before tapping the button which would bring her to the hold proper. Shepard darted out before the doors could close, and moved to the room which Grunt had taken for his own. She was about to tap the haptic and open the door, when there came a bang that landed so hard that a section of the door buckled out by a couple of millimeters. Shepard blinked at that, then waved her hand through anyway.

Grunt's room was a mess. Chambers wasn't kidding.

"Is there something I need to know about?" Shepard asked, while Grunt fumed, standing at the center of the room. It was a valid question, considering the sheer amount of devastation that he'd caused; the only thing which was still fully intact was the tank which was shoved up against the far wall.

"Something... is wrong, Shepard," Grunt said, starting to pace back and forth the small distance he had. "I feel wrong; tense! I want to kill everything I see with my bare hands!"

"Who pissed you off, so I can smack some sense into them?" Shepard asked.

"Nobody. Everybody!" Grunt equivocated. "This is madness. More anger than usual, like it's not my choice!" he grimaced, turning to face the window to the hold. "Like I just wanna... I don't know..."

He answered his question by headbutting the window hard enough that the transparent steel cracked for almost its entire surface. Shepard just stared at that, mildly in awe. That stuff could take mass-driver fire with less harm than that.

"See?" Grunt asked, stalking up to Shepard once more. "Why do that? What was its purpose? What is wrong?"

"I'm assuming Okeer didn't imprint anything about this," Shepard said.

"I have pictures of old battles, and the voices of dead warlords," Grunt said, the stress of keeping his tone restrained obvious. "This is like a blood-haze, setting my guts on fire, hurling my mind to the wind! I want control. When we fight, like over Hagalaz, I can control it. Give it direction. But now? Now I..." he trailed off his thought by putting a new dent into the wall with his fist. "My blood screams, my plates itch, and even your words are... just noise. I am tank born! What is this?"

"I think I know," Shepard said. "You look around thirty years old, even if you were born earlier this month. This is something you'll need to go to krogan for. Joker!" Shepard said. "Set a course to Earth."

"No. Not Earth," Grunt said. "I need something... more raw. I need something worthy!"

"You're saying that Earth isn't raw or worthy enough for you?" Shepard asked. Grunt just stared at her. "Joker? Change of plans. Set a course for Tuchanka."

"This should be fun. Oooh, I hope I'm not going to Raik territory, though; I maybe might sorta have an outstanding tab, there, and..."

"Just go, Joker," Shepard said.

"Whatever you say, Commander," Joker nevertheless answered chipperly. Shepard took one step toward Grunt, and no more than that.

"I've got an old friend on Tuchanka," Shepard said. "He'll put you on the right path."

"You know what's wrong with me?" Grunt asked. Shepard gave a half-confident nod. "Then what is it?"

"You're old enough for your first Trial," Shepard said.

---

Haephus Vakarian was not a man to rush into anything. The old turian was definitely starting to show his age on his face, but still, every morning, he put on the blue stripe and faced the day with dignity. He cared for his wife. He kept up his home. Everything measured, everything deliberate. He didn't like reaction; it was anathema to him. Part of why he was such a decorated officer in C-Sec was because he was both proactive in ending crime, and remarkably effective at it. He hated letting others get the first step in.

He hated today more than most days.

He flicked off the screen, cutting off the display of his son. Even lying by omission was a stab to his heart. A puff of breath through his mandibles, and then he turned to his wife. She was fairly lucid today, which meant she spent her time with an intricate piece of knotwork, intended for a decoration... likely on a suit which Haephus had cast aside decades ago. That, too, broke his heart, just as Garrus so frequently did.

"Spirits help me, I have no idea what to do," Haephus said.

"What was that?" his wife asked him.

"...nothing. Don't mind me. Just talking to myself," Haephus said, walking past her and trailing a finger along her mandible as he went. It wasn't until he was in his own bedroom, when he closed it and locked it – and that he needed to lock his own bedroom door, now... – before moving to the desk, and opening the connection there. He was lying to his son. Haephus' own father had been a thief and a swindler, and tried to pass those skills onto his son; Haephus was damned glad when he arrested the man. Blood only went so far, he'd reasoned. And now, suddenly, he was his father, and it burned him.

"Sol? Are you there?" he asked, quietly.

"Dad?" his daughter said. "Thank the spirits, I didn't think I'd–" static reigned for several seconds, in which the old man's teeth ground. " – and me, 'cause I don't think the others are still..."

"Is it safe to talk?" Haephus asked.

"Not very," Sol said. "Dad... please, stay out of this. You don't know this man..."

"I don't care who it is. If he wants to hurt my family, he'll do it over my corpse," Haephus said bluntly. "Where are you going?"

"He's probably listening in," Sol pointed out. Haephus growled slightly. Of course he would be. "I'm sorry. Just... take care of Mom... and don't tell Garrus about this. I don't want him getting involved."

"Solana, as your father, I am denying your request to deal with this on your own," Haephus said. She started to complain. "I don't want to hear it. I have an... associate. One I'd rather have put in prison a decade ago. He owes me a lot of very large favors."

"Dad, please, I can handle this m–" she began, but he cut her off.

"I'm sorry, Solana, you must not have heard me; I forbid you to try to handle this on your own. I am not going to outlive both my wife and my daughter. Is that clear?"

"You can't save me this time, Dad," Sol said.

"You haven't seen me try," Haephus countered.

---

Chapter 17

Blood In, Blood Out

---

Anybody who looked at Tuchanka could be forgiven for wondering how it could be as deadly as its reputation professed. Its oceans, which were just sufficient to break the landmass into two sprawling continents of northeast and southwest, were dark blue or even verdant green depending on where one looked, and the greater part of the continent had been given over to 'scrub jungle'. From orbit, Tuchanka looked habitable, even temperate. From orbit, so did Azul.

As one approached more closely, that's when the facade began to fall away. The great works of the Krogan Nations, now six thousand years gone, jutted like the teeth of dragons from overgrown morasses, or peeked from the drifting sands of the deserts and badlands. The myth of nuclear annihilation was only that; even though the krogan had thrown more nuclear bombs in a two month window than had ever existed on Earth, they had only destroyed their society. Tuchanka, perhaps out of naked spite, continued without them.

"This would be Urdnot Surt," Shepard said, as the shuttle began to drop through the hot, biting winds. "Home to the Urdnot Clan since... hell, I don't even know. But a damned long time."

"It looks like the dead skull of something that never deserved to live," Grunt muttered from his place in the seat next to her.

"They'd probably agree with you on that," Shepard noted. The Urdnot 'Surt' – or, to unpackage a word that was extremely compressed, 'place where the Thresher Maws do not pass' – was on the edge of a badlands, so the winds hit it with a fury untempered even by the spiteful, carnivorous forests. There were craters around the great cap that would open into the bunkers which the krogan sat out their nuclear doom, craters far younger than said nuclear doom. Probably put there in the last few weeks. One of them was still smoking, slightly. There stood the reason why the krogan never reclaimed the surface; any who did, ended up getting bombed back into their bunkers by their enemies, which hadn't.

"This place stirs no passion in me. It is a wasteland," Grunt said with a dismissing wave, before returning to his proper grump. The shuttle came to a halt, before slowly lowering its way out of the winds, and descending into the 'landing pad' of the bomb shelter which once marked the center of the lands of the Urdnot Clan.

"Give it some time. It might surprise you," Shepard said. The ship landed with a thunk, and the door swung open. Shepard remained on her seat while the three women with her – Lawson, Samara, and Asha – got out first. The first was there on business, while the other two were specifically there to protect Shepard herself. She'd claimed she wouldn't need them... but here they were regardless.

Then again, this was Tuchanka.

"Halt there offworlder," a krogan immediately stepped into Lawson's way. His armor looked much like the pocked and sanguinary plate that Wrex had initially wore, only this one bore garish highlights of pink. "You cannot enter without the permission of the Clan Leader."

"Then I think I'd better get that permission," Lawson said evenly, not intimidated by the hulking krogan in the slightest. The gate-warden gave a grunt, and motioned for Lawson to go with him. Shepard, though, stretched her legs. She was of course wearing her armor, because this was Tuchanka and she wasn't stupid. So too were the others. A number of krogan worked in this covered landing pad, fixing shuttles or simply standing around and trying to look more intimidating than the krogan next to him. One, though, stood out. This one had eschewed calculated brutality for wide eyed enthusiasm, and was pulling an asari behind him.

"See? What did I tell ya? Urdnot Surt is beautiful this time of year," the krogan said happily. The asari looked less than convinced.

"...I guess," she said.

"Just stay right here. I'm going to go get... well, it'll be a surprise," the krogan then pelted past Shepard and through the doors. Which got Shepard turning back to the asari, who was now shaking her head in her palm.

"He certainly seems happy to be home," Shepard noted.

"I don't know why I agreed to this," the asari said, bewildered. "I mean, it was this or talk about the marriage thing again, but..." she shook her head.

"You two are married?" Shepard asked, leaning against a rail next to her, if only to take the weight off from the Cain which was hanging from her back. She shook her head.

"No, but he wants to," she gave a helpless shrug. "I mean, it's not like being bonded to a human or a turian; even at the worst, it's just a century until they're dead, but krogan... they can live longer than I can."

"And you don't think he'd live up to the commitment?" Shepard asked, not seeing the issue.

"Oh, Goddess no. Charr is a lot of things, but he'd never be disloyal," she gave a bit of a smile. "He's... a very surprising man. He writes poetry for me. It's... sweet."

"So why is this a problem?" Shepard asked.

She sighed, rubbing her brow. "How do I know that he's not just in this for children? He's probably sterile to other krogan, and this would be the only way... and even then, they'd always be asari, and just asari."

"Have you talked about that with him?" Shepard nodded after Charr.

"Yeah," she said, staring into the distance. "He got real quiet. Gave it some thought. Then he said 'I'll love our children no matter what color they are'."

Shepard could hold the smile off of her own face at that. "Lady, you're not afraid of Charr's intentions. Hell, I'd just call this nerves."

"Why would you say that?" the asari asked.

"Because you came with him to Tuchanka," Shepard said. That slowly dawned on the asari, when she finally figured out what anybody outside that relationship could have seen.

"...wow. That's the kind of wisdom we find in Matriarchs... no offense."

"None taken. I'm technically at least seventy-thousand years old," Shepard said with a smirk. The asari looked at her like she'd lost her mind, but Shepard's attention was quickly pulled to Grunt, and a number of krogan with fairly familiar coloration.

"You look fit," the krogan who was likely a Weyrloc said, as he and two others began to circle around Grunt. "Young, but strong. Plates aren't even hardened yet. Have you ever felt the blood of your enemies under your fists, whelp?"

"I have spilled the blood of traitors and demigods. What do you want?" Grunt demanded.

"Well, it looks like this one has a quint," the Weyrloc in the ornate armor said. "Or a tongue as false as a salarian ass-hole."

"I am pure krogan. You should be in awe," Grunt said, and Shepard could sense his blood getting up. She quickly started toward him.

"You're nobody. Not yet," he said. He nodded to one of the other krogan with him, who clapped a hand onto Grunt's shoulder. Grunt immediately dragged that hand closer, and smashed his brow into that krogan's face, hard enough to send the older man flat onto the floor, too stunned even to groan. Shepard froze, her hand slowly creeping back toward her rifle. "HA! This one shows promise. You should join the Blood Pack, boy. We could show you a real fight."

"Shepard!" Lawson's voice came from down a short ramp. "We can go inside, now."

"Good. Grunt?" Shepard said.

Grunt gave the fallen krogan a slow chuckle, then shook his head as he walked away. "Think on our offer, boy; we don't give them out freely."

"Your enemies would be weak compared to those I seek to face," Grunt said over his shoulder, descending at Shepard's side, as the two other warrior women flanked them on their way down.

"You should be more cautious," Asha said. "Even within this place, krogan are quick to rage and dangerous even when not provoked."

"When'd you get twitchy around the krogan, Asha?" Shepard asked, as the bulkhead doors slid open.

"...I would rather not say," she answered, her armored head turning away from Shepard. She gave a glance over to Samara, but Samara's icy gaze was too busy sweeping in many directions at once to give any feedback.

"I'm given to understand that you and Urdnot Wrex have a substantial history," Lawson said, leading the way. "I hope that you ended on a good note, otherwise this visit will be remarkably short."

"If he's pissed at me, I have no idea why."

"I still believe this would be better served going to Azul," Lawson said. "At least there, we know that we're in good standing with the krogan. Here, everything is out of our hands."

"Not everything in life can be planned for," Shepard said, as they reached a new bulkhead, which slowly opened, revealing the great dome in which the fringes, the 'diplomatic region' of Clan Urdnot sat. Light filtered in through reinforced fissures in the concrete above, fissures which glowed faintly with the powerful kinetic barriers that prevented anything but light passing through them. Ahead and above, mounted higher above the rubble, was something like a dais, and upon that dais, a rubble throne. Shepard was pretty confident that they could have done a lot better in terms of aesthetic if they bothered casting some new concrete or just forging some metal, but it was clear that the way this vista lay, with its naked rubble and blatant devastation, was a calculated one.

"Justicar Samara, if you would?" Lawson said.

"Go ahead," Shepard told the asari, who broke off to follow Lawson into another part of the dome. Asha stayed firmly on the opposite side from Grunt, as they three advanced toward that dais.

"This amounts to a provocation, which cannot be ignored," the rumbling voice of a krogan said, passing through the rank of wary Urdnot soldiers who blocked the path. "Did you really believe these desecrations of our traditions would go unopposed?"

"Hold," one of the soldiers said, barring Shepard's way. "You will wait until the Clan Leader is ready to see you. He is... in talks."

"Shepard?" a very familiar voice cut through the other krogan's arguments. Shepard leaned aside, and saw him there. He was still dressed in the softly pink armor of his grandfather, seated upon that throne. He rose, and pointed. "Move, you fool, let her in!"

"Does that qualify for you?" Shepard asked smugly, before she passed the krogan by. She had barely reached the level of the dais when Wrex grabbed her hand and gave it a hard shake, laughing in the back of his throat.

"Shepard! My friend!" Wrex said, drawing her away from the guards, and toward the other, green-capped krogan. He took a step back, resting his hand on a scepter which jutted up from one side of his throne. Shepard could barely restrain as mile when she saw that it held the skull of Saren proudly at its zenith. "I must say, you look well for dead. Should have known the void wouldn't hold you."

"And you look like you've done fairly well for yourself," Shepard gave a look around. "Pretty well designed pile of rubble you've got here."

"Very well," Wrex said with a nod. "I have to remind these idiots what's at stake every time they come to see me. The fact that they can't remember it even when the show up twice a month tells me their memories could use a good culling."

"I heard that things are moving pretty quick here on Tuchanka," Shepard noted.

"Turns out, once you bash a few skulls in, people start taking what you say a lot more seriously," Wrex said, with a coy shrug. "Who knew? Unity is something the krogan haven't had since the Rebuke of the Meretsegger, and by the time I'm done, we will be one people again."

"You befoul the traditions of a hundred clans with your visions, Urdnot," the other krogan said with a sneer. "It is as dangerous as it is foolhardy."

