Happy New Year, everyone! 2020 is now upon us at last, and it'll stay here for another 3,649 days, which is ten years. Weird intro, I know, but as promised here is the next chapter that I said that I would put out for all of you to read and enjoy.

Basically, the chapter here is a filler chapter meant to catch Devin up on recent events and what everyone has been doing since the man has been under. As stated last chapter, a few missions were skipped for plot convenience (and laziness), but a lot has happened in that time.

Devin received major armor and weapon modifications that basically turns him into a walking tank; thanks to CaptainDickScratcher for helping get an idea on what should be added! You're awesome!

Review Time:

Wolves: Well, since Jay grew up in a time when that stuff was basically rendered extinct, it'll be hard for the man to explain how it functions and behaves when it is introduced into a host; you can only learn so much from books and notes, you know.

Connor: That he does, brother; FOR THE EMPEROR AND HIS ETERNAL GLORY!

Captain: That subject will be brought up in the sequel of this story, but yes: even with the amount of news suppression, tidbits of information will spring up here and there, and when that happens, more and more will be brought to light. At least Shepard was able to do SOME damage mitigation, just to help the man; you'll see. And it's a shame that we never see these new/cut species in the games, and I don't count anything that mentions them either! Either put them in or don't; don't just leave us in the dark with how the game could've turned out if something was added instead removed.

Blaze: You will see him do that in this chapter.

Mythian: You're right, they will; but they'll let the man heal up first before doing so.

With reviews answered, I hope that you all enjoy this chapter and have a wonderful day!

Chapter Twenty-Three: Making up for Lost Time

Devin was upset at the moment, staying quiet as the paperwork for his release were currently being processed, but thanks to Shepard using his Spectre status (something that Devin was aware that the man had used a lot of during the time he's been under), he was able to fast track it through their systems with little interference.

The man at the front desk was reading over everything one last time, ensuring that there were no details left out or were misinterpreted, before nodding his head in satisfaction as he looked at Shepard with a smile on his face.

"Well, everything seems to be in order from the look of things here; all that remains is to finalize the paperwork with a signature." He tells the man, offering him a data pad which Shepard accepts, signing his name and glossing over the details briefly before handing it back to the man.

"Have a good day and if anything comes up about your condition, Mr. Carmine, don't hesitate to come back here for one second."

"Will do doc, take care." He told him, giving a partial wave as they left the hospital and began making their way back to the Normandy, with Devin happy that he's finally out of the place and getting back into the fire.

Now, only if he was able to leave the damned wheelchair for a moment so that he can stretch his legs and move around.

"Can I get out of this thing now? I'm a grown ass adult and-" Devin was interrupted by Shepard, with the man cutting him off before he could finish the sentence as he began to explain why he shouldn't leave.

"No, Chakwas and Carmichael both agreed that you should stay in it for a day or two at most, that and you'll be off the ground team for at most another two or three weeks, depending on the fact if you're healed or not." Shepard immediately told the man, making sure to hail a wheelchair accessible cab so that he, Tulma, and Devin would be able to catch a ride to the Normandy's docking bay instead of having to traverse the wards on foot for several miles.

Not only would that be a waste of time, but Shepard was sure that Devin would've probably snapped and hurt someone.

Not that he could blame him.

He wonders what Tali's opinion on the man would be, wondering how she would view the man who could easily take on krogans and win.

'Something to look forward to, I guess.' He thinks to himself, climbing into the cab as the others followed behind.

It'll be interesting to see, nonetheless.

"Keelah… what in the hell is that?" A woman said, her voice in awe and confusion at the sight that currently has her attention.

Tali could only stare in curiosity at the hulking mass of armor that was set up within the armory in the far back corner; taking notice of its deep black color scheme, bulky build, hefty mass, and foreign concept of the design was alien to her.

That and the skull that lies within a cog was a strange thing to her.

It looked like something that Jackson, the rather tall human that hangs around the second level of the ship, would wear, but not quite fit into it.

