It's come to my attention that I may need to warn everybody of something I noticed this week. FanFiction has (completely understandably but perhaps unwisely) decided to condense the Shepard (F) and Shepard (M) labels in the focus characters category into simply Shepard. The stories with Shepard (M) as a focus translated to the new Shepard label just fine, but for some reason, this has made all the stories that had Shepard (F) as a focus character, including all of mine, default change this billing instead to J. Garson (*shrug*). I had to go into the settings for all of my Mass Effect stories and relabel my focus characters and I have since seen that this has affected everyone else's stories. I just want to spread the word to everyone reading who has stories that this applies to or who knows someone who does that they may also need to go into the settings on their stories and manually reset their focus characters unless FanFiction goes in and fixes it somehow. Sorry for the confusion if anyone noticed mine being improperly labeled during that brief period before I noticed the problem and I hope nobody is thrown off in searches for Femshep and Shakarian fics before this is addressed (or at least that my warning of the situation helps to locate them regardless).

Chapter 78: Impostors

Nothing is ever as it appears
So few can be allowed trust
When this at last is made clear
All will do as they must

Terra was tempted to slow down when they came to halls lined with holos of historical events, but they were definitely in the middle of something far more pressing. She was curious about how much history could be stored down here and why the Council wouldn't want the general public to see it, sure, but she was more curious what the…other her could be looking for amongst it all. The best way to find out was to take care of the problem, so she kept leading Garrus, Wrex, and Solana through the halls to the next major room.

Just as they were approaching the room itself, Ashley came over the COMM to warn them "This is Hammerhead. Enemies in the room ahead. We'll get their attention."

Terra carefully approached the door, taking cover against the wall alongside it and waiting for an opening.

"Watch out, they're above us!" a merc finally called to his squad.

Terra seized that opening to creep around the corner and jam her omni-blade into the neck of the first merc she saw. She got spotted, but this still threw their opponents enough that Garrus, Wrex, and Solana could all storm in behind her.

"Behind us, too!" another merc called in warning just as the fight well and truly broke out.

"And they've still got the krogan!" another merc shouted in what was likely withheld panic, "Someone kill him!"

"Someone can try!" Wrex snapped as he charged in.

Terra smirked as she rushed in behind him to find a good cover position. She was tempted to start sniping across the room since Wrex was definitely handling everything up close and Solana worked best at mid-range, even though (or perhaps because) Garrus was already scoping them down. But something intriguing Terra just now realized was that stealth is actually really effective when literally everyone else in the room is being noisy, chaotic, and distracting. So she set to rushing to the other side directly from behind cover and then quietly dispatching every merc that had his back turned with her omni-blade, only bothering to use her ammo on the few snipers that caught sight of her.

Needless to say, the mercenaries did eventually clock that their numbers were going down at a staggeringly alarming rate they hadn't anticipated. "We're surrounded!" one of them finally realized and called to the others, "What are we gonna do?!"

"This almost doesn't seem fair," Tali admitted, "Should we give them a chance?"

"What?" Solana countered, "I tie one hand behind my back and Garrus misses every other shot? Wouldn't exactly make much difference!"

"Speak for yourself, please!" Brooks spoke up, "I'm not even a field agent!"

"Just follow Terra's lead and let the rest of us do the heavy lifting," Liara smirked.

Terra promptly leaned out of cover to glare up at her friends. "Do you think all you comedians could start hitting something?!" Just to make her point, she jumped out to tackle the last merc in her range and efficiently take him down.

"I think we got them all!" Brooks announced after a few seconds to check that the firing had stopped, "Or…the rest of you did."

"Or," Wrex smirked, "the krogan did."

"Just keep moving," Terra sighed as she located the door into the next section.

It was a matter of three short halls before they reached the next room, not much different from the previous one in layout or enemy count. These mercenaries had apparently been close enough to hear the commotion from the previous skirmish and were on high alert, so there wasn't much call for sneaking in. Especially not when all of them charging from three different angles served to unbalance them just as easily.

"There's too many of them!" one of the mercs finally admitted, "I'm starting to think we picked the wrong Shepard!"

"Attention, lowlife mercenary wannabes," James smirked in response, "Say 'please' and we'll accept your surrender!"

"Say 'pretty please,'" Tali added, "and maybe Wrex will take a break!"

"Try it!" Wrex shouted between shotgun blasts, "And we'll see!"

"The Prothean, on the other hand," Javik interjected, "makes no such promises!"

Terra smirked to herself. They'd have to do missions like this more often. Well…maybe minus the clone part.

The fight became slightly less stacked against the mercenaries' favor when some of them managed to establish a good cover position from all three flanks and then call in drones to start disabling the Normandy crewmen's shields. Garrus' overload trick could dispatch any of these drones in one hit, which worked exactly twice before Glyph decided to fly in and intercede—"Attention, enemy drones. Please cease all hostile action. I believe we can benefit from a mutual exchange of data. Additionally, the term 'floating butler' does not comprise all of my primary functions. One day, I, too, hope to possess combat capabilities like yourselves."