Wrex sighed, then with a slight shift, he slammed his crest into the other krogan's face, causing the bugger to stagger back, only catching himself on a particularly solid piece of concrete before he fell off the dais. "Speak when spoken to, Uvenk; I'll drag your clan to glory whether it likes it or not," Wrex said dryly. At that, Shepard stopped trying to conceal her smile. Gods, it felt good to be around krogan again – around Wrex again. You always knew where you stood with them. Wrex dropped himself onto his hard, broken throne and ran his fingers up and down a bronze-headed spear which stood on the other side from the brainpan of a traitorous Spectre. "So what brings you to Tuchanka? How's that stealth-ship of yours?"

"Destroyed by the Collectors, apparently," Shepard said. "I got killed."

"Ah, the joys of a redundant nervous system," Wrex said wistfully.

"...humans don't have that," Shepard noted. Wrex gave a moment of a wince.

"Then that must have been very painful for you," he amended, pulling up a data-pad from the 'arm' of the chair, and tapping a few keys. His brows rose. "But you're here, and you've got a strong new ship. Takes me back to the old days; flying into the unknown, killing the unknown with big guns... Good times."

Shepard took a look around. "What are you doing with the krogan, anyway? I mean, you said you'd given up on them..."

"I gave up on a method that wouldn't work," Wrex said with a shrug. "Instead, I make a neutral ground where all clans are welcome. Fertile females are exchanged amongst clans, and we strengthen the species as a whole. No more mothers killed by mindless feuds. We don't have enough of them to go around as is."

"This is a perversion of our ways, Urdnot," Uvenk said, still a little unsteady of knees. "They will rebel against this, and they will do it soon."

"Maybe they will, Gatatog, but until then, you're fortunate to be a part of it," Wrex noted darkly, before turning back to Shepard. "I'll admit, it's a juggling act. But as long as the clans are willing to send in hostages, and obey the rules I set for them, they may do as they please. Each clan deals with its own criminals. If something crosses jurisdictions, I step in. No fighting in the camp. We stop any quarrels before somebody dies, and then we give them a choice. Pay a fine, or get out, since your clan is no longer welcome."

"Sounds pretty mild by krogan standards," Shepard noted.

"All three times that a clan has taken that option, they found themselves destroyed by my allies within a week. This coalition of clans is the largest government that the krogan have had in millennia. But because they're so focused on bickering or..." he turned a glare to Uvenk, "...sophistry... we still have to face external threats. Luckily, in the last few months, we've expanded to the point where only Clan Weyrloc could pose a realistic threat, and even then, that's only because Guld is apparently as fertile as Warlord Shiagur," he offered a laugh. "Even if they don't join us, we have time on our side, and they don't. With one father for an entire generation of krogan, it'll be two generations, tops, before they're so inbred that they can't even stand up straight."

"I'm surprised that the females are willing to take that deal," Shepard said.

"Willing? Hells, Shepard, it was Mistress Uta that came up with the idea," Wrex said. "Nobody's willing to bomb a settlement when there's a huge population of potentially fertile females there. They're living kinetic barriers, and they know it. It makes my allies band together no matter what they think of each other. And I've never even heard of a fight amongst the females that needed my intervention. It's like all of them have been waiting for an opportunity like this to come along for their entire lifetimes, all independent of each other."

"They very well might have," Shepard said. Grunt, though, was pacing along the edge of the dais. "I should probably get to my point," she beckoned Grunt over. "I have a krogan on my crew, and he's old enough for the Rites."

"That is not your place to say, outsider!" Uvenk said, thrusting a finger into Shepard's breastplate. She swatted it aside with a glare.

"And it's not yours to interfere with my judgments. Do I need to repeat myself?" Wrex demanded. Uvenk fumed, but took a step back. Wrex turned to Grunt, rising from his 'throne' to get a closer look at him. He even sniffed the air. "Where do you come from, whelp? Why haven't you gone to your own clan for your Rites?"

"I have no clan," Grunt said. "I am tank-born by Warlord Okeer. I am distilled from the lines of Kredok, Moro, Shiagur..."

"You recite names, but you are the offspring of a syringe. I will not have this... thing... besmirching my clan's name. I deny him it!" Uvenk snapped.

"The boy doesn't claim your clan, Uvenk. Clear some of that varren-shit from your ears and you would have heard him," Wrex said. "As for Okeer... that's a very old name. A very hated name."

"I killed him," Grunt said simply.

"That's an act of credit to all clans," Wrex nodded. "The old madman deserved that death a hundred times over. I just hope you did it slowly."

"With my bare hands," Grunt gave one of those slow, slightly disturbing laughs.

"You're right, though," Wrex said. "He is becoming an adult. It is time for a Rite."

"Krogan puberty?" Asha asked. "I have seen how... disruptive... that time can be."

"Grunt's holding together just fine," Shepard said.

"...to everything within said krogan's arm's reach," Asha finished.

"I will not have you making a mockery of our ways! This thing is not krogan! I invoke a Full Denial!" Uvenk said. Wrex sighed once more, and swept his arm forward. A brick about the size of Shepard's torso leapt from the rubble nearby, smashing into Uvenk's torso and throwing him off of the dais.

"Your complaint is noted," Wrex said with his own smirk, "and overridden. Idiot. So, boy," he turned back to Grunt. "Would you stand at the edges of Urdnot Surt and push back the wild with us?"

"Is every krogan going to treat him the same way 'cause of how he was born?" Shepard asked.

"Only fundamentalists and idiots. So most of them. But as long as I have say, I can do what I need to. Ordinarily? I'd let clones wander the Biting Plains. There are still a few of Saren's rejects floating around. But since he's with you? I figure he deserves a fair shot. Well, boy?"

Grunt turned, looking at the cultured devastation before him. Raik Surt, Shepard knew from personal experience, was positively opulent compared to this one. But then, Wrex had a point he was making clear. Below, there were krogan working on machines, cooking food, gambling on varren fights, shooting pyjacks... it was a portrait of survival at its most most brutal, and that the krogan would survive even that. Grunt turned to face them once more. "It is in my blood. It is what I am for," Grunt said.

"Good answer," Wrex said. "Talk to the High Shaman when he has the time; he'll set you on the path."

"It can't come soon enough," Grunt said, as he departed the dais. Wrex plunked himself back onto his seat.

"Putting yourself in another mess because of your crew, hm?" Wrex asked.

"You know me. I'm little Miss Altruism," Shepard answered flatly.

"Fighting against demigods from places unknown? I had to figure you'd be involved in that somehow," Wrex nodded. He gave a look to Asha. "So have you given any thought to that question I asked?"

"...which question?" Asha asked, obviously not remembering which one in the slightest. Of course, neither did Shepard.

"Who'd win in a fight between you and Shepard?"

"Her," Asha answered without hesitation. Wrex could only laugh at that.

"Hey, I'd like to talk some more, but I've got this thing," a thumb tapping the Cain on her back, "and a pubescant krogan that need attention."

"I'd suppose that would be the work of Raik Adeks?" Wrex asked. "He's in the research laboratory with High Researcher Fortack," he indicated a direction. "You and your big guns, hm?"

"You must have seen one of these fire," Shepard said. Wrex just nodded, smirk on his lips.

"That I have, Shepard. Real ground pounder. Pity that Fortack could only invent it once. He's been a pain in the tail ever since."

"I should go," Shepard said, "but I'll be back when I've got some time."

"I figured you would," Wrex said. Shepard turned and left the dais, passing by Gatatog Uvenk as she went. If he wasn't on the edge of blood-rage, then she was a salarian. For some reason though, when his glare met Asha's, he was the one that flinched. Shepard pulled her Cain from its harness, and cradled it as one would an infant. After all, her baby Cain was sick, and needed emergency medicine.

---

"Hey, man, I thought we had a deal," the turian youth said, trusting a finger at Kai Leng's chest. It took all the willpower he had not to cut that finger off. "We did the guy like you said, but he din't have shit! You promised us a thousand credits, minimum."

When it came to plausible deniability, Kai Leng had a lot of experience. It was the frustration which made killing these turians so gratifying. He doubted that more than three people knew he was here, and wagered that exactly one of them – besides himself – knew what he was doing here. That was the result of quite a few hours of bribes, ancillary murders, convenient accidents, and computer crashes. The Council missed a hell of a thing when they picked Shepard to be the first human Spectre instead of him, he reckoned.

"And you expect me to reimburse you for your sloppy work?" Leng asked. Of course, sloppy was the point. Nobody would presume that it was anything other than a mugging gone lethal.

"Sloppy? Son of a bitch broke Jordon's back! We ain't sure if he ever gonna walk again!" the youth exclaimed.

"I fail to see how this is my problem," Leng said. He glanced at his Omni again. Damn it, why did every appointment he make strive to be especially late? The turian grabbed his jacket, and pulled him close, to no more than an annoyed frown from the assassin. "Let go while you still have hands."

"You ain't shit, human. I want. My money," he repeated. There was a clack at the door as it slid aside. The young turned, squinting in the light that streamed in, while another turian entered. This one was a woman, much older.

"Um... what's going on?" she asked.

"Nothing. Just a friendly disagreement, am I right?" Leng asked with a lopsided grin. The turian glared at him, but let him go. "I suppose that you've done what I asked."

"As far as anybody's concerned, it was an accident," she said. "Now as for the other half of my payment."

"What the fuck've you been doin', human?" the turian beside him asked.

Leng answered that by cold-cocking him in the back of the head. The youth fell to his hands and knees, barely keeping his face off the floor. Leng, though, was already walking past him, to the woman who was retreating. She turned, to make a break for the door. Leng focused his will, expecting a thud of force, but instead finding a backwind that swept him forward faster than she could retreat. He grabbed her, spinning her against the wall, and gashed her throat out in a single flowing motion.

Her blood started to pool around her as she tried to hold that wound closed. Kai Leng, though, pulled another knife from his belt – a turian military talon – and wiped it along her wound. She gurgled her way to death as he moved to the youth, grabbing his head plate things and tilting him back. The youth answered by thrusting his arm upward, and the floor bucking up to hit Leng in the stomach. He staggered back just one step, then advanced with the bloody blade leading. Instead of a blow which would kill him in seconds, Leng stabbed him in the lung. Then, again, same lung. He tried to shout, but Leng kicked him in the gut, before jamming the blade in a final time between his back ribs, puncturing his other lung. Then, he stepped aside, as the youth slowly suffocated, unable to draw a useful breath, even to call for help. Leng had a little smile on his face as he crossed off one more name from his list. That left exactly one.

When the youth had stopped flailing enough, Leng pressed his hand onto the handle of the murder weapon, then dumped some Minogen in a spread across the floor. There. Drug deal gone bad. Victim managed to kill his killer. Another loose end tied. He turned and left the building, starting to think of how he'd bring down Vakarian.

When he left, he didn't go unnoticed. The scope belonged on a rifle, but officially, Marcus wasn't allowed to own one of those. Breach of his parole. Didn't stop him from keeping one for special occasions. "Well, this would be the sack a' crap that's causing so much heartache?" Marcus said to himself, watching the human turn a corner and walk into a darker part of the alleyway. Marcus scowled, flicking on the night-vision... only to see the human take two steps then disappear completely. "Shaman? Well, that could be a wrinkle," he said.

Marcus stepped away from the apartment window, and opened his own Omni. On it, a clever little program. The line between Smart VI and AI was razor thin in some places; the program on Marcus' Omni toed that line hard. But it made it easy to cut through the electronic bullshit of a kid thinking herself clever enough to hide. If Marcus could find her, so could that human.

"...Oh come on, kid," he said with mild reproach. "At least have some originality."

With a sigh, Marcus turned off his Omni, and started down the stairs. At this point, it was just a matter of reaching the girl before the human did. After all, Marcus had no desire to see Haephus Vakarian in person twice in one lifetime.

---

"Raik Adeks, could that possibly be you?" Shepard asked, of a krogan who was up to his guts in a Tomkah's anti-airborne turret.

"There's a voice I'd thought I'd heard the end of," Adeks said, his own words muffled by metal. There as a scraping sound as he pulled himself out of the Tomkah, landing with a mild thud. He looked a bit different from the last time Shepard had seen him. For one thing, there were some speckled pits on his brow-plate. Probably got them developing the Cain, come to think. "Tell me if I'm wrong, but aren't humans supposed to die when something kills 'em?"

"Not every human is the Avatar," she noted. Adeks gave a chuckle at that, while she unhooked her Cain and set it onto a trolley nearby. "Much as I'd like to wax nostalgic, I've got a problem with..."

"Warped rails," Adeks cut her off. Shepard stared at him. "I figured that'd be an issue. That's why the production models are one-shot. Use it then lose it," he moved over to the gun, and in a matter of half a minute, had it broken down into its constituent pieces. He picked up the core of the rails that sent the projectile out, and holding them up to his eye. He rotated twice, until he gave a nod. "See for yourself."

When Shepard looked down the rail, she noticed that it did bend inward just the slightest bit. "That's all it takes to mess up this gun?"

"You wanted power, I gave you power. You wanted portable, I gave you portable. You wanted reliable, well, tough, you get two out of three," Adeks said.

"Any hot fix?" Shepard asked.

"Straighten them out with metalbending," he said with a shrug. "Though you'd need to field strip it to do that. It's probably not worth your time."

"Still, good to know," Shepard said. She looked around, at the predominantly Urdnot crowd within eyeshot. "I can't imagine this is too comfortable for you."

Adeks gave a shrug, as he wheeled that trolley out of his way, and started to set up a welder. "It's not a matter of what I'm comfortable with. Fortack," he pointed into a room which held a couple of recuperating krogan, some pyjacks, and some active terminals, "is just about everything I hated in Urdnot. But Wrex... He's a different kind of krogan," he puffed out a breath, and turned to her. "Krogan aren't known for being able to see the big picture. Hell, we're not even known for trying to look. But Urdnot Wrex gets it. He gets it, and he's got a plan. The rest of my clan can piss and moan all they want, but at the end of the day, I'm taking my stand with the side that actually has a future."

"Big change from when you first met him," Shepard noted.

"I guess my skull-plate beat some sense into him at Virmire," Adeks said with a laugh. "You should stick around for a while. I'll get your gun working again, you'll see."

"We should catch up, too," Shepard said. Adeks just nodded, then looped welding goggles around his head, and started to work. He was right, Shepard considered as she moved back toward the heart of the dome. There was hope down here. The krogan didn't seem willing to look at it, or talk about it. Hell, she reckoned they didn't even dare to believe it, but there was a change which looked like it was going to give the krogan as a people some sort of tomorrow.

She intercepted Lawson quite by accident, as the woman was pushing a smaller trolley with some crates on it. "Fine Tuchankan cuisine?" Shepard asked.

"Shotgun and rifle modifications, high explosives, and reactive plating," Lawson countered. "I'm shocked they let it go for so cheap."

"It is understandable," Samara said from Lawson's side. "They have few customers, so it is the customer which drives the price."

"Well, get it back to the ship," Shepard said. "I want our guns with enough grunt to kill the Collector standing behind the Collector we aim at."

Lawson rolled her eyes, and Shepard continued past where the two women cleaved off, beginning her ascent up a structure which overlooked the dome. She could hear grunts of krogan on the various levels engaged in head-bashing over some dispute or another. And she could see a tension amongst the krogan up here that weren't engaged in physical rivalry. That stood as a reminder; even if the krogan had hope, they still had a lot of dark history that it had to burn through first.

"You go beyond yourself, Uvenk," the voice above said. It was odd, in that it was obviously a krogan, but it didn't have the undertone of hate that so many had. It instead bore a calm, almost zen sort of focus, anger under diamond-hard control. "In this, the Rites of Urdnot are dominant."