The helmet was even more curious to her, with a distinct human build, the same color pallet as the armor, and deep blue visors that were placed only where the eyes were, instead of across most of the faceplate.

Not an uncommon thing, as there were several companies that made several varieties of helmets that followed this concept, but with the way this particular helmet had it implemented was just… different to her, for some reason.

Her thoughts are interrupted when she hears someone clearing their throat from behind her, startling the girl as she turns around sharply to see who it was, but breathes out a sigh of relief when she sees that it was only Justin, the rather… eccentric, to say the least, human engineer.

"I see you found Devin's armor after all this time. I was wondering how long it'd take you to do so, but better late than never huh?" He asks her, leaning along the side of the workbench that he himself preferred to be around (considering all that he's put into it, who could blame him?).

Tali actually thought that Justin was a figurative breath of fresh air, with him being one of the very few people that could actually understand what she was talking about when it came to engineering and mechanical knowledge and even add on to what she was explaining.

It reminded her of Engineer Adams a couple of years back.

"I'm sorry, but I don't I met this… Devin. At least, I'm not sure I have. Anyways, why is his armor this massive? It looks like it could stop a carnage shot, or even a claymore shot at near point-blank."

"Well… that's because it can. I see that your confused, so allow me to clarify: Devin is a human unlike any other that you've seen, he is larger than everyone, stronger than everyone, he can take hits from krogan and other heavy hitters and get back up and return the favor with extreme vigor, and his weapons… oh dear god his weapons are simply the results of an expert weaponsmith and a sociopath who had way too much time on their hands to find a more fulfilling career in their life.

His assault rifle, which I have modified but will not reveal anything until the man comes back and sees what I've done here, fires an old ballistic round the size of the tip of your thumb… well the human thumb, that will absolutely mulch someone's insides as if they were butter. That and it has a literal damn chainsaw as a bayonet that the man is more than comfortable with using. And that's only for his rifle: he has a shotgun, a monster-sized magnum, and an anti-life rifle."

"Anti-life?" Tali asked, her head tilted in confusion at the strange comment that he had made about a weapon.

Well, the entire explanation was rather bizarre because of all of the weapons firing old, chemical propellant-based ballistic munitions, but that was an odd phrase to describe a rifle.

"Well I call it that because it fires this round," Justin starts, grabbing a bullet from an ammunition container before placing it down on the workbench to show her its size, "out of the barrel, and from the dimensions of the caliber, the size of grain that it has, and the type of rifle used to fire it, it could very well shoot straight for well over a mile, maybe even two. That, and this round is indeed slower than that of modern sniper rifles, but the amount of kinetic energy, ballistic dispersion, and trauma this thing dishes out is absolutely nightmarish to witness. If you were to get shot by this thing, Tali, it will tear you in half. For anything larger, like krogan or even some of the collector troops, it may take two rounds to completely finish them off, maybe more. Here, it's better for me to show you than to explain it." Justin tells her, bringing up a video that he got from Garrus on his omni-tool, sending the video to a nearby monitor so that she could see the weapon's capabilities for herself.

She turned and stepped closer to the terminal, watching as it was a video from Garrus (evident from the fact it had his name in the upper right-hand corner of the screen) holding a very foreign looking rifle as he was taking aim at a collector. What happened next shocked her; when Garrus was finished taking his time to adjust his sights on his target, he fired the large weapon, watching as the recoil forced the weapon to slam into his shoulder, causing the turian to curse in pain as he muttered to himself while looking back to the collector that he had shot.

"Keelah…" Is all that she could say, seeing the collector's entire head and a little bit of its torso was reduced to near nothing, with the viscous blood-like material staining the wall and ground beneath it as the wall had a very noticeable hole punched into its side.

It looked as if an asari commando had used her biotics to shred it apart.

Tali could only stare on in morbid curiosity, much to her own chagrin, at the devastating power that the rifle could dish out with an outdated ammo type.

Before any more could be said, the doors to the armory opened, revealing Tulma, whom Tali had met a few days ago, and a man with dozens of scars adorning his arms and some of his face being pushed in what seems to be a wheelchair.