Solana withheld the urge to roll her eyes before disabling the last drone and then lobbing a grenade into the mercs' cover, forcing them to scatter right into everyone else's line of fire and end the fight.

"Commander," Glyph stated as it floated over to Terra, "I have catalogued 18 previously unknown historical events."

"Where's the target?" Terra asked as she hit the door.

"She is searching for a secret vault. She did not wish to be disturbed."

Terra turned to give the drone an incredulous look. "What?"

"I thought she was you."

Terra groaned, burying her head in her hands before waving the drone through the opening door. "Go find her again!" She waited for the drone to comply before storming after it. "And if Garrus isn't behind her, IT'S NOT ME!"

"Stupid machine," Javik groaned.

"Chatika is so much better at this," Tali agreed.

Terra decided not to escalate this so much that Liara took offense, following the halls in silence until they reemerged in another open sector of vaults. Right as they entered the central chamber, they heard gunshots starting, much bigger and louder than the rest of the mercs. And sure enough, there was the heavy machinery that CAT6 had ordered for exactly this eventuality.

"Atlas on the walkway!" Wrex declared.

"Team Mako here, we're on it!" Liara called as they moved in.

"Team Hammerhead," Cortez said, "providing moral support!"

"800-pound krogan here!" Wrex countered, "Providing the boom!" Just as Team Mako was wearing down its shields and crouching behind a barrier Liara was struggling to maintain, Wrex made good on his word and opened fire.

There was good news and bad news to this particular action. The good news was that he managed to completely disable the mech's shields. The bad news was that the mech's driver took notice of the four of them on the lower level, remembered that Terra was technically the primary target, and abandoned his current fight to drop down and bear down on them.

Garrus groaned as they dove to take cover. "Try to help out your friends and you wind up in a mech fight! YOU'RE WELCOME, TEAM MAKO!"

"Thanks, guys!" Brooks piped up, "Good luck!"

Garrus decided not to question if she had somehow missed his blatant sarcasm or was electing to ignore it. He just focused on readying his rifle to start finding weak points in the mech's armor.

"Anyone got any tactical advice?" Terra asked, mostly out of curiosity since "shoot it lots of times" was a perfectly valid strategy for an unshielded opponent.

Wrex, naturally, answered by giving off a battle-cry and charging in to head-butt the thing. Which, to his credit, did unbalance it for a second so he could shotgun it right in the cockpit.

Terra blinked. "Not what I'd consider 'tactical,' but fair enough."

Solana shook her head. "Maybe I should rescind the navigation offer and join your ground team. You clearly need more finesse."

"I'll try not to take that as an insult, sis," Garrus remarked.

She answered with a knowing shrug before sneaking around to a good angle on the mech's core and firing a few incendiary rounds down it.

With that on top of the damage it had already taken, the mech short-circuited and blew.

Wrex laughed as he ducked back. "Love watching those things explode."

Right as they came out of cover and prepared to keep moving, Glyph flew back over from scouting ahead. "Commander, a large contingent of mercenaries calling themselves 'Razor Squad' are just ahead. They wish to inflict bodily harm on you. Also, I discovered an elcor mating totem in vault 347B! Fascinating!"

Terra blinked as the drone flew back off to look for the clone again. "Let's focus on the first part of that, shall we?"

"You mean the part where there's a bunch of mercs threatening my girl who are about to have their skulls vented?" Garrus concurred, "Yes, why don't we?"

Solana sighed. "You two are sickeningly perfect for each other."

Terra chose to take her adopted sister's remark as a compliment and led them across the sector to the area now flooded with mercs. Time for another scuffle. For a few seconds, she even wondered if it would've been more fun had said mercs stood a chance.

"I got eyes on Shepard!" one of the mercs called as the fight broke out on all sides. True to his word, Garrus made this one his first target, one quick headshot taking him out of the equation.

"Team Mako here," James said as their concentrated fire started wearing down the mercs' numbers, "showing Team Hammerhead how it's done!"

"Hammerhead here," Ashley countered, "You guys are just copying us!"

"Mako here," Liara added, "if we were, we wouldn't be hitting anything!"

"Team Prothean here," Javik remarked, "I have a higher body count than all of you combined!"

Glyph chose that moment to make use of the fact it was still in the room. "Attention, enemy soldiers. Why do you persist? The Alliance offers a number of benefits and a generous retirement package. After seven years of service, a sabbatical to the planet of your choice can be arranged. I would be happy to discuss—please refrain from shooting at me."

The mercs did the exact opposite by calling in heavy reinforcements right as they were about to be completely pinned down.

"Heads up," Cortez warned everyone, "looks like they're getting serious."

"Oh, yeah, Esteban?" James smirked, "Then maybe you should start hitting something for a change!"

"Biggest target I see is your mouth, Mr. Vega!"

"I've fought volus bankers tougher than this!" Wrex agreed as he charged in to whack a merc with the stock of his shotgun.