"You know that there is no point to this farce," Uvenk said. "He is unnatural, and Tuchanka will know it. They will ignore him as they would a lump of plastic!"

"They know blood, no matter the womb," came the High Shaman's response. Now that she could see him, it struck a familiar figure. The High Shaman of Urdnot bore a ceremonial robe and hood, one of desaturated and weathered reds, pinks, and oranges. He stood with a prouder posture than Uvenk did. And a more controlled one than Grunt, who was even now punching his knuckles and preparing for a brawl. "Your barking does little to aid your case."

"This 'lump of plastic' can speak for itself!" Grunt snapped at them.

"This tank-bred... is very life-like," the High Shaman said evenly. He walked up to Grunt, and took in a stern sniff. "Smells correct as well. He is young, but he is krogan," he turned a look toward Uvenk. "Your protests are ringing increasingly hollow."

"Can we please get past Uvenk's stupidity and start dealing with Grunt? He's old enough, and if he's strong enough, then he should have the same chance as anybody else."

"True enough," the High Shaman said. "This is not about clan rituals or petty complaints, but instead, about a prospective Urdnot."

"If it will stand on ritual, then I invoke my Denial!" Uvenk declared. "My krannt will stand against him, while he has noone!"

The High Shaman sighed, and turned to Shepard. "He invokes correctly, however much it tests my patience. Grunt, who is your krannt? Who will stand and fight and die on your behalf?"

"Others?" Grunt asked. "How do you test my strength if others come with me?"

"Not everyone is a paragon warrior, young one," the High Shaman said. "Some bring masterful weapons of their own device into their Trials. Others inspire greatness in those around them. All are examples of strength. If the ones that you know best can find nothing worthy in you, then you had best wander the wastes and die alone before you weaken my clan."

"Grunt will strengthen Urdnot," Shepard said. "Name our target, and it will die."

The High Shaman cracked a smirk at that. "Spoken well. Most aliens," a glance at Uvenk, "and some krogan," back to Grunt, "do not understand our ways. But I believe this human does."

"Aliens know nothing of strength!" Uvenk shouted. "My followers are true krogan! Everything about Grunt is a lie!"

"I will make my assessment without your blathering, Uvenk," the High Shaman said. He looked Grunt up and down, even walking a circle around him. When he returned to his original place, at Grunt's fore, he pressed an eye closed, and when he opened it, it was smokey and grey, while he looked into the worlds beyond the physical. He stared for a moment. Then, closed that eye once more. "I have made my decision," the High Shaman said. "Grunt will be taken from this place to the Rift of Torment..."

"And fed to the Thresher Maws," Uvenk continued.

"...and there, will undergo the Rite of Apprentice."

Uvenk's eyes bugged out in his head at that pronouncement. "WHAT? You would have this twisted, un-krogan thing as a shaman? You are mad! This tank-bred is an abomination, and I will s–"

Shepard, having had enough of this crap, slammed her forehead down into Uvenk's jaw. Ordinarily? The dumbest of dumb moves, as a krogan skull was an order of magnitude harder than a human's... but Shepard wasn't a typical human. The pulse of white from her eyes was so mild as to be almost invisible, but the Second Victory of the Soul told her that she was as tough as she needed to be. So when she headbutted Uvenk to shut him the hell up, she hit like a truck. She leaned back, rubbing the spot that was going to well up in a bruise soon, and bring a headache with it, but the flabbergasted look on Uvenk's face should have been immortalized forever.

"You... dare?" Uvenk demanded, as the High Shaman burst into open laughter.

"I like this human; she understands!" the High Shaman said. He turned a cold look to Uvenk, who fumed, enraged that he'd been shown to have a smaller quad than a woman with no testicles at all.

"I withdraw my Denial," Uvenk said, his words clipped. "This will be decided elsewhere."

Uvenk tried to shoulder past Shepard, but she again focused her soul into her flesh, a moment of clarity while she rooted her foot and leaned into it, so when Uvenk hit her, he was the one that was deflected. She immediately regretted it, because there was a burning sensation of a muscle torn, but the seething outrage – the humiliation – on Uvenk's face made up for it.

"You have provoked them, which is reason enough for me to like you," the High Shaman said, mirth under his words but just as tightly controlled as the anger which flowed under all else. "They're your problem now."

"I don't know much about the Rite of Apprentice. Are there any restrictions I should know about?"

"You trained under Shaman Raik did you not?" the High Shaman Urdnot asked. Shepard nodded. "Their tasks will be familiar, then. Urdnot has always had a harder line to walk against the Spirit than has Raik. What they would consider a degree of acquired adeptness, we demand as a prerequisite. The only restriction is that only they who may enter the Spirit, either unfettered or under Grunt's power, may be part of this krannt. Bring the resolve of a survivor of the Tuchankan Spirit, and you will succeed."

"And is shit-for-quads going to be a problem?" Shepard asked.

"He is forbidden by tradition. Will he be? Who can say? You should be prepared for anything," the High Shaman said. "We can leave immediately, if Grunt's eagerness is so great."

Shepard looked behind them, to the sun that was setting and the shadows growing long. "No... not today. We'll wait until morning."

"I'm ready to go now," Grunt said.

"No, you're not," Shepard said.

"You're afraid of the night?" Grunt asked.

"It's not about fear. Just listen, and you'll understand."

High Shaman Urdnot gave her a look that spoke to respect. Not surprising, really. When the burning 'Eye of Aralakh' dipped below the horizon, lost beyond the dome of the Urdnot Surt, voices began to rise. First alone, then in a chorus. Melodies rising with the dying of the light, a dozen songs sung by krogan mouths, as different as they could be, but at the same time, contributing to a single harmony.

Shepard closed her eyes, and as she had in Raik Surt, she listened to Tuchanka sing.

---

Turians had very boring food, as a rule. Where once they had a plethora of cultures that could have put the asari to shame for balkanization, the Unification stamped most of that out, leaving a single culture, a single method, a single madness. And most annoyingly, a single cook-book. It wasn't until the quarians came onto the galactic scene that 'modern' turians rediscovered that food could taste good. It wasn't exciting, even now. With the quarians gone and their farms fallow for generations, the spices which once made dextro-food palatable had fallen into fairly rare supply. She picked at her food without enthusiasm, because there was little enthusiasm to be had. It would have tasted of ashes, even if it didn't natively taste like ashes.

They had good coffee, though.

Solana Vakarian keep glancing to her Omni. The line of communication to the others had fallen silent, one after another. Philip tried to go to the police. He disappeared from their custody. Margo tried to bring her father, the naval captain, to her defense. Such a shame that the captain and daughter shared a hitherto unknown allergy, and so sad that the mother hung herself out of grief.

Those were object lessons. There was no safety in the Hierarchy. She picked at her food, more of rote and necessity than anything else. Hell, if it wasn't for coffee, she'd probably be asleep in her chair. And if she fell asleep in her chair, she wasn't likely to wake up.

She gave a start when somebody abruptly turned from the crowd, and plunked himself down across the table from her. In an instant, she had a flame pulsing from the end of her fingernail, something out of sight, preparing to launch in a heartbeat. But that panicked moment faded, when the figure across from her was as turian as she was.

Unless he had accomplices...

"You can stop with the firebending," the turian man said, as he immediately carved a strip off of his spoo-ham. His voice was very gravely, very raspy, and oddly accented. Somebody from the colonies, perhaps "I'm working for your father."

"A likely story," Sol said.

The turian gave a sigh, and chewed on his meat for a moment, before leaning back. "Two things, girl," he said. "First, the human is watching you through a high-powered scope at this very moment. Second, I have a powerful kinetic barrier, and am sitting directly in 'is line of fire."

"He wouldn't just use a rifle. He's too subtle for that," she said.

"Ordinarily," the turian said with a shrug, still sitting with his back straight. "But he's reached the end of 'is list. He can kill you however he pleases and walk away. I think he's lost 'is patience."

"How do you know this?" Sol asked. She notably hadn't dropped her firebending blade.

The turian opened his Omni and tipped it toward her. Her own chirped, and showed a feed which seemed to be live from one of the security cameras that overlooked the promenade. This one had been turned inward, and showed a black-haired human with a rifle. Waiting. "I have my ways," he said. "My name is Marcus Pastor, and you should come with me if you want to live."

"How do I know you're not working for him?" Sol asked.

"Because I can't stop you from leaving. I can only try to stop 'im from killing you. That becomes more difficult the more obstinate you are," Marcus said, cutting a fresh strip from his ham, and popping it betwixt his teeth. "I can only imagine that he's going to take 'is shot any minute now. He won't expect the kinetic barrier, which will give you exactly four seconds to get to that fountain," he gave a nod with his head.

"Seriously?" Sol asked.

"Deadly," Marcus said, carving a fresh sliver. "Tick tock, girl."

"After the fountain, then what?" Sol asked.

"Then we have to im–"

Marcus was cut off when a bullet slammed into the back of his head. Or would have, were there not a pulse of bluish light, and a transfer of momentum from the barrier to him, which slammed him forward onto the table.

Sol didn't freeze. She'd learned better than that a long time ago. She was off like a shot, elbowing through the people who were still only now starting to realize what was happening. It was like trying to sprint through a bog. She didn't even bother trying to reach the protective edge of the fountain, instead mounting the lip and hurling herself into the water behind the great iron spout that sent water surging up, before falling back down again. She'd scarcely been there for a moment when there was another loud bang, and a spark shot past her arm, before the bullet struck the far edge of the fountain, and shattered its lip. The water which was already surging around her started to flush out into the courtyard, as public concern became public panic.

She considered for only a moment hurling a lightning bolt to where she guessed the sniper was standing, but the fact that she was being inundated by a fountain made of steel put paid to that idea in a hell of a hurry. She could see an air-car not far away. If she could get there fast enough, she'd have a straight shot to the alleyway.

She burst up from the water, slogging as fast as her legs would allow her, before she sickened of it, and thrust both fists down. She rocketed up out of the water, landing on rapidly wetting pavement, just in time for a fresh shot.

This one slammed into her, knocking her for a loop and casting her to the ground. She had a blinding pain behind her eyes as her biotic barrier had only just barely held a killing bullet at bay. She rolled behind the air-car, tweezing her eyes, trying to get focus. To see. To think.

She forced it through her mind. If she were in the sniper's position, what would she do? She had hard cover from him, at least for a few bullets. She had an obvious out. And since this guy had so many damned contingencies planned for, what would he... Oh spirits. Were she him, she would absolutely have a rocket launcher.

She tried to scramble away, but with her vision closed into a narrow tunnel, she could scarcely pick out her orientation, let alone her destination. She just knew she had to get away from this car, now.

Sol didn't see, how racing as a skater atop the diminishing surface of the water came Marcus. How he swept his arm forward, and the great flood of water cast itself between the sniper and the car she was hiding behind. How a clench of his fists turned that water into ice, a fraction of a second before the missile she'd predicted struck, and detonated. She did, however, hear it. She felt the ice pelting her.

And she felt somebody grabbing her under the armpit, and hauling her.

"Marcus?" she asked.

"The one and only," he said, smugness so clear that it passed through his voice. She managed to get her feet under her, and ran forward until he got in her way, slowing her down. She took some deep breaths, and slowly her vision returned to normal, spreading out like a return to consciousness. "You've got to be the luckiest girl on Palaven. Which makes sense, otherwise you wouldn't 'ave gotten me."

"Stop your grinning. All of my friends are already dead," Sol said, planting both hands on his chest and giving him a shove. "This isn't a game!"

"If you think like that, then you'll never be a player, just a piece," Marcus said, catching her hand before she could snatch it back. She fumed at him, wishing she could set him on fire with her brain. Sadly, she hadn't figured that art, as yet. "Now, as I was saying, from this point, we have to improvise."

"Why? We could..."

"No going to police, he's paid 'em off," Marcus rattled off as he bore her down the alleyway. "No military, he's got 'em paid off, too. No going into the Spirit, since they're scared shitless of 'im, and he's got the run a' the place."

"Then walk go into the sewer system. Palaven Prime has a big one," Sol said.

"Earthbender. We'd be at 'is mercy," he said with a shake of his head.

"How could he be an earthbender?" she demanded.

"Eh, it's complicated," Marcus said, leaning around that corner. "Got a feelin' he ain't your normal human bein'." Sirens began to sound from the direction behind them, as the police converged on a place of utter destruction. She looked to him. "If you really feel like stickin' around for the cops to question you, then y'ain't nearly as smart as old H gives you credit."

"Where. Do. We. Go?" she demanded coldly.

"The last place he'd look," Marcus said.

She gave that a moment's thought... then understood. "Back that way," she said, starting to backpeddle.

"See, there's a smart cookie," Marcus said, following her. "Now, if this little arrangement is gonna work, there are three rules. The first rule is, if I say run, you run. Second rule, if I say hide, you damned well hide. And the third rule is..."

"Don't ever disobey rules one or two?" she asked dryly, as the two of them merged into the no-longer panicking crowd. There were more than a few civilians who were corralling those of lesser willpower and nerve, preparing for the constabulary to arrive. Them, or the military.

"Nah, that ain't it at all," Marcus said, locking steel-grey eyes onto her blue. "When I say fight, or if I can't say anythin' at all, you fight t' the death."

She cracked a smirk at that, as she allowed herself to be pushed backward with the crowd, out of the way, toward safer passages. "That sounds like a rule I can live with."

"Thought it might be," he said with the smuggest look. She punched him the ribs just the same.

A rooftop away, Leng stared down the wrong street with his rifle. He waited. But his patience was wearing thin. He'd have to move, soon. He was already spending more time than he'd wanted to by far. This was supposed to be the easiest one of all of them. Instead...

With a grumble of annoyance, he let his rifle collapse, tucked the rocket-launcher into its place at the small of his back, and sent out a wave of his Omni which crashed the camera network for three city blocks, and erased everything they'd recorded for the last two hours.

---

There were few planets in the galaxy where modern shuttles couldn't fly with absolute safety. Tuchanka was chief among them. The transport that she, Grunt, and Asha had procured with the Shaman trundled along the ground, safe from the predations of the Queen Klixen which were known to be able to bring such craft down. It also was a great deal slower than a shuttle, so what would have been an hour's journey – into a place where Queen Klixen were less of a risk and more of a guarantee – instead took almost a day.

"You've been away from Tuchanka for some time, haven't you?" the High Shaman asked, pulling Shepard's attention away from the wasteland that they drove through. Here, like the deserts of the Hallows, Tuchanka didn't even bother putting up a front of possible habitability. This place was spite made material. And it had a cracked and broken highway leading into the center of it.

"A few years, yes," Shepard said.

"I admit I was pleasantly surprised when you waited for the morning," he continued. "It speaks to a level of respect seldom seen in aliens."

"If it wasn't for your kind, I'd be as spiritually bankrupt as Korra," Shepard said. Asha gave her a look. "When she was young, I mean," at which the Si Wongi shrugged, and continued staring ahead of her. Grunt, on the other hand, looked ready to chew iron and shit nails. Shepard turned back to the High Shaman. "What is this place, anyway?"

"A portal into the spirit world," the High Shaman said. "Not naturally occurring as on your Earth. No, this was punched into the Material many generations ago. It is a dangerous place. The rocks hold hatred for you. The beasts will sacrifice their lives to harm you. The air itself will betray you."