Just looking at the man, his facial expressions showing that he was either not amused or upset, with his body expression showing the same.

"About fucking time I'm back on this ship, being in a hospital is terrible. Not that I don't like them, but I don't like being in them Tulma; too many bad memories." She heard him tell the turian, with her laughing at the remark as she wheeled him closer to his armor and gear, as per his request.

Justin, as usual, was happy to see the man, throwing his hands up in the air in celebration that one of his friends are back home and better than before.

"Devin, glad to see that you're back and ready to kick ass; I knew that some diseased parasitic thing wouldn't keep you down for long!" He told him, laughing at his own comment as Devin shook his head in good fun, seemingly in a good mood at the sight of the young man.

"Well my heart did stop two or three times, yes, but as you can see here," he gestures to what he's sitting in, "I've gotta stay in it for a day or two. If my old drill sergeant were to see me now, he'd make fun of me and call me a part of the 'mechanized infantry'."

(True story, actually: while I was in basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, we had a couple of trainees who had gotten hurt in the company, maybe around six or seven I don't remember, and they received crutches to walk with. My drill sergeants, all twelve of them, would make remarks and comments that how those with the crutches were called mechanized infantry and that they were at the wrong training unit. All in all, it was funny and we all had a good time, mostly, and it was just one of the few and rare tame insults that we would be called.)

Shaking his head to get his mind back on track, Devin noticed that there was someone new on the ship, a quarian woman that he's never seen, probably, and pointed at the woman, gaining her attention by doing so.

"Yes?" She asks, fidgeting her hands together as she somewhat shrunk back at the gaze the that the man was looking at her with.

The type of gaze told her that someone was sizing her up, seeing what she was capable of and if they were a threat to security.

It was a look that she's received before on numerous occasions.

"Apologies for my ignorance, ma'am, but I don't believe that we've met. I'm Devin Carmine, but call me Devin; it's a pleasure to meet you." He tells her, reaching a hand out in greeting as he smiled at her.

Tali was taken back by the man's mannerisms, with her perceiving the man to behave more like a krogan in how he acts and treats everything, given the information and preconceptions that she had gathered from all that Justin has shown and told her about the man.

She was vastly far from that hypothesis.

"Uh… well it's okay Devin, I was just curious about your armor here and wondered who it belonged to. I've never seen anything like it before; not in the Alliance, the Citadel Defense Forces, even Cerberus." She told him, gesturing to the armor that was behind her and, causing the man to nod understanding at her response.

"Yeah, it's basically the only one of it's… what in the fuck?"

Devin wheeled himself closer to his armor, with Tali and Justin moving out of the way, running his hands over the surface of the chest plate as he could only wonder what happened to it.

At first glance, he didn't see anything that was off about it: it had its same color pallet, was just as large and intimidating as before, and his helmet looked no different.

That was a very wrong observation that he made.

The armor had been improved, from the looks of it: new plating could be seen in places that were either worn down or damaged from before, with the under armor being redesigned entirely to that of a hardsuit that seemed as if it would be able to withstand a vacuum for a set amount of time. The chest piece now covered not only the chest, but there was another layer of armor added in the belly area as well, seemingly made from the same exact materials that the rest of his armor was made from. The sides where his armpit and the sides of his chest now had a layer of armor protecting it, covering the hardsuit and protecting it from harm.

His leg armor had been beefed up as well, with the addition of more armor that encompassed the entirety of his thighs and shins, but with the addition of the extra protection, Devin was sure that he wouldn't be using as much medi-gel as he would normally.

And finally came the helmet, with the man lifting it up and looking it over, turning it around and around within his hands as he could only stare at it in both confusion and curiosity.

It looked as it could take more punishment than before, with a newer, streamline design that was both easier for him to work with and to maintain whenever the need arises.

When he put it on, he seen that the HUD had changed as well, though only slightly: there was an addition to its base functions of sight optics, with the thermal and nightvision came the addition of a tracking mode that would help paint targets for others to see and be aware of. Not only that, but the addition of a better oxygen canister that was not only easier to use, but more efficient was a very welcomed sight.