Solana smirked as she leaned out of cover to knife a merc and then shoot down another. "I like you guys! I'm excited to be a part of this!"

"Attention, enemy soldiers," Glyph cut in again, "You only have a 0.04% chance of surviving this encounter."

"That drone is giving me a migraine!" one of the mercs growled.

"He belongs to me!" Liara snapped.

"Put him on a leash!"

"Glyph, lower their morale!"

Glyph took that to heart. Terra was astonished info drones were as good at that as she was. "Attention, enemy soldiers. Your life expectancy is now 15 seconds and dropping. 14…13…12…" Just as quickly, though, it diverted its attention as it seemed to receive a call. "Lieutenant Vega, a volus delivery man is on the line asking for payment."

"Tell him they burnt the pepperoni!" James snapped back.

Terra rolled her eyes—though she was also trying not to start snickering—and focused on tracking the last of the opposition. Only one mercenary was left standing…and quickly closing on Garrus' cover. Terra reacted appropriately.

By flinging herself out of cover to charge at the merc and leap up to simultaneously shoot him in the gut and stab him in the chest.

Garrus blinked at this display as she withdrew to catch her breath. "Glad to know it's not just me."

Terra gave him a brief smirk before checking the area. "Looks like we're clear."

"Looks like," Wrex smirked back, "I saved everyone's tails again!"

Terra smiled as she strode past, patting him on the hump. "You keep telling yourself that, big guy." She went over to hit the door. "Hammerhead, Mako, keep pushing ahead."

"Right!" Brooks said, "I might throw up a bit now, if that's OK with everyone…"

No one bothered answering her.

It didn't take long to reach the point in the hall where it opened into another room perfect for flanking. One of the mercs stationed there went down all too easy, sending the others scrambling for cover.

"Shepard's still alive!" one of the mercs cried as he took aim on the squad.

"The next person who says that is fired!" the clone snapped into the CAT6 COMMs.

"The other you seems to have severe anger issues," Glyph remarked to Terra before heading out to find the clone in question, "She does not care about collateral damage."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Terra sighed before opening fire.

The fight was over pretty quick. Why did that make her suspicious?

As they were heading through the next hall, Glyph came back again. "Commander, the other you wishes to pass on a message." The drone played an audio file of the clone's voice: "Shepard, save yourself the trouble. Once I find what I came here for, you won't matter anymore. Now go, drone, deliver it!"

"Well," Solana sighed as Glyph flew off again, "at least we know she's close."

Terra, though, couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Their path through his hall seemed unusually quiet. She didn't do silence generally, but this… She finally hit her COMM while they were waiting on a door. "Hammerhead, how far ahead are you? Do you have eyes on the target?"

No response.

Now Terra knew something was wrong. "Ash, EDI, Javik, do you copy?!"

"On second thought," Solana admitted as the door opened, "this can't be good."

Ten unsettled seconds later, Garrus caught sight of the others across the way. "There's Team Mako."

"We'll try to clear a path, commander," Brooks said, "Hammerhead's gone on ahead."

Something wasn't right here. Terra knew her squad. If they were OK, they'd answer. Liara, James, and Tali weren't contradicting the message, though, so she went along with it for now. Looking at Garrus as they made their way forward, though, she could tell his instincts were right in line with hers.

The way from here was more constricted, no room for flanking or alternate paths to take. Thankfully, that just played to a sniper's strengths, bottlenecking the incoming mercs so that Garrus, Terra, and Solana could easily take down whoever didn't get immediately trampled by Wrex. Terra made sure they were moving in a hurry now. There couldn't be that much more ground to cover before they caught up with the clone, but she didn't want to risk anything as long as the squad was split up, even if she did know that her friends could handle themselves.

"Mako, status report," she finally caved when they were waiting on the next door.

There were a few jumbled words from Brooks along with what sounded like a fight before the signal cut out entirely.

"Mako, come in! Where are you?!"

No response again.

"Uh, Terra?" Solana finally spoke up, "You remember that one time we watched an old human horror vid and we agreed it was a stupid idea to split up because the killer's just gonna pick you off one by one? You don't think splitting up in groups really isn't a way of circumventing that, do you?"

"I want to argue that you're as paranoid as your brother sometimes," Terra answered, "but you've both rubbed off on me."

"They'll be fine if we hurry to catch up with them," Wrex finally asserted.

Terra was inclined to agree but picked up the pace regardless. If her friends were in trouble, she wasn't about to stand back and leave them to it. The mercenary presence in these last few rooms was also disturbingly sparse, which was only setting off even more alarms in her head. Something was very wrong.

As if to prove it, Brooks finally came over the COMM. "—commander, can you hear me?"

"We read you, Brooks. What's going on up there?"

"The clone is jamming our radios. I just cut through. The others are closing in on her, but I'm hit again and pinned down!"

"We're coming. Find cover." She hurried through the last hall. No mercenaries at all in here. Either they were all backing up the clone for