"Why do you have a road leading here, then?" Shepard asked.

"Because anything created by the Meretsegger needs to be monitored," the High Shaman said. Shepard's brows rose. "Yes, that is the greatest of this place's dangers. You know what you must do if you see the Black Beast?"

"Run like hell, or die," Shepard gave the two options. The High Shaman nodded sagely at that.

"Then you have learned that lesson well," he said. There was a shift in the center of balance as the Tomkah took a sudden turn, and then started to descend. "We will be approaching the Rift itself. Those who would go with you, prospective shaman, have them prepare now."

"I can do this on my own," Grunt said.

"What? No you can't," Shepard said. "You lost a fight to an air-aspect. Not even an air spirit, you lost to an air aspect!"

"It cheated," Grunt said.

"There are no rules in the Spirit World save for those which bind the spirits, each unique to itself. There is no cheating," the High Shaman said, as the Tomkah began to slow. "There is only victory, or death."

He turned the hatch of the Tomkah, opening it to the biting winds that swept out of the wasteland and into the box-canyon that lay before them. The stones were sheer and very tall, a sort of red rock that even from this distance didn't feel like sandstone. It was clear that there were only a few hours each day that the sun could directly reach the bottom of that canyon. Otherwise, it was cloaked in an everlasting twilight.

"What is my purpose?" Grunt asked, as he stomped out of the Tomkah. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Survive," the High Shaman. He pointed into the canyon. "There is a way through this canyon that only exists in the Spirit world. You must take it, and follow it until you reach the other side. There, I will await you for a day and a night. If you don't return in that time, then you will have almost definitely been killed."

"What test is there in walking from one end of a canyon to another?" Grunt asked.

"The dangers come from the path you walk itself. It doesn't want you to succeed. It has a bit of the Meretsegger in it even now; that path wants you dead. If you are clever, strong, or tough enough to be a shaman for Clan Urdnot, then you must ensure that the path fails in that," the High Shaman said, before flipping his hood forward so that it fell as a cowl over his skullplate. "I will await you at the Rift of World's Ending. Strength and wisdom, prospective shaman; you shall need much of both."

He swept his hand up again, to a grunt of angry effort, and the air began to shimmer not five meters ahead of them. He then slammed his arm to one side, and like a tearing of a curtain, a blob of opaque light began to well up out of the ground, right at the fork of two dry creek-beds. Asha hefted her rifle, and began toward it, only to have the Shaman raise his hand. "Don't stand in my way," Asha said coldly.

"You have no place in this. You are not a shaman," the High Shaman pointed out.

"I have survived worse," she said.

"You will be almost powerless in the Rift of Torment. Even your bending will be a poor weapon," he stated.

"I don't need bending," she said, hefting her autocannon. "I have firepower."

The High Shaman gave a chuckle at that. "You are either mad, or brave, or stupid, and I believe it is a mixture of the three. You are Prospective Grunt's problem now," he said, starting back toward the Tomkah. He turned once more at the door, and pointed through the Portal that he'd pulled into mortal visibility. "Keep your wits about you, and perhaps I will see you again."

"I'm ready to go now, Shepard," Grunt said. Shepard gave a look to Asha, but the way she shook her head made it clear that she wasn't going to accept any order Shepard gave for her to not come with them. A non-shaman in the Spirit world was almost always a recipe for disaster.

Of course, Grunt was pretty much the finished product of disaster, so she was at worst a garnish.

Shepard took the fore, her guns on her back and hip. She closed her eyes as she reached that hole in the world, and took a step forward.

For a moment, there was a rushing of wind, as she suddenly dropped several meters more than she should have. Or at least, felt like she did. There was a groan of sound, though, followed by a splash as her feet landed in water. She immediately stepped aside so that Grunt wouldn't knock her down, and took her first look at the Rift of Torment.

Didn't look that different, really.

Grunt splashed his way out of a creek that lay dry in the Mortal world, grumbling to himself, even as he looked at the canyon before him. It did have one difference; here, there was wind whistling out of it, rather than blowing abreast of it. "This place doesn't look like anything," he said. "I was expecting a fight!"

"You're probably going to get one," Shepard said. "Come with me. Try to stay as close in my footsteps as you can. You too, Asha."

The other woman nodded, but Grunt shrugged.

"Why?"

Shepard groaned, and tweezed her brow. "You know how you hate it when teachers and parents say 'just do it' and don't give you a reasonable answer why?"

"No."

She looked at him, then remembered. "Right, tank-bred. This is one of those times, anyway. This place could have Traps."

"I sense a capital letter," Asha said, following as Shepard approached that cleft in the walls. Now that she got closer, things were starting to pull apart. For one thing, those cliffs looked easily three times taller than they had a few moments and a few meters ago.

"Earth has a few of them, Tuchanka, a lot more," Shepard said. She took a step into the canyon itself, a chill running through her body when she did. It was like she was suddenly some primitive, almost-human, who knew that a predator was waiting in the darkness for her to rest her eyes, just for that moment.

"That sounds boring," Grunt mumbled.

"It won't be for long," Shepard said. She flexed her hand, and noted that her flame seemed... diminished here. If she'd had more esoteric knowledge of the Spirit world, she'd know it was because there was a resonance of entropy in this place. What she presumed was that the same would apply to all her bending. "The beasts literally come out of the walls once they know something mortal is in their domain."

"Good," Grunt said, punching his fists in excitement. "That sounds like something worth testing!"

"Say that now, wait until you have a varren-spirit eating your leg," Shepard said. She continued forward, listening to the whistle of the wind as it grew louder, focusing on the path as the way she walked grew darker.

There was a flutter of absolute darkness, one that made Shepard stop in her tracks. She stepped back. The light returned. "Slow down. I think there's a Trap right here."

"How would you know?" Asha asked, coming to Shepard's shoulder. Shepard reached down, picking up a rock the size of her hand, and tossed it forward. Before it even started to descend, it began to slow, then stretch, spaghettifying until the stone was as thin as a human hair, before being stretched even thinner, and vanishing from view. "...ah."

"If this place has Event Horizons, we're going to need to take this slow," Shepard said. Keeping her eyes forward, she edged to the other side of the creek, then moved forward at a snail-sloth's pace, until she was well ahead of where that place of darkness lay. She puffed out a breath, then turned to Asha.

And only Asha.

"...Grunt?" Shepard asked. That wasn't the only concern, though. About twelve meters past where Asha was standing, there was now a rock wall, one that rattled with loose stones begging for an excuse to fall. "...oh, that's not good."

"What do you mean?" Asha asked. She turned, and saw. "...We should keep moving," Asha said.

"Without Grunt, it's kinda moot," Shepard pointed out.

"There is no returning, so our only path is forward," Asha countered. And she had a point. Shepard nodded, and looked ahead. The cliffs seemed impossibly tall, now, and the pool of light that came from the guttering flame in Shepard's hand was almost all that gave them vision. Even then, the vision was hemmed in, as though the darkness was far more eager to encroach upon the light.

"Asha, stay very, very close to me," Shepard said. Ahead, there was a sound that made her all the more nervous. Rising from places unseen, the long 'Rooooo' of a varren. Maybe many varren.

"As you command, Avatar," Asha said.

Shepard, suddenly too nervous to be tired, continued forward, into this pit of the damned.

---

"Would you mind explaining who the hell you are?" Sol demanded, as he pulled open the door to his nondescript – and therefore very 'child-molesty' – van.

"I'll be happy to, as long as you ge' in," he said.

She stared at him for a moment, as he turned on his Omni. Then, with a groan, she did exactly that. She tried to open the door, only to find it locked. Marcus gave a start, then reached over and opened it manually. As she plunked herself into the seat, she stared at the older turian. "You don't own this van, do you?"

"Nah, but I doubt that the owner will be getting much more use outta it," Marcus said.

"You killed him?"

"No. Your erstwhile assassin did. Found this bugger's body in that dumpster over there, 'fore meeting you," Marcus said. He turned to her, and cracked a grin. "Allow me to more properly introduce myself. Marcus Proctor, formerly with THIS."

"Hierarchy Intelligence? You're a Frumentarius?" she asked, not really believing it.

"Formerly," he said with a shrug. "Your father took issue with some of the things that I did in the pursuit of my job. He doesn't seem to understand that honor only works until somebody's back is turned. If you want to keep a nation safe, you need to do things which stretch the bounds of law... and even morality."

"What did Dad arrest you for?" she asked pointedly, while specks of rain began to drizzle onto the windscreen.

"Not even a tenth of what he wished he could," Marcus said with a shrug. "For reference, I was probably the shining mirror version of the human trying to kill you, myself a dark mirror of your esteemed father. That should give you a notion of who's on your trail."

"Who is he, anyway? How did he manage to do all this so fast?" she asked. Marcus was silent. "Oh, let me guess. 'Need to know information', and I don't need to know."

"No, I was concentrating. His name is Kai Leng, and he's a real bastard of a bastard," he said. "Systems Alliance, N7 candidate who got kicked for 'personality concerns'. In other words, even th' other humans realized how fucking crazy he was."

"So my father, a former police officer, recruited a former Frumantarius, to protect me from a former Systems Alliance special forces lunatic?" Sol clarified.

"It does sound a bit tacky when you say it out loud," Marcus admitted. There was a chirp as the controls finally accepted his input. Sol gave a glance over her shoulder, sweeping aside a curtain to see into the inside of the van. Looking there, she understood why it was so hard to crack.

"Um... Marcus?"

"What is it, lass?"

"I don't think that was the dead guy's van," she said. Marcus scowled at her, then looked past her, and his jaw dropped a bit.

There were gun and explosive lockers built into the floor, and rows of capsules set into the wall. Nineteen full. One empty. In each save one, there was a faintly blue technological device. One that made Sol rub the back of her neck nervously. "Well, I'll be. We stole Leng's van," Marcus said happily, before there was lurch of gravity and it lifted up and started to fly away. "Now your father has some high-minded idea that he's going to be able to approach the Primarch's Circle once he's got you safely in hand. What he doesn't understand is that Leng's just the kind of crazy that he won't care about collateral damage."

"How could he do all of this? We're trained..."

"Half trained at best, love. Don't kid yourself," Marcus cut her off. "As for how? He's got a horseshoe up 'is arse, as far as I can tell."

"And nobody even noticed?" she asked, looking at all that remained of her comrades. Her friends. She seriously didn't want to know which one was Silas. Yeah, two dates did not a serious relationship make, but still...

"Something's deleting every trace that he's 'ere every time 'e does something that should be a cause for concern," he said, merging into the traffic quietly, and vanishing into a thousand, thousand other vehicles. "Now your father'll only get you killed, so I recommend you get off 'a Palaven as soon as you possibly can. Thus, my taking the liberty of hiring a smuggler."

"Couldn't he just follow me off world?" she asked.

"Probably, but the galaxy's a lot bigger a place to hide than this one measly planet," Marcus pointed out, before grumbling lightly at the 'traffic' which was slowing before them. "Know some folks out on the Citadel, the kind that can make people disappear without contracting a terminal case of dead. Figure, a man like that's going to get himself killed sooner or later. I much prefer the sooner, a' course."

"We should change lanes," Sol said.

"I'm driving, you just sit. And buckle that belt. Gettin' pulled over for a buckle ticket is the last thing I want t' 'ave to deal with."

"That lane's moving way faster than this one," she pointed to the one above her.

"For now. Wait till I'm in it, and it'll come to a stop," he said. He looked left and right, but found traffic was close in around him on those directions as well.

Sol kept scratching at the back of her neck, as a whisper began to slide along her spine. It felt like a voice remembered from a dream. She tried to push it aside as nerves and the crash of adrenaline leaving her.

No amount of rationalizing seemed to do the trick. "So you don't care about why this guy wants to kill me at all? Or do you even know?"

"Peg me for the ignorant, love. The only thing which matters to me is that Leng doesn't get a knife into your skull. After that, he can take a flying leap regardin' what he's here for."

"...Will I be able to stay in contact with Dad?" she asked.

"Indirectly," he nodded. "Never face-to-face 'till I've personally pissed on Leng's corpse. I'm a bit protective like that."

"That doesn't sound so bad, actu–"

There was a loud thump which cut her off, as something struck the top of the van. That whisper in her mind became an absolute shriek, and she tore the belt off, even as a second thump came, followed by a black-gauntleted fist smashing down through the windscreen. Sol dashed into the back, just in time to avoid a shotgun blast to the seat that she was sitting in. Marcus cursed profanely, and immediately slammed on the accelerator. They had all of three meters before they smashed into the back of a family sedan. The impact was enough to throw the human – Kai Leng, obviously – off of the roof overhead, and onto the car ahead of them, only arresting himself from a long drop by jamming a strangely bladed knife into said sedan.

Marcus pawed behind him for a gun, one that Sol pressed into his hands even as she tried to pull down the rifle of her own. He was already firing thunderous shots at the human before she could even get her stolen rifle to unfold. The bullets flew true, but Leng held his other hand out before him, and a shimmering biotic field warded those bullets sending them careening away. Sol almost missed her moment to shoot. A human couldn't be a biotic and a bender. That was just the way things were.

She didn't let her shock hamstring her too long, sending off a bullet, which Leng twisted himself out of the way of even as her trigger was pulled. Leng ripped his blade from the hole he'd created, managing to stand on the car for a moment, before slamming both hands behind him, and jetting himself toward them on rockets of flame – flames which inundated the car he'd been standing on. Marcus slammed the controls down, sending the van into a dive that ended two meters below as it crashed into a truck's trailer. Still, two meters was enough so that when Leng hurled himself, he didn't surge with those brutal flames directly into the van, but rather, past it and overtop.

"Hold on, I'm going to –" Marcus began, but there was a crash outside, followed by a shrieking of metal as the doors were outright pulled off of their hinges. Leng threw away the door with the ease of a krogan chucking a raloi, and pulled himself into the back of his van. He had the smuggest smirk on his face, but it didn't reach his eyes by a half. Those eyes were every bit the nightmare that her instincts made it out to be. She grit her teeth, flattened her mandibles, and cast forward with a bolt of biotic force across the mere meter and a half which separated them. A Kick, to send him back out. He crushed it aside with a hand, his own biotics protecting him. She jumped into a bicycle kick which surged out a pair of flaming bolts, which he warded with a shield he crafted of his own fire, before twisting the shield into a ram, and slammed it at her. She had to cut the stream, but that simply made it bathe the back of the car, and fill it with blinding smoke.

The heat of it was tortuous, and the pressure, horrifying. She stumbled back until her heel thumped against the frame which separated the back of the van from the front. So much combat over twenty centimeters of floor. She lashed forward, a whip of flame that she followed with a Warp, but a warp she directed not at Leng, but rather the floor between the two of them. He ducked under the whip, before bounding up and spreading his legs, holding himself at a splits above a floor which could no-longer hold his weight. Hell, it couldn't even hold up to the weigh of the rifle, which slipped through and got wedged against the undercarriage of the car. With a twist of his hands, every capsule in the back of the van burst, and raced began to orient toward her as a barrage of icy knives.

It was about there that Sol's brain skipped a beat. Yeah, the brain didn't beat, but that was what it felt like.

He was bending two...