Devin took his helmet off looked at Justin, his eyebrow raised in silent questioning as he set it back down on the table and gestured to both sets of armor, with him nearly speechless about what had happened to them while he was out.

"This couldn't have been only you; you had to have some help."

"That I did; Jay and Jacob helped out a lot with the overhaul and upgrades, and it took the better part of two weeks, give or take a day, for us to finish it entirely. Your armor can now stay in a vacuum for an hour at most, and with the addition of more armor plating, you'll be able to live up to the role of being the squad tank. Not only that, but we added mag plates to the bottom of both boots that uses a very strong neodymium magnet that will hold you in place or keep you from falling. I think Jacob said it could carry over nine hundred pounds of weight before failing, so there's no worry there. And we took the liberty of adding a hardsuit that now acts as your under armor with a much higher damage threshold. After we were done with the armor, we replaced the shield emitters with the one's that Spectres use so that they can take a hellish amount of punishment. But with modern equipment and materials, we kept the weight roughly the same as before, with it now weighing roughly… twenty to thirty pounds heavier. But with what you can do, I wouldn't be shocked if you barely noticed." Justin explained, bringing up a graph and list of all modifications that they had made to his armor while he was in the hospital.

He was now truly at a loss for words, with him trying to wrap his mind around the fact that they were able to accomplish all of this while he was gone and had it finished before he woke up.

Then Justin told him something that instantly got his attention.

"We also modified your weapons even more. Now, they're better than ever!"

"Show me." Is all that he said, eagerly wanting to see what had been done to his weapons.

If it was even a fraction of what had been done to his armor, he was definitely going to enjoy this.

Justin, with the help of others, made it to where his lancer was now equipped with a monomolecular chainsaw blade that was made from a titanium-steel alloy that was infinitely better than what he had at the moment, along with other minor upgrades to the recoil stability, magazine well, and the bolt carrier.

Basically, it could shoot at full auto or burst fire with the flick of a selector switch, it could cut through damn near anything, and the recoil was compensated even more-so than before.

His longshot had received numerous upgrades, ranging from a better scope that could connect to his helmet's visual feed, it now had a bipod at the end which would virtually negate rifle sway, the barrel was threaded so that he could equip either a muzzle break or a suppressor, and finally they had redesigned the entirety of the bolt carrier and firing mechanism so that it could actually take rounds from a magazine instead of having to load a single round into the breach every time you wanted to fire.

With its new magazine, it could have five rounds in reserve and one in the chamber, totaling to having six shots maximum instead of the standard one.

He was happier beyond belief.

Not much was changed about his gnasher, having only been refitted to house an additional two shells per load, the materials being swapped out so that it was made with a heavy-duty frame and high-strength steel for the outside casing, meaning that Devin could crack a few more skulls than before.

With Justin and Tali leaving, Jay comes up to Devin and asks the man if they could speak privately, to which the man nodded and asked Tulma if she could leave them be for a few minutes.

With them finally alone, Jay begins his questions.

"That thing that you had in your system, was that… was that imulsion?" He asked him, sitting in a chair so that he could be eye level with the man.

"Yes it was, I figured it'd been clear to you exactly what it was as soon as I began coughing it up."

"Yeah, imulsion hasn't been around for the last thirty odd years, so excuse me for not recognizing it sooner as I have only seen it textbooks and pictures. Devin… what in the hell were thinking? You should've gotten this thing taken care of sooner rather than later and look where it got you! Almost fucking dead! I never seen anyone go lambent before, but from what I've seen from videos of your surgery, it damn near looked like you were getting there! I'm not preaching at you, but waiting this long has to be quite possibly the most idiotic thing an Onyx Guard has ever done! We're supposed to be the best of the best! Now because of what happened at Huerta Memorial, news about a human with dextro compatibility, krogan regeneration, and an unknown parasite are running around the extranet like a rampaging windflare! Shepard had successfully redacted your name from ever being mentioned, but he couldn't stop the rest of it from being released. Now, because of what happened, you're no doubt going to be questioned about what in the fuck just happened to you and how you're able to regenerate, among other things." Jay told him, his face set in a frown as he stared at Devin while the man was soaking up everything that he could to prepare himself for the oncoming shitstorm that would surely head his way.