Her stunned thought was cut off when a spike hurtled toward her, only to be smashed aside by much cleaner looking ice from Marcus. He grabbed Sol and cast himself forward, bursting through the compromised wind-screen and out of the van. No longer controlled, it began to grind its way off of the truck, which they both backed toward the front of. There was a final rip as a portion of the trailer's roof was stripped away, and the van listed into traffic, slamming into a car before making a beeline for the ground. And just as it passed that threshold, Leng stepped out of its rear doors, as calm and collected on this windy vista as he'd been while fighting in his van.

"Any plans?" Sol asked, finding herself soaked once more, but this time by the rain which was driving down through the lanes of traffic.

"Yeah. Keep running," Marcus said.

"Don't run. This has just gotten fun," the human said with a sinister baritone. He flicked both hands out, his body beginning to glow with a bluish nimbus, even as jets of flame began to burn away from his fingertips.

---

He was alone, in a hostile place. But he had a shotgun, so he was fine. Grunt walked the path, scanning around him as he went. "This place isn't so bad. A bit boring," he noted. In fact, it seemed like this was going to be even easier than fighting the Shadow Broker. Rather disappointing, now that he thought about it. He was muttering to himself about 'not having a challenge worthy of him', when there was a sound not unlike a pair of wooden two-by-fours being smashed into one another, and Grunt was suddenly airborne.

The sudden launch pulled a bellow of surprise from him in the second or so that it took for him to peak, then fall. He landed hard on his chest in the gravel, a slightly more forgiving terrain than the stone around them.

"Alright. The ground wants to kill me," he said, pushing himself slowly to his feet. Yeah, it stung a bit, but that would pass. "Now things are getting interesting."

He walked, and the path became... brighter, actually. A suffusive light began to fill the place before him. It was directionless and sourceless, but it was growing to be brighter even than Aralakh in the sky. After less than a minute, he had to squint to see into it, holding one arm up before him as he stumbled, practically blind, through the terrain.

He missed a step, and suddenly was falling.

This time, there was no gravel to take his fall, and he descended into water of unknowable depth. The light continued to burn into his eyes, as he drifted downward, holding his breath as hard as he could. After all, the tank never imprinted so pointless a skill as swimming, and a krogan in armor was about as buoyant as the armor on its own. Still, he flailed against that water. Tried to find some purchase in it, with unpracticed strokes that were merely thrashing in the water.

His breath failed him, and he involuntarily pulled in a lung full of water. No, this didn't feel like water. It was different. Worse than water. Something foul. It seared with incredible pain. He cast his hands out once more, trying to flail one last time for the surface.

Only they smashed against something hard. Something solid. Directly in front of him.

The light shifted away, and he could see. He was in the tank. It surrounded him on all sides, and the old man was standing there before him. Impossible! He'd killed that old bastard himself!

"Weak and mad," Okeer said. "Disappointing. You could have been mighty, you know? But instead, you choose betrayal. I've seen enough of this simulation," Okeer turned away, waving idly toward Grunt's tank. Grunt again tried to pull breath, but he was honestly drowning. He slammed his fists against the glass, trying to break his way free. They didn't waver in the slightest.

Desperation made for a powerful motivator, a lesson the Urdnot learned well. Grunt pressed his eyes shut, and then opened them again, peering not into the Spirit world, because he was already there, but instead at the Form, the essence of what lay before him. He saw this for what it was.

It was hunched over him, a twisted black thing with violet eyes, no mouth, and spindly limbs. One of those black-clawed palms was pressing down on Grunt's skull-plate, holding his head under the water of the stream.

With a drowning roar, he slammed his fist up into its 'elbow' causing the entire limb to bend out of shape, and the being to let out a keening sound. Grunt pushed himself up in an explosion of movement, crashing into the black thing and sending it back. He then fell onto his hands and knees for a moment, coughing and sputtering the water out of his lungs. The keening sound rose, as the thing noisily popped its elbow back into the proper position. But Grunt had a lot more anger than water in him. With a last cough, and a ragged breath in, he took off into a full-out krogan charge.

He slammed into the slender thing and drove it back, carrying it with him fully fifteen meters before slamming it into the sheer wall of the cliffs. With rage driving his fist, he sent a haymaker into the thing's 'head', which smashed it into the rocks, leaving a fast-evaporating splat of ichor behind. The next two punches bowed the thing over as he drove them up into its gut. Grunt grabbed it by the trailing horns of its head, and smashed his skull-plate into it, driving it completely from its feet. Now on the floor. He drove his foot directly into the place which held his eyes, and felt a lovely crunch as it passed straight through the spirit. It broke apart into motes of darkness, which burnt away as they drifted upward, leaving only ashes which fell at Grunt's ankles.

Grunt took a few hard, ragged breaths, clearing the water fully from his lungs.

"Alright. Not boring," Grunt admitted.

---

"Grunt? Grunt!" Shepard shouted, through the fog which was slowly mounting higher the deeper into the canyon that they went. "I have no idea if you can hear me, but watch your ass! There's a lot of Death-by-Drowning spirits around here!"

"Which he has hopefully found out less unpleasantly than we," Asha muttered, tapping water out of her ear. "What is this mist? It wasn't here a moment ago."

"Whatever it is, I've got a bad feeling about it," Shepard said.

"Why?"

"There's a spirit back on earth that likes fog. You don't want to know what he does inside it," she said. She continued on, the chips of stone falling from the almost infinite height above them. She could still hear things clicking along the canyon, ahead of them and behind, but beyond the scritching of chitin on stone, there was never anything to see. Whatever beasts claimed this place, they were giving the two humans an oddly wide berth.

"I can't see you anymore," Asha said, only noticable for the splashing she made as she waded ankle deep through the water behind Shepard.

Shepard, though, kept forging forward. She could sense Grunt, in the vaguest of ways. He was nearby, even if she couldn't interact with him. He'd probably entered a different layer of the Spirit World. Perhaps fallen into the Abstract Spirit. If he had, then he was going to have a hell of a time getting out. "Asha, do you hear anything?"

The sloshing of water continued, but Asha didn't answer.

"Asha, talk to me..."

"You don't really believe this is real, do you?" a very different voice asked.

Shepard spun, pulling her sidearm even as she slowly backed away. She could still hear the sloshing of approaching footsteps, but the mist was so thick that she couldn't even see the gun in her hands, let alone what lay beyond it. "Impossible," Shepard said.

"Many things are impossible, Avatar..." the taunting voice came. "...some things so impossible that they have to make you wonder. How did it happen?"

"This isn't real," Shepard said.

"Of course it isn't," Saren's voice came through the fog. The sloshing footfalls continued around her. "Nothing that you've done in the last few months is real, and you're only now starting to accept that. Which is for the best. Time to let go. Accept things as they are."

"You're not Saren," Shepard said. "I know, because I killed the shit out of him."

"So why do you hear my voice?" Saren asked. The sloshing ended, and a quiet crunch of footfalls on gravel took its place. "Admit it. A part of you knows the truth. That there was no miraculous resurrection. That your desiccated corpse lays, even now, upon the surface of Alchera. That you... are dead."

"This is a lie to trick me," Shepard said. "Like the Fog of Lost Souls. Trying to trap me in my own insecurities and feast on my essence. It's not going to work."

"You really think that I'm trying to break your will?" Saren asked, with a dark chuckle. "If I wanted that, I'd have done it far faster than this. No. I want you to just accept things for what they are."

"You made a mistake picking that face," Shepard said, still barely tracking it's position as it walked 'round her. "Even if I can't see it, I know that it's not real. I'm alive. I have no idea how or why, but I'm alive, and I am not going to let the Reapers win."

"Why not?" Saren asked. "They just want to preserve some trifling part of you. A noble endeavor, if one I don't agree with. They're so trapped in their little dance that they miss out on the greater thing which they so excel at."

"You know of the Reapers?" Shepard asked.

"Of course I do," Saren's voice was a veritable purr. "It is true. You're not dead. Yet. Smarter than the last one... It's been so long since one of you came to my little world. The last one didn't last long. But it was... a while ago. Are you afraid of me, little mortal? Are you afraid of me, Avatar?"

"No," Shepard said.

"You should be," Saren said. "After all, the Reapers, as you so inelegantly call them, are just a means to an end. One I don't agree with, but the methods... I can certainly agree with those."

"What are you?" Shepard asked. "Show your face!"

"Do you really want to know?" Saren's voice taunted. "Do you think it's wise to know the things that wait in the shadows around you? Or is it safer to just huddle next to your fire, as your kind always does? Find a way to wall off the parts of the world you don't want to see? Built a mound so you can rest your back without something creeping up on it?"

"I'm not afraid of you," Shepard said. "I have a duty. I'm going to get Grunt out of the Abstract Spirit and on the path. I'm going to end the Collectors. I'm going to defeat the Reapers."

"...you think he's in the Abstract Spirit?" Saren's voice asked, before letting out a little chuckle. "Oh... he's not, Avatar. You are."

Shepard kept backing away from Saren's voice... but it had stopped circling her. Now, she couldn't tell where it came from at all. So she started slowly turning as he spoke, trying to get a bead on his now floating, bodiless void. "That's impossible. I'd know if I was in the Abstract!"

"Unless you were... say... in a genius loci," Saren offered. "Hmm. I think I'm going to like you... Avatar. You're a killer of thousands. Death clings to you. I like that. A lovely trait to hold, the ability, the willingness, the eagerness to kill. You have slaughtered a legion, and will slaughter a legion more before your death finds you. Do you still want to know who I am?"

Shepard's hands began to shake on her side arm, as it slowly descended toward her hips. If she was in a Genius Loci, then that meant she was near one of the High Spirits. And the only High Spirit she knew of here, was...

The fog pulled back with a crack of a whip, drawing in on a single figure, one which clung to both walls from a hundred clawed feet. Its flesh was unceasingly protean, never settling on a single feature, beyond its utter blackness. Thirty eyes which blazed with light the color of krogan blood stared out from that face. Shepard, unlike many shaman, had a nearly instinctual ability to know what a spirit was just by looking at it.

She was looking at the Meretsegger.

Her shriek of mortal terror was, in her opinion, completely justified. She even dropped her Carnifex and left it in the stream in a mad bid to get away from the personification of Tuchankan Death. The Meretsegger laughed behind her, and she didn't even bother looking back.

"You can run from your death, Avatar, but it will find you. I always find you!" the Meretsegger swore. She didn't even notice that her eyes were as white as a blazing star, and that she was projecting herself away with airbending, biotic charges, rockets of firebending and slabs of vaulting stone to get away from the Black Beast. Nor did she notice that it wasn't even trying very hard to chase her. All she needed to know was that it was behind her. And she wanted it to stay there.

---

The crunch of a spirit being punched into oblivion brought a bit more of a smile to Grunt's face, as he sauntered along the path. Now that he knew what to look for, those 'Spirits of death-by-drowning' that he'd had an odd intuition about, they never got the drop on him as they had before. A walk along a canyon where he got to punch ugly spirits into ashes. Today was looking up more and more as he went along.

He had a strange chill run through him, as he turned, and looked behind. It was like feeling the whisper of death tracing its way along his scales. He dispelled it with a shake of his head, and kept walking.

"Is this the path that I need to take?" Grunt asked.

"That depends on where you want it to take you." another voice came from somewhere out of sight. Grunt's face tightened a bit, but he didn't bother demanding it show itself. If it was too cowardly to do it already, demanding it wouldn't make it so. "There are risks to being one such as you that the mundane mortals never have to undertake. And there are rewards. Oh, such rewards."

"You're a spirit," Grunt said, continuing his walk forward. "And you want something from me."

"Astute young man you are... I indeed do," the spirit continued, still outside of his sight. "You are strong, but you could be stronger. I can give you that strength. And all I require is... a bit of personal attention. A safe place to retreat to. Nothing major..."

"You want me to be your Host?" Grunt asked.

"...well, if you're going to be brusque about it, yes. Yes I would. I sense great potential in you. You could be something greater than any krogan ever seen."

"I could," Grunt said, halting, nodding. He waited, and slowly something began to materialize out of the gravel before him, pulling itself up like some sort of mole. It had no eyes, but a great head filled with sharp teeth. "What are you? A spirit of predators?"

"My, but aren't you a smart one?" it asked, its words entirely too honeyed for the maw that they came from. "Just open your gates and let me inside, and I can give you so... so very much. Eternal health. Eternal strength. Eternal life."

"Really?" Grunt asked, as it came closer. It reached out its hand toward him, an offering.

He accepted that offer by smashing his face into its, and knocking it onto its back.

"I am already pure krogan!" he shouted, kicking it in the gut. "Eternal health? It's mine if I earn it! Eternal life? It's mine if I'm tough enough to have it!" he grabbed the spirit, lifting it above his head and hurling it into the rocks. "I! AM! KROGAN!"

The predator spirit slowly pushed itself to its feet, as Grunt's shoulders heaved and his fists clenched. "Oh, you made a deadly mistake, shaman. You want him? COME AND GET YOUR MEAT!"

The stone exploded away around the predator spirit's shoulders as it vanished back into the rock, and a chorus of 'Rooooo's sounded as a whole pack of varren appeared at its bidding, quickly circling the perfect krogan, eyes shining, teeth gleaming. Waiting to see who would strike first.

Grunt was the one who broke that stalemate with a grunt and a false-charge toward one. The varren opposite it took an opportunity to move in, but Grunt reversed his direction, reached back, and grabbed it by the tusks. With a great swing, he smashed the fish-dog into another which thought to capitalize, hitting it hard enough that the tusks were torn from the jaw and left in Grunt's hands. Two varren together hurled themselves at him, only to each get a stolen tusk slammed up through the floor of their jaw, pinning their mouth shut. Oh, and puncturing their brains.

With the circle now thinned, Grunt reached to his back, dragging the shotgun out and letting it announce its contempt for the beasts around him. The varren attacked, though. They charged forward through storms of hypersonic metal, trying to rip him apart, heedless of their own deaths. One came entirely too close, and grunt had to fire his shotgun literally down it's throat because it had closed so near. The next, which slammed into his back, and began to bite through his armor, was also the last that he could see.

Grunt grabbed the varren and tore it down, hurling it to the rocks. It twisted as it flew, landing at an awkward roll, before facing him once more. This one cracked its jaw, and let out another loud 'Rooooo', continuing to circle with Grunt. The two hunters continued that circuit, slowly moving closer, each glaring down the other. Waiting for the other to blink.

Even as he moved, he got a notion. A lesson by Shepard, days before. That some animals were more cunning than they ought be. That some of them had a spirit as strong as their flesh. This varren, unlike the other mad-beasts which had attacked with it, wasn't identical, wasn't nondescript. It had a long scar running down its flank, its color rough and its scales flaking. It was an old beast, one too strong, too tough for time to kill it.

"Sit. Down," Grunt ordered it, pointing to the ground.

The varren stared at him for a long, long moment.

Then, it sat on its haunches.

Grunt let out a deep chuckle. "I thought so," he said. "If you want some meat, there should be some that way."

The varren let out a clipped 'rooo', and followed, as Grunt pulled his weapon from the mostly-hollowed corpse of one of its brethren, and continued to walk down the Rift of Torment. He only paused for a moment to shake the varren guts off his weapon. After all, it wouldn't do to misfire.

---

"That shouldn't be possible," Sol said.

"Not really germane to the situation, love," Marcus said. He took a step in front of her. "Now run."

"I can..."