From all the points that the man brought up, Devin knew that he had a point; he should've had the imulsion dealt with earlier so that he could've avoided everything that was now happening.

All of this was avoidable, but he was too scared to seek help about it.

Before leaving, Jay took one final look at the man as he stood up, his eyes softer than before as he could only shake his head at the man.

"It's okay to be scared, I've been there before, but if we are going to survive here in this second chance that we've been given, we need to actually go out and seek help! We may be gears, we may be larger, stronger, faster, and overall deadlier than any normal humans here, but that doesn't mean we're invincible; we can still die, even if we have the Crimson Omen gene within us. And don't worry about EDI spying on us; I set up a jammer here that scrambles our conversation, though it'll only last for a few more minutes at best. Just… just think about what happened here, and try not to make the same mistakes."

With that being said, Jay finally left the room, leaving Devin alone and with his thoughts, stuck within them to see if there could be anything that he could think of that would immediately better not only himself, but the crew overall.

Maybe he should get some more schematics from his data chip? A oneshot would come in handy, after all…

"Devin, glad to see that you're still able to maneuver around in that contraption of yours." Shepard calls out, gaining the man's attention as he noticed Shepard sitting at the table in the mess hall, eating whatever was on his plate.

Rolling his eyes, Devin wheeled himself over to the man, stopping beside the man and locking the wheels in place so that he wouldn't move around while they were speaking to one another.

"Yeah, it's weird but I've been through worse."

"No kidding. But about that, how did that thing get into your system?" Shepard asked, eyeing the man curiously as he took a drink from his small glass, patiently waiting for Devin's response.

Devin could only shrug at the question, not really understanding how he had been infected by the imulsion, seeing as how he tried to keep his distance as often as he could when he was back on Sera.

Not that Shepard needed to know that, of course.

"I truly don't know, Shepard. But I'm thankful to be here and having that thing out of my body. But other than that, what all happened while I was under? I noticed that we've got a quarian with us now and she sure as hell wasn't here when I was around."

Nodding his head, Shepard confirmed that they had left sometime shortly after they finished surgery on the man, having to go out in the galaxy to complete a few missions and even recruit one of his and Garrus' old friends, Tali, who was the quarian that he had seen with Justin when he first came back.

He explained that he had to investigate a relay that would allow the reapers to invade the galaxy months sooner than what they had planned for, but he had been captured and put under for a few days due to it being a solo stealth mission. After waking up, he tried to warn a batarian colony to evacuate the system, before an asteroid would destroy the relay and take out most of the system with it. With the relay's destruction, they bought the galaxy nearly half a year of time at the absolute most or a few months at least, which was a lot longer than the one or two weeks that they originally had.

Devin consoled the man, patting him on the shoulder as he could tell the man was obviously hurt from not being able to save the colony in time, knowing full well how something like would feel.

He's failed to evacuate entire cities and small nations before himself.

"After I came back, we decided to go and rescue Tali here, so that she could join us on our mission. She may have some doubts about people on the ship, but that'll pass. Trust me, I've been there myself. Just give her a week or two to come around, I'm sure that she'll come to see you as a friend. Other than that, Jay posed as a man named Solomon Gunn, a weapons merchant based out in the Terminus and Traverse, which it was supposed to be me instead, but considering that I'm famous and everyone practically knows my face, that was an obvious reason why I couldn't go with them, so that Kasumi could pull of a heist against one of the richest humans alive. I'm glad that she found what she was looking for and that the sleaze bag was killed; douchebag deserved it. And finally, Zaeed got the consolation that he was looking for; we went to Zorya to find the Blue Suns leader, Vito, and killed the man, but we also had to save a lot of hostages in the process. I figured something like that was going to happen, but thankfully I went with my gut and brought an extra pair of hands so that two people could do the rescue and the other two could put a bullet in the man's skull… I don't know how I knew that there'd be a choice like that…"

Shepard trailed off at the end, rubbing his chin as he tried to recall how the information was present within his mind, but not actually knowing how said information got there in the first place.