"What was rule number one?" Marcus demanded. She looked angry, but she did back away. Just a little. The black-armored human approached with a cold confidence that Marcus had seen more than enough times to know for what it was. A predator in a man's form. Marcus kept himself between Leng and Sol, as she backed toward the cab of the truck that they were perched atop of. Had the truck been moving, they'd likely have all been flung off. Pity.

"You can step aside and live, or stay there and die," Leng offered.

"We both know you're not the kind to let people live," Marcus pointed out. Leng scowled a bit. "An' seeing how I'm a great deal more worried about talking to her father as to why she's not in my tender care than I am about your little space-magic powers, I think I'll opt for the latter."

He gave a single chuckle, one utterly empty of mirth. "So be it."

There was a thud of biotic force, but one that Marcus had prepared for. He was already jumping back, casting a whip of water directly in front of him. Leng had to break his charge and slide under it, lashing out with a scourge of flames that set Marcus' sleeve aflame until he could pull his water back, bathing his own limb before pressurizing it and sending it forth once more. This time, he swept lower, prompting Leng to leap, but Marcus too had prepared for that, and with a back-snap of waterbending, looped Leng's foot and slammed him past where both he and Sol were standing, before another heave send him crashing back-first into the roof of the truck.

He twisted the water in a loop, drawing in even more of the rain, before casting it out in a barrage of spikes much as Leng had a few moments before. These ones he twisted his own rain into a barricade against, before punching a flame through that water, sending a blast of steam toward Marcus as well as fire. He kipped aside, and started to run in on the human. He didn't have a gun; Marcus had made sure of that when he lashed the bastard. That meant he only had his hands, his biotics, and his bending. He didn't bother questioning why. Above his pay-grade, he figured.

Leng didn't say a word, those black eyes locked on his. There was an intensity that could not be contained, a zeal, a dark purpose. A shadow of a demon. As Marcus prepared to send forward a torrent of icy shards at him, Leng cast his hand toward him, and a blast of driven rain send Marcus tumbling back. It wasn't until he swept the downpour behind him into a slope upward that his momentum was checked, and once checked, he returned it against Leng, skating along the broad back of the truck on a path that he created. Leng cast out blasts of flame which tried to track him, tried to intercept him, but Marcus skated faster and more erratically than Leng could compensate for.

It ended with a back-fist that was covered in a gauntlet of razor ice. Leng'd ran out of room and options. It slashed through his barriers, ripped at his armor. The blood that was cast out from the nick on his chest, and the gouge that continued along the top of the arm... didn't look right, though. He'd seen plenty of human blood. It wasn't nearly so... oily. Marcus turned with the momentum he'd created, and slammed that gauntlet forward in an explosion of compressed water. Leng turned, letting it barely rush past him, before turning into a flaming haymaker that Marcus had the choice of taking, or taking badly.

The power and the heat of it was stunning. He'd been burned once or twice before, but this had that beaten clean. He rolled to a stop, trying to shake the stars from his vision, only to find himself being pulled to his feet. He glanced back. "Damn it girl! I said run!"

"TO WHERE?" Sol demanded.

She may have had a point, there.

"Alright. Rule three," Marcus said, as he pressed a glowing hand to his chest. Not enough to heal the burn, but enough to numb the pain for the time being. He'd either have all the time in the world to fix it up properly, or he'd be dead. Not much middle ground, there.

A streak of flames launched toward him, arcing in like a mean left hook. Sol sent up a blast of her own golden fire, one that intercepted it as it closed, bursting it and destroying it's momentum. The second which Leng cast out, Marcus snuffed with a great blob of water, before casting that water at the flame's source as a barrage of sharp discs. He smashed his way through those he couldn't outright avoid. Then, there was a thud of biotic force, and he appeared a lot closer to them than Marcus was comfortable with.

Doubly so, when he drove a flaming fist into the roof of the trailer, and sent a shockwave of heat and force which lifted both turians and sent them flying. Marcus found himself slowing, though, his body feeling a great deal less death-imminent, as a nimbus of blue light bathed over him; Sol had, with her own skills, slowed their flight, and settled them on top of the cab of the truck. There wasn't much further left that they could run. And Marcus was running out of ideas.

"Any crazy plans up your sleeve?" Sol asked.

Marcus looked behind him for just a moment, even then sending out a whip of water to keep Leng from making too much of it. That glance didn't give him a lot of hope. Until he saw something almost directly below them.

"Bus," Marcus said, as Leng began to run forward, his fists gathering flames before he leapt, trails of scarlet that opened the the wings of Nanus. Sol, smart girl she was, didn't need clarification on Marcus' one syllable answer. She shoved the THIS operative off of the cab, tumbling with him. There was a fraction of a second when he could see a remarkably bored looking turian truck-driver, who probably even now didn't know – or else didn't care – about the fight raging around him.

The fall was short, as the bus was five meters below the truck, but it was still a rude landing which left a two-turian dent near the vehicle's midline. Sol groaned, but was immediately getting, if unsteadily, to her feet. She dragged Marcus to his feet once more, bearing him forward a few paces, a few scant meters, before there was a great thud, and the dent grew larger, with Leng landing down on their level with his fist plunged straight through the metal skin of the bus. Marcus tuned out the screams of alarm from under his feet, his eyes narrowing on the man trying to kill him.

"Tougher than most," Leng said. "Most don't fight very well... and they die fast," he said, rising once more, the blue nimbus around him almost seeming like it was trying to congeal into something... or perhaps it was just a figment of Marcus' concussed imagination.

"Most turians don't fight like sociopaths," Marcus said, then cracked a smirk. "Lucky that I do, I guess."

"Should we be talking to the psychopatic killer?" Sol asked.

"Why not?" Marcus asked.

"How about that he's trying to kill us!" she hissed, eyes still locked on Leng.

The sum of the warning that Marcus got was a twist of the human's lips, what they would consider a smirk. Then, he leapt into an axe-kick of flames, a brutal hammer of heat and force that he sent surging toward them. Sol cut the flames so that they would fall short, but the force of it still knocked her a few steps back. He even then hurled himself in a great leap, tearing the rain from the air and lashing it out as a great buzz-saw of ice. Marcus used water of his own to crush that buzzsaw, and hurl a block at him. For once, Leng's attention wasn't there, and it caught him, sending him stumbling aside slightly. Now, Marcus advanced. He twisted the water that fell through the vehicles, sending down a punishing deluge of blows, each which drove Leng closer and closer to falling to his knees. He split the occasional one with flame, or warded it with an icy shield, but the initiative was in Marcus' hands now. And hells, if he killed the bastard, he wouldn't need to baby-sit the brat for months on end.

He was closing in for the kill when Leng lashed upward with Kick, one that clipped the side of Marcus' head and sent him stumbling back. The human rose, wiping away oily blood from his broken nose with the back of a hand. Marcus winced for a moment, reclaiming his balance. The two killers eyed each other. Two predators, each starving, wondering who should make the first move. Perhaps the last move. There came a whistle from Marcus' back, and the slightest glance aside showed the pistol he'd used before, only this time, it's heat sink was notably black and the water was steaming away from the girl. He caught it even as Leng sprang forward.

The shots were the thunder that the rain lacked. One smashed against his barriers, as he lashed out with flames. A back-hand of water warded it away, and Marcus advanced. Another report, and the biotic bubble around Leng popped. He sprang up, pulling a back-curved blade from somewhere unseen, and began to drive it downward. Marcus took a gamble. Was the sink spent, or did it have one more shot in it?

Blam.

The bullet slammed through the center of Leng's chest, causing a spray of... something which definitely wasn't blood. It was gray, viscous. And Leng notably didn't slow in the slightest. Marcus only had time for his eyes to widen before Leng slammed the blade into the center of his chest, the impact driving both to the roof of the bus.

There was an odd look, between two killers, as Marcus' heart stopped beating for the sharp impediment that now passed through it. Leng's eyes lacked even the animal glee of slaughter that they'd had before. His gaze looked... like something else was in there, staring out through his eyes.

He slowly pulled out his kukri. Marcus grabbed for his own talon, and tried to slam it into Leng's ribs. Leng responded by a back-handed slash. Suddenly, Marcus couldn't feel his hand anymore. The wet thud that slid off the bus told him why. His head rolled back, watching as Leng stumbled past him, still oozing blood and other substances. The exit wound that Marcus could see in Leng's back didn't show flesh or ribs. It showed something... unnatural.

"Alright. You've had enough fun," Leng said, pointing his blade at Sol. "Let's get this over with."

"Die you crazy bastard!" she screamed, and cast herself in a biotic Charge toward him. He managed to root himself from the impact, and lashed forward with his blade. Sol let out a scream, blue beginning to run down her clothing. There was just a moment of a chuckle from Leng.

Then, music to Marcus' dying ears, the human finally let out a scream of pain and surprise. A shock of red sprayed out the side of his head, as the tip of a stilleto jammed out above his ear; when he turned with the impact, Marcus could see that Sol had driven it straight through Leng's eye. If her angle'd been a bit better, she'd have gotten it into his brain. The water flashed into steam around him, and he turned, the flames definitely wreathing him in a manner never seen by Hierarchy Armed Forces. But Sol had retreated until her heels were to the precipice. Clutching the place where he'd shanked her, she spat at him, then tipped backward, disappearing from view.

Leng tried to race to her place, to see where she'd disappeared... but for the first time, pain got the better of him. He sank to his knees, and slowly, arduously pulled the knife out of where she'd impaled his eyeball. It came out with a wet pop. Leng, now monocular, glared at Marcus.

Marcus made a rude gesture with his one remaining hand, and blew a raspberry at him.

Not how he really wanted to die, but it'd do.

---

"I can't believe you lost track of Grunt," Shepard muttered, as she slowly advanced before Asha, picking her arduous course through a nearly sheer ascent that rained down with freezing water. "Give you one job..."

"Wherever he is, I don't doubt he'll survive to rendezvous with us," Asha said. It was telling that even with her armor both on and sealed, she was still wet and cold. She didn't doubt that it was some aspect of this place making it so. After all, the High Shaman had said that this place hated them and wanted them to suffer. What better way than cold and miserable?

"I keep feeling like he's lost in some layer of the spirit world I can't reach," Shepard said, grunting as she made her way upward. "Somewhere I can't help him. Damn it, he was right behind you!"

"I am aware," Asha said. She heard a clicking sound behind her, and looked down to see more beasts gathering at the foot of the ascent. Klixen, it would happen. It was fortunate that she was a strong climber; Klixen could cook their food before they ate it. Why the krogan never learned firebending from them was a mystery that Asha wasn't equipped to solve.

"I should have brought Garrus. Garrus wouldn't have lost Grunt."

"That remains to be seen," Asha noted, taking a moment to shake some of the pins-and-needles that the cold jabbed into her hand. The last thing she needed was to slip. It would be the second last thing she did in this life, if she did.

"Or Samara. Hell, even Balak wouldn't have made that rookie mistake!" Shepard continued, slowly picking her way upward. She reached a point where she could wedge her toes into a crevasse, and tried earthbending again, only for nothing to happen, and have her growl in anger at the difficulty. "But that's just what you do, isn't it? Lose people. Lost Alenko. Lost your squad. Gods-damn-it, you even lost me! Me!" she thrust a thumb at herself, before starting to rise once more.

"I did," Asha said quietly, and looked up. Hmm. A bit of a launch, but the prize... With a hard breath, she flexed her knees a few times, getting them ready for what was to come. Then, with a great heave, she threw herself further up the slope, managing one scrabble before she could grasp the nub that stood so much closer to the upper lip. The water wasn't spraying everywhere anymore. Now, it simply surged past her right side in a torrent. "I could not save my squad. Nor Alenko. Nor you."

There was a last grunt, as Shepard heaved herself up onto a shelf, and started her hands-and-feet lurch up the last length, before sitting down at the end, facing the drop-off. "You're not even sorry that they're gone. I should have saved Alenko on Virmire. You could have popped that bomb. And then I'd..." her bitterness was almost poisonous.

"Alenko made his choice, and you respected it," she said, with a grunt as she found a new chink to leverage herself. "I am one woman. I am not omnipotent. I couldn't save him... but neither could you."

"Don't you turn this around on me, al'Wahim," Shepard snapped. "Failure is in your blood. Your grandfather got Hong killed. You got me killed. I should have left you on Horizon."

"You made your choice," Asha said.

"I made the wrong one," Shepard muttered. Asha finally found a spot where she could simply shimmy upward, and find herself on the same shelf of rock as Shepard. Finally not needing to hold herself up, she let her arms sag and wave for a moment. The wet vanished immediately, but they were still frigidly cold, even as they burned from their exertion. "I finally get why you hate yourself so goddamned much. Because you deserve it. Get the Avatar killed, then try to drink yourself to death like a worthless parasite; pathetic."

Asha sighed, and nodded. "My guilt was great," she said. "It is great even now."

"Then just... fuck off and let me save the galaxy," Shepard muttered, getting to her feet.

Asha pulled her Typhoon from her back, and leveled it at Shepard. Shepard's eyes went wide.

"You are not the Avatar," Asha said.

"Asha, what in the gods' name are you doing?" Shepard demanded.

"It is a strange thing, the divide of heart and mind," Asha noted. "In my heart, I know that I deserve every cruelty that you could hurl at me, every insult, every profanity. I deserve them all, for failing you so completely. But..." she depressed the outer trigger, and the barrels began to spin up. "In my mind, I know that the real Avatar Shepard would never, ever, be the source of them."

"You're out of your fucking mind!" Shepard shouted. Or didn't, as it wasn't her.

"No. My weakness has always been a surfeit of sanity, not a dearth," Asha said. Then, she pulled the other trigger, and a hellstorm of bullets streaked across the stream which became a waterfall, cutting through Shepard and smashing her to pieces. Literally; she broke like glass, her parts crashing down as Asha let the trail of bullets follow them. She kept firing until the largest remaining shard of this false Shepard was no larger than Asha's toe.

Then, she sighed, and slid her autocannon back into its harness. She looked ahead, then behind. There was no cliff behind her. The stream continued on without so much as a dip downward. A nod, then she continued walking. Up the stream. To whatever lay at its end.

She walked, eyes forward, ignoring the things that tried to pull her attention away. Spectres of her past. Family members, insulting her, or begging for help. Other Shepards in jeopardy. Beasts trying to frighten her into heedless flight. Dark, hard eyes picked her path before her, and she walked past all of it. The only time she bothered to do something different was when a Klixen pulled itself out of a dark hole, and started to trundle toward her. She put two shots from her modified Executioner pistol, which caused the thing to explode into flame and burnt meat. She tapped out the heat-sink, and slipped a new one in. Could never be too careful, after all.

"Stop licking me. I am not food."

The voice was the first one which actually penetrated Asha's shield of focus. There had been other images, illusions of Grunt. But this one... it wasn't what any grim prediction of him would have offered. Instead, he walked easily out of a fork in the canyon, his armor covered in orange blood, and a scarred varren loping easily alongside him. The varren let out a quiet roo, then licked the viscera off of Grunt's boot even as he continued walking.

"STOP THAT!"

"Hello, Grunt," Asha said.

Grunt stopped, pointing his shotgun at her for a moment. Then, he closed his eyes, his lips pulling into a scowl, and opened them once more in a hard-faced squint. That done, he gave a nod. "Asha," he said. "Found a pet."

"I see that," Asha answered. "Do you know where Shepard is?"

"Not even a little bit," Grunt said. He pointed ahead of them. "Exit's that way. She's probably around there somewhere."

"You're not concerned?" Asha asked.

"Why? Should I be?" Grunt asked, continuing forward. "I said stop that! I'm going to stomp on your tongue if you keep that up."

The varren let out a 'roo', but didn't halt in the slightest. It was just absurd enough that Asha didn't doubt its validity. If there was one thing that these years in the presence of the Avatar had taught her, was that ordinary was unrealistic to expect.

A wind blew in from their backs, one that pulled a shiver out of all three as they walked. Asha and Grunt both looked back, to the cleft in the canyon. A darkness had arisen, slowly creeping along the walls. Slow, but inevitable as the dusk.

"That's not good," Grunt said plainly.

"Then we should keep ahead of it," Asha said, and the two began to move forward once more, this time at a brisk jog.

---

Shepard didn't stop running until her body declared 'no more', and she stumbled to her hands and knees, trying to pull breath into lungs that burned like Sozin's Comet. There was a back-wind which she wasn't generating that followed her, even now. She knew exactly what it was. She panted and wheezed, blinking away stars in her eyes and slowly, arduously pushing her feet down, into the gravel. There was an unsteady heave, and she was upright again

There was a lot written on the Meretsegger, and every bit of it was bad news for anybody who encountered it. As she slowly moved from a limping shuffle into a brisk walk, as her body slowly recovered from a sprint of unknowable distance, she ran through what Shaman Bakara had taught her. You can't fight the Meretsegger. If you try, you die. You have to run from the Meretsegger. If you fail, you die. You can't hide from the Meretsegger. It will find you, and you die. As far as spirits of death go, it was about as powerful as one could be. And now it was following Shepard.

"Alright. Keep moving," Shepard said. The canyon was starting to... feel different, around her. Now, when she walked, there was a strange sensation of thinness to the ground under her, like she was walking on an egg-shell just strong enough to support her weight. She pulled in a breath, and focused her perceptions on the things other, the vision of shamans and Avatars for generations without end. The world around her looked... faded. Like it was barely keeping up with her. "I'm at the edge of his genius loci. That's good," she said, with a single cough. She picked up her pace just a bit, until she reached a point where the razor-thin divide between the genius loci and the Abstract Spirit.

It moved forward in a wave, displacing one reality for another. But that meant that all Shepard had to do was 'grab' it where the two places met. She held on, and the storm-front of the Meretsegger's domain did all the work of opening a Rift for her. She looked through it, just for a moment to make sure it didn't send her into a yet deeper layer of the Abstract. No, the stone and water she saw beyond had much more solidity than this. It was unreal, but still more real than here. So with teeth clenched, she stepped through.

It passed along her like a line of air at absolute zero. The sweat on her face sublimated away an instant after snapping into skin of frigid and painful ice. She grunted with discomfort, but the breath she drew in on the other side was one of moderate relief. She looked behind her, back the way that she'd come. The Meretsegger was still following her, but it was taking its time. An endurance hunter, waiting for its pray to tire out and collapse. It was death, and had that same inevitability. The darkness, the shadows that were the symptom of its approach ate ground along the great crevasse walls. Slow enough that she could keep ahead of it.

"Hey! Grunt! Can you hear me out there?"

"Don't answer it. It's not the real Commander," Asha's voice immediately piped up from somewhere ahead.

"...Who d'you think'd win in a fight between me and her, anyway?" Grunt asked.

"Her, obviously," Asha's tone was mildly insulted.

"I'm pure krogan. I am the perfect krogan! I think I'm stronger than her, even if she does have superpowers," Grunt opined.

"Are you a demigod?" Asha asked. There was a long silence. "Shepard would win."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Shepard said, her voice still slightly ragged. After all the breath she'd pulled in for the last ten minutes, it was amazing she could talk at all.

"Are they going to keep doing that?" Grunt's voice came from practically right in front of Shepard. She turned aside, and saw a fork that almost appeared out of nowhere in the stone. When Asha, Grunt, and a varren walked out of that, the reaction wasn't quite what Shepard expected. For one thing, Asha's first action was to pull that black Widow rifle from her back, and point it at Shepard. Shepard sighed, and wiped the hair back from where it was plastered to her head.

"Don't come any closer!" Asha snapped.

"I guess you found a fake me out there somewhere," Shepard said. "Look, we don't have time for this. The Meretsegger is right behind us."

"Is she real?" Asha asked Grunt. Grunt gave her a roll of his eyes, before focusing on Shepard. She could 'see' in a way that was hard to describe to non-shaman that he was looking as she had before, not at the Spirit World as it appeared, but to the Form that it actually was.

"Yup. Real as my shotgun," Grunt said.

"Great, now could you put that away, and keep moving?" Shepard pointed ahead of them. A glance behind showed that the darkness was still advancing. She'd made some ground on it, but its rate had not altered one whit. If they stayed still for too long, it'd be on top of them.

She had no desire to be back within eyeshot of the Meretsegger.

"Where did you go?" Asha asked as they moved to Shepard's side.

"Meretsegger," Shepard repeated.

"You keep saying that word. What does it mean?" Grunt asked.

"Run or die," Shepard clarified. Grunt snorted.

"Bet I could take it," he said, blunt teeth flashing in a grin. Both women shared a look of mild disbelief. Then again, it wasn't so much 'krogan will be krogan', as 'boys will be boys'. Their pace wasn't exhausting, and the exit was closing fast. But there started a strange procession. First, it was a few black-blue Extortus spirits, streaking through the sky over their heads. Then, stone and air spirits, raking their way along the walls, in the same direction that Shepard and her squad were moving. One spirit had a look like the impression of a person, indistinct in many ways with limbs a sort of rotten-milk white, floating through the center of the canyon inside a latticed sphere of what looked like ruby. Shepard gave a hiss at that. She knew who that one was, too. And she was glad he was running away from them, instead of at them. Finally, there was a stampede of footfalls, one that they all had to step aside for, as a huge host of varren thundered past, running at a dead sprint.

When the last of them finished, klixen took their place.

"Still think you can take the Meretsegger?" Shepard asked.

"...maybe?" Grunt asked, as the slower spirits now fled ahead of something which could, and would, kill them if they got in its way. "The exit's just ahead."

"I can see it," Shepard said. The portal itself wasn't visible, but the light where one world touched the other lit the top of the canyon. Close, but still a lot of ground between there and here.

When the klixen finished their stampede toward the Material World, the ground started to rumble all the more ominously.

"...Is that what I think it is?" Grunt asked, as they finally had to stop, if only so the shaking of the ground wouldn't drop them onto their backs. Shepard slammed her fist down into the dirt, her diminished earthbending spreading out in a hemisphere. It was like trying to use earthbending to 'see' in Si Wong, though for very different reasons. But there was one thing that she saw. Something big.

Something closing in fast.

"Thresher Maw!" Shepard shouted, and started to stumble her way forward. The beast itself burst from the ground, casting water away in a great spray as it erupted upward, before twisting its great body and slamming face-first into one of the walls, before burrowing in there, and hauling its body into a different surface. Now, the stone began to crumble and rain down, covering one side of the stream in a harsh scree.

"What do we do?" Asha asked.

"Keep running," Shepard offered.

It made a mockery of that suggestion by bursting from the wall, and landing its entire broad body into the gully. Its massive head, eyes practically invisible against the maw of hellish teeth, the great, bright blue tongue, rose and dipped, as though considering them. Likely for a meal.

"It's in the way! Kill it!" Grunt said.

"It'll still be in the way if we kill it!" Asha pointed out.

Shepard, though, looked to the varren which now stood at Grunt's side.

"What's its name?" Shepard asked, pointing at the snarling fish-dog.

"Urz," Grunt said without hesitation.

"Did you pick it?"

"No, it did. Why?" Grunt asked.

"...think you can do better?" Shepard asked, a smirk coming to her face for a moment. Grunt looked confused for a moment, then turned to Urz, then up to the beast. That smile began to spread across his face.

"What do I need to do?"

"Invoke its name. Either barter for service, or demand it," Shepard said. "It's an animal; if your soul is stronger than its, it'll have to obey you, even if you don't pay it."

The thing reared back, and sent forward a blast of caustic phlegm at them. All had to quickly jump aside, letting it splash over the gravel.

"And what's its name?" Grunt asked, as he slid his shotgun to his back, and started walking toward the Maw ahead of him. Shepard looked, her eyes narrowing, squinting. There was seeing Form, then seeing who a spirit was. It usually took Shepard a few seconds to figure out its name. That still put her head and shoulders above most shaman, for whom it took hours, if it was possible at at all.

"She is the Malpaise Worm," Shepard said.

Grunt side-stepped another deadly loogie that it sent at them, its head rising up as he moved into striking distance. As it reached its apex, though, Grunt pointed up at it. "I am!" Grunt shouted up at it. "Though borne from the tank, from krogan long dead, I am here! My body is pure and my will is strong; I am pure krogan, and you! Will! Be! In! Awe!"

The Thresher Maw hesitated, its head waving side to side, rather than slamming down and eating Grunt in a single bite.

"I walk a path that none have prepared me for, but even in this place of weakness I am mighty!" Grunt continued, roaring up at it. "My krannt gives me strength beyond my genes, and my soul gives me strength beyond your imagining! With these hands, I could rip you apart and feast on your flesh! With these words, I could unmake what gives you body!"

"Is he coming up with this on his own?" Asha asked. Shepard nodded, a proud smile on her face.

"Just like a shaman is supposed to," she said.

"If you would die, then stand before me! If you would live, then stand aside! Now is the moment of your reckoning! I am Grunt! I am Shaman! Malpaise Worm: I am greater than you!"

There was a long moment, one that Shepard used to glance behind her, at the advancing wall of darkness that was giving his words an urgency that even Grunt didn't understand.

Then, the Maw gave a wail, and pulled itself back into the wall, retracting and sealing the way behind him with its natural earthbending before racing ahead of them, out of any means by which Shepard could have perceived it. Grunt gave that slow, sinister laugh that he so frequently did.

"Still think I could beat Shepard," Grunt offered.

"Maybe in a couple decades, Grunt," Shepard said, clapping him on the shoulder, before starting her brisk run again. "Good job, though. I didn't even know Demanding the Thresher Maw was possible."

"Heh heh heh," was all that Grunt had to say about that.

---

"...Tali? Are you alright?" Garrus asked. A valid question, considering...

"Fine! I'm fine!" Tali's words were slurred and she was standing at an odd angle. "For a while there I was sad, but now it doesn't bother me as much."

"Are you sure you should be drinking that?" Garrus asked.

"Ah, leave 'er alone, Garrus," Jack said, where she was playing bartender in the Normandy's seldom-used lounge. "I figure she's earned a bit of liver-damage," she frowned, taking a knock from her own drink. "You guys do have livers, right?"

"Two of them!" Tali said brightly.

"No you don't," Garrus said, reaching for the glass in her hand that was accessorized by a bendy straw. She quickly pulled it away.

"Don't push this one," Jack warned.

"This isn't going to help, Tali," Garrus said, turning the other stool around so that he could sit, while Tali wobbled on her feet. "Even if you drink away your pain now, it's still going to be there when you're sober."

"You're such a doooowner," Tali drawled. "'Sides... I can just do what Shepard does!"

"Which is what exactly?" Garrus asked.

"Never stop drinking!" Tali said, before releasing a noise which Garrus had honestly never heard from the quarian before; laughter. He'd known this woman for two years, and in that time, he'd seen more than a fair share of her tears, but this was the first time he heard her laugh.

"That's not a good idea, Tali," Garrus said.

"Hey, works for Shepard," Jack said, finishing her glass and slamming it down onto the bar. Tali ricocheted over and inelegantly thrust her cup across the bar, bumping Jack in the chest with it. The biotic just rolled her eyes and topped up Tali's cup. "She's doin' just fine as far as I can tell."

"Shepard is an alcoholic," Garrus said flatly, before turning to Tali. "She's had a decade with the bottle to learn how to live inside it. You're going to give yourself liver-damage and die," he said, reaching for Tali's cup again. This time, she swatted him in the face.

"No!" she snapped, leaning back and almost tripping over the couch. "No... this is mine. I need this."

"What you need is to grieve, not drink yourself to death," Garrus said.

"Give it a rest," Jack said, leaning across the bar. "Let her have this one."

Garrus shook his head. "No. You don't belong down this path and you know it as much as I do," he said. "Come on, Tali... just put the cup down."

"You don't know antying... anthying..." she giggled for a moment. "My suit sounds funny. Echo! Echo! Why 'sn't it echoing?"

"...Garrus, you might be right about that," Jack said, before slamming down another shot.

Garrus, though, caught her before she could pull away, and navigated her to the couch that she'd almost face-planted over. When he did, he took a knee in front of her. "Your father made a mistake that got him killed. You made a mistake that got someone exiled. You can't run away from that. It's always going to be waiting for you when you stop. I know that for a fact."

"My father what?" Tali asked. Garrus sucked his breath through his teeth.

"...Shepard'll fill you in on that one," he said. After all, it wasn't pretty, and chances were, it would have back-bit on Tali. "Come on. Give it here."

Tali, no longer a merry drunk, tipped her helmet down and stared at her now empty hands. "...can't I run away from it a little longer?" she asked.

"It doesn't work that way," Garrus said. "Sorry, but..." he shrugged.

Jack poured herself another shot, and thunked it down before her. "Far be it for me to betray my gender, but I think the cuttle-bone here has a point."

"Cuttle-what?" Garrus asked.

"Take it from me. I spent my entire fuckin' life running from a past that I couldn't remember. And look at me now! Shit, I'm a decent hair-cut and some antipsychotics away from being a productive member of society!" she sipped at her shot, then pointed at Tali over it. "It's gonna suck when you deal with it, but once you deal with it, shit's behind you," she smacked her lips a few times. Then, she looked at the color of the liquor in her hand. She pulled the bottle up that she'd poured it from.

"...is that turian brandy?" Garrus asked the obvious question. Jack stared at the bottle, then to the cup that she'd been drinking from.

"...aw craaaap," Jack said, and thunked the glass down hard enough that it spilled a bit. "I'm going to be in the can for the rest of the day. Or maybe dead."

"Have fun!" Tali said brightly as Jack rounded the bar and made for the exit, staring to look very pale, and oddly perhaps a little green. Garrus reached back and downed Jack's misbegotten shot so Tali couldn't, shaking his head from the burn of it. Tali turned to him. "...You're not leaving, are you?"

"Nope. I don't abandon friends. Especially drunk ones," Garrus said, plunking himself down beside Tali.

"Have you and Shepard ever drank together?" Tali asked, her tones suddenly very earnest.

"Nah. I don't drink much as a rule," Garrus said. "But the thing is, when Shepard starts really drinking... she dances."

"Shepard dances?" Tali asked.

"...Oh, the things I could show you," Garrus said, opening his Omni, and going back to the recordings he'd made of that night. "Alright... you know that song they always play in Flux?"

The music began to thump out tinnily from the Omni, as the image of Shepard began... well, it was movement, but it was to dancing what explosive diarrhea was to fine-art. And for a wonder, Tali laughed again.

He knew it'd be temporary, and that she'd be just as bad as she was before when the liquor left her system, but for just a few minutes, he sat back, and listened to Tali'Zorah's laughter.