Maybe someone out there was aiding them in the shadows, sending them telepathic information as if they were a deity of some sort?

Could it be a rogue reaper?

Shepard immediately dismissed all of those thoughts, shaking his head to get rid of the crackpipe theories before they firmly settled within his mind.

He was already crazy enough, so the addition of bizarre theories and ideologies was going too far.

Devin had asked him about what had happened with the parasite that they removed from his body, his tone and facial expressions dead serious as he looked into the man's eyes, waiting desperately to hear his response.

"That thing? Well, after it was removed and everything was either quarantined or incinerated, I had the pleasure of deciding what happened to the thing: either destroy it or study it. A Cerberus spook," Shepard said that with clear distaste in his mouth, "had the audacity to demand me to hand it over to them, saying that something like this would benefit mankind and that it should be saved. I personally threw everything that had been in contact with it in the incinerator, telling the man that it was too dangerous to be left alone in the hands of human extremists. Don't worry, it's gone forever."

That was a load off Devin's mind, with the man nodding in satisfaction at Shepard's actions, being forever grateful that the imulsion wouldn't get replicated.

If the reapers or collectors got a hold of it, then it would be game over for everyone.

"Oh yeah, one more thing; I went by my old home that I won from Admiral Ahern and grabbed a few of my old Spectre weapons."

"So?"

"They hit harder, fire longer, and have unlimited ammo, not only that, but they're also easier on the eyes too." Shepard told the man, smiling at having his babies back on the Normandy and that they're still in mint condition.

Oh how he's going to have so much with them.

"So Tulma~ I heard that you and the big guy are finally together." A voice softly said behind the turian's head, with said turian nearly choking on her drink at the shock and surprise of seeing the resident kleptomaniac standing only inches away from her.

"Kasumi! You damn near gave me a heart attack!" She angrily told her, nearly growling at the woman for the loss of her drink as she used a nearby washcloth to clean the mess off of her.

Kasumi merely waved her off, her smile still remaining firmly on her face as she ignored the irate turian, electing to continue on with her game of picking fun at the woman.

"Relax sweetie, I'm only curious. So… you and Devin huh?"

Tulma's attitude was immediately replaced with dread as she was beginning to follow along with what the woman was doing.

"Uh… yes?"

"Remember our little agreement from a while back?"

"Please…" Tulma tried to beg, weakly shaking her head at the woman at wanting to have a moment of rest, but from the look on Kasumi's face, she wasn't going to get any.

"I'm waiting any day now. But I've got a present to give to Justin and a few people who are currently working out that I need to spy on, so I'll be seeing you later, Tulma; just don't forget to use protection as I'm sure you'll be needing it~!" She sang out, quickly disappearing before Tulma had a chance to stop her, causing the woman to groan out in mild despair as she hit her head on the table.

It was at times like this that Tulma wishes she would learn to keep her mouth closed from time to time, knowing that whatever she says could backfire against her immensely.

But for hers and Devin's sake, she was willing to endure all of the torment that the thief was going to give to her, knowing that it was only in good fun.

At least, she hopes it was; there was no telling how much chaos the woman was capable of bringing, especially on a ship with this diverse of a crew.

She only hopes that everything will settle down soon.

Only if she knew just how wrong she was…

That wraps up this chapter! Now, the next one will be out next Monday as usual, but with a twist! It's a two-part chapter that spans the Shadow Broker dlc, and with it we'll see what the yahg has learned about our protagonist, and what Vasir has to say about them when that time comes. I'm curious myself to see where this leads us.

Other than that, not much else to say besides the fact that I hope you all have a great day and that I'll see you next time!

PS: what are your all's opinions if Bioware/EA made a Mass Effect game based on the First Contact War? Personally, I'd enjoy the shit out of it; especially if it had a co-op campaign.