---

Shepard's sweat was pounding out of her by the time she reached the shining portal, so bright against the darkness which even now encroached upon them from behind. "This is the way out," she said. She cracked a moment of a smirk. "I didn't even need to open it," the smirk died. "Which is a little concerning, now that I think of it."

"Should we be standing around while the Meretsegger catches up with us?" Grunt asked.

"You have answered your own question," Asha said, and gave Grunt a light shove, and Shepard, a larger one. Shepard stumbled slightly, passing through that light. There was a bending of her senses, gravity losing its direction for a moment as the transition between the Spirit and Material worlds reached its perfect intersection. Then, she was stumbling across stone that was broken up by patches of pale-green-brown moss. The place that this portal left them wasn't a canyon, or even anything like it. It looked more like a city canal, in fact, if one that had been utterly overtaken by nature. Stone spires which were all that remained of ancient concrete buildings now played host to vegetation, or stood pale and naked to the wind.

At the top of the canal, the High Shaman was waiting. He looked down at them, then toward the portal once more. Grunt came through next, followed by the varren, and after they, Asha. "So you return!" he boomed across the distance, before picking his way down the crumbled descent. "I should have guessed you would find your way through the trials, with a krannt such as they at your command," the High Shaman said.

"They give me strength beyond my genes. Which are already damned good," Grunt said with a smirk.

"Look, we've got to get back to the Surt," Shepard said. "The Meretsegger is following us."

"It is?" the High Shaman's brow-plate shifted. "Ordinarily, I'd count that the mewling of panicked pups, but I know of your talents. It's not a charge you'd make lightly. We will leave."

There was a sound of a roaring engine that pulled closer, before it took a flying leap over the opposite edge of the canal as the High Shaman had descended from. It roared toward them, coming to a halt forty yards away. The doors swung down, and a number of green-capped krogan jumped out, shotguns or heavy rifles at the ready. The High Shaman pulled down his hood so that it lay over his plate, and a derisive scowl etched across his face. "This does not bode well," he muttered.

The last to exit this new Tomkah was none-other than Gatatog Uvenk. He stomped forward, a grenade launcher in hand, imperious as he looked over those before him. "You live," Uvenk said. "And you have survived the attention of the beasts of the Rift. A harsh trial, one that Clan Gatatog can respect... in its way," he took a few steps closer. "This will cause some discussion. You say you are pure? That none but krogan had any hand in your manufacture?"

"He created me on his own. Why?" Grunt asked.

"He was made to be the perfect krogan," Shepard said.

"Being made is the problem," Uvenk said, before shrugging. "However, he is powerful, and no alien hand has corrupted his creation. A tolerable loophole, I feel."

"...a what?" Grunt asked, his fists flexing, as the varren at his side began to growl.

"A reason to accept you," Uvenk said. "You are a mistake, yes, but one which could help shift the balance of the clans."

"He has completed the Rite of Apprentice, Gatatog. This is not yours to decide," the High Shaman said harshly, taking a stride forward. Uvenk nodded to one of his men, who turned the shotgun toward the shaman and pulled the trigger. Unguarded by any kinetic barriers, the man was thrown to the ground. Shepard instantly had her rifle out and pointed at him.

"It is now," Uvenk said. The High Shaman pushed himself up, his teeth grit and a hand pressed to the bleeding wound.

"High Shaman Gatatog will hear of this insult to the Cause!" the High Shaman spat.

"High Shaman Gatatog is a liberal idiot, and he will do what I decide if he knows what's best for him," Uvenk said. He turned to Grunt once more. "You..."

"You spit on my father's name. On Shepard's name! You spit on the names of a powerful clan, and everything that they stand for!" Grunt shouted at him. "You defile tradition while you twist it to suit your wishes! You might as well be a damned salarian!"

Uvenk's eye twitched, but he was visibly controlling himself. "...be that as it may," he said. "There would be restrictions. You could not breed, of course, and you would be barred from serving on an alien ship, but you would be Gatatog in name. What is your decision?"

Shepard sighed, and gave a glance to grunt. "If I know Grunt at all, his answer's going to come at muzzle velocity," Shepard said.

"She knows me fairly well," Grunt said. Uvenk's krannt limbered their guns, pointing them in at those who stood together. Asha had her Typhoon in hand, while Shepard was a twitch from sending out a barrage of shots with her Mattock. But Grunt didn't reach for his shotgun. Instead, he cracked a grin. "But I figure it'll be funnier to let Snot kill you."

Uvenk let out a laugh. "You are a fool if you think that a single varren could ever defeat my krannt of veteran Gatatog warriors!"

"And you are a fool if you think I'd name a varren 'Snot'," Grunt said. He stomped the ground, and made a gutteral sound in his throat. The stomp became two. Then three. There was a moment of silence, while the krannt slowly moved toward cover, guns still ready. Then, the ground began to shake. Concrete which had been crumbling for centuries toppled entirely, as something massive began to bear itself up through it. There was an explosion of rotted rebar and defunct concrete, punctuated by a wailing howl, as a Thresher Maw burst into sight, less than twenty yards away. "Uvenk? Meet Snot. Snot? Eat their car. Let the Meretsegger have 'em."

Grunt turned away.

"You can't..." Uvenk began, as one of the krannt shot the Maw. It responded by horking acidic spittle at him which melted him in a matter of seconds.

"You're not worth killing," Grunt said over his shoulder, before helping the High Shaman to his feet, and bearing him up the incline. While ordinarily, the leisurely pace he took would have gotten him a nasty case of death-by-gunshot, the krogan were now panicking as the Thresher Maw slammed down in their midst, eating one of the krannt whole, before surging up, flopping over their Tomkah, and coiling it into a ruin of twisted metal.

"You Demanded of the Thresher Maw?" the High Shaman asked, his words only slightly clipped. The wound seemed massively painful, but he almost ignored it. Grunt gave a single nod, before helping him up into their ride. "Then you are something we have not seen since the Rebuke. Urdnot Wrex was the last to kill a Thresher Maw during his Rite. You have done something... far more difficult."

"I am pure krogan, body and soul," Grunt said. Shepard helped Asha into the cab, before pounding on the hatch to the driver's seat.

"For what you did to Uvenk, I approve," the Shaman said, as he buckled himself into place. "He will die knowing that he was not worth the metal of a single bullet."

"Hit the gas! The Meretsegger's coming!" Shepard said from her place near the door to the driver's seat.

She didn't even have the time to finish the word 'coming', before there was a massive lurch that knocked Shepard from her feet, as the massive vehicle raced to speed immediately. She pulled herself into her seat, but not before the Tomkah made a jump that sent her head into the ceiling, before dropping her back to the floor. She tried again, this time managing to buckle herself in while the G's of a brutal turn pushed her into the jump-seat. She slid open the panel which was essentially a 'window' for the Tomkah, watching the canal behind them as they tore through the graveyard which was once a city.

Bolts of black lightning raced upward into the sky, raking along the wispy clouds kilometers overhead. Those clouds, once touched, boiled and churned, mounting up and becoming as black as the bolts which had struck them. The clouds twisted and funneled, as though preparing to drop a tornado, but instead, ten thousand ebon shrikes exploded from the clouds, streaking toward the ground in a veritable hell-storm which ended perhaps a hundred meters behind where the Tomkah was driving when the first one hit. A bass thud, the sound of a bell the size of this city being smashed into a mountain, erupted from the ground-zero of the Meretsegger's appearance in the Physical World. The black clouds descended, spreading open and solidifying, until they were a jet-black maw of thousands of teeth.

"...I'm so glad we didn't stick around for that," Shepard said.

"If you had, you wouldn't for very long," the High Shaman said, pulling a heated iron from a little oven that was built into the Tomkah – typically, these things played host to four krogan for week-long patrols – and slowly drew it across his bleeding wound. He gave little more than a grunt at the pain of it. "Uvenk's idiocy will result in his Clan's expulsion from the Urdnot alliance, so I will have to inform High Shaman Gatatog to remove the non-combatants when that occurs."

"Krogan have non-combatants?" Grunt asked, a bit confused.

"Children, shaman, and what females they refused to pool with Urdnot's own," the High Shaman gave a nod. "Much more pressing is that, though," he pointed out the window.

Shepard gave a new glance. That part of the city, dwindling into the distance, was now darkened by an unnatural twilight, black as the void beyond the galaxy's edge. "The Meretsegger is in the Physical World."

"Indeed. That will require surveillance," the old shaman said. "And if needed... reaction."

"Why have you not slain such a dangerous spirit?" Asha asked. The High Shaman chuckled a bit.

"You cannot kill death, human. It would only make the Meretsegger stronger... and annoyed that we tried," he said.

"I like this planet," Grunt said with a nod.

---

He hadn't slept in days.

Haephus' teeth were in a fairly constant grind, nowadays. Preston was the kind of person that he'd spent his entire career trying to oppose, and he'd hurled him at that problem without a second thought. That sat poorly on Haephus' mind. But losing his daughter would have been worse; so much worse. It was a physical pain, having his integrity so marred. A destruction of the image that he had of himself.

And he didn't even know if it worked.

"Haephus, is Garrus with his friends this evening?"

"What?" the old turian asked.

"Garrus. I need to know if I should put out a plate for him," his wife called from the kitchen. Haephus let out an anguished sigh, dropping his face into his hands. Garrus hadn't eaten at their table since being inducted into Basic.

"He's fending for himself tonight," Haephus answered her.

"Well as long as he's fed. Boys need a good dinner to grow up strong..."

Quietly, Haephus' shoulders shook, as he kept his sobbing quiet. Spirits, why did all of this come upon him so quickly? Why was he singled for such loss and trial? He asked, but as he was no shaman, the spirits saw no need to answer him. He was tried, hungry, and honestly, he'd never been more afraid.

There was a beep from his console.

Haephus stared at it for a long time, as though unable to believe it. He tapped the message. Text only. No return address. Bounced in by a ghost server.

"You can't help me, dad. I'm sorry."

The anguished sigh became an anguished groan, as he let his head bow down and clack against the table. He was going to outlive his wife and daughter both... and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

---

"So you return at last," Wrex said, meeting them at the entrance to Urdnot Surt. "I've heard about your little adventure in the Rift. In fact, it's been circulating through the Surt ever since the High Shaman hit the radio."

"Few slay the Thresher Maw which is brought to their Rite of Passage," the High Shaman said. "But to Demand it, to bend one to your will? An act of legend," Grunt lowered himself to his knees before the two older krogan. "Grunt, you are Urdnot. You may now own property, enlist in the military, and request permission to serve under a Battlemaster."

"Shepard is my Battlemaster," Grunt said simply. "She has no equal."

"She certainly does not," Wrex agreed with a nod. "Stand up, junior. You're Urdnot now. We don't bow to anybody."

"I think I'll like being Urdnot Grunt," he said.

"Many do," Wrex said. He then gave a glance behind him, to the guts of the Surt. "But we'll have to catch up later, Shepard. Weyrloc's been rattling their sabers for a while now. With Gatatog gutted, they'll figure that they either move fast, or get ground into dust. So I've got preparations to do."

"Good luck, Wrex," Shepard said, clapping him on the back of the shoulder. "With you at the helm, the krogan just might come out the other side of this."

Wrex shook his head, slowly. "As long as the Genophage is in our blood, there is no other side. All I'm doing is making sure we don't fade away," he turned one last time. "But if those Reapers of yours cause any trouble, send out a call. I'd like to see how they stack up against the might of Tuchanka."

Shepard snirked. "You and me both, Wrex," she said. Asha was waiting by the Tomkah, which would bear them next to the shuttle, and an exodus from this planet of ridiculous lethality. But for the moment, the only danger could come from the krogan nearby. And since they knew what their clan-leader thought of Shepard, they were wisely unwilling to bring any. "High Shaman... I've always wondered what it takes to reach that position. High Shaman Raik wouldn't tell me."

"I doubt he would," the High Shaman said. "The Rites that I endured to become High Shaman were excruciating, so terrible that even weeks after their end, I would frequently wish for death. I quite literally bear the scars of them upon my soul. Each dawn and dusk, I perform rites that bind me to our krogan nature. We are creatures of violence and death. I must be attuned to that."

"Your job is terrible," Grunt noted.

"And now, it's your job as well," the High Shaman said. He pulled something from a pack that hung off of his uninjured side. It was made of cloth, and sized to drape over a krogan hump and head. "This is the symbol of our order. If you wear this, you are given free passage and hospitality to any Surt on Tuchanka. If you defile this privilege with treachery and deceit, then we will hunt you down, cut off your arms and legs, and feed you to Kalros. The role of the Shaman is above Clan and Surt. You will respect that," he said, putting the hood and cloak in place. Pulled forward, its hood came down just to the edge of Grunt's skull-plate. "Fight well, and learn your duties, Shaman Grunt of Urdnot."

"I will," Grunt said with a note of pride in his deep voice. He then paused for a moment. "Are shaman supposed to be celibate?"

"Hah!" the High Shaman exclaimed. "A human notion, not a krogan one. In fact, I'm told that the tale of your mastery over the Thresher Maw has generated three breeding requests from the Female Clan already!"

"Interesting," Grunt said, as Shepard turned away.

"And one for Avatar Shepard."

Shepard stopped, turned back, and tried to see if the High Shaman was joking. He was stony faced.

Shepard raised a finger, about to make a point. Any point. But instead, she just shook her head with a baffled snort and continued walking away, while Grunt barked a single, loud laugh.

---

Codex Entry: (Non Council Species) COLLECTORS

Entry locked pending verification of attempted alteration.

The Collectors is an eponym used to describe a sentient species which holds no colonies in the charted galaxy. These somewhat insectoid appearing entities seemingly predate even the asari for galactic travel, and are most renowned for their proclivity to 'collect' unusual specimens of plant, animal, or sapient, often by offering incredible rewards of advanced technology in exchange. Despite their status as galactic early-arrivals, there is no formal communication between the species referred to as the Collectors, and the Citadel Council. In fact, no government in known space has any means of contacting the Collectors unless they desire to be found.

The prevalent theory is that the Collectors are a nomadic, ship-based people not unlike the quarians; however, unlike the quarians, they are well adapted to that life-style. While their interactions with independant powers tend to occur within the Terminus Systems, there has never been a successful sighting of any 'Collector Fleet', if such a thing exists. A smaller but equally valid hypothesis is that the Collectors, like the quarians, have a homeworld which is outside the reach of the Mass Relay system, and use a novel FTL system to bridge the gap.

In recent decades, the frequency in which Collectors interact with warlords and planet-barons in the Terminus has increased dramatically, raising questions as to what happened so recently to prompt such an increase in activity. Their tasks seem the same as they always were - to collect unusual biological specimens - however their scope has expanded dramatically.

As there has been no extended contact with the Collectors, there is nothing known about their social structure, and almost as little about their anatomy and biology. It is presumed, however, that they are either drones of a hive-mother, befitting their insectoid appearance, or possibly monogendered like the asari, due to a complete lack of any verified primary or secondary sex characteristics. What is known of the Collectors, however, is the degree by which they augment themselves with their technology. Before the events of the Battle of the Citadel, no single individual has ever been capable of the destruction which sometimes is attributed to the Collectors.

The Collectors are not bound by any treaties in Citadel Space, and have no formal relations with any nation. Any interactions with the Collectors are to be done upon one's own recognizance, and at one's own risk.

Attempted additions by 'AShepard' held pending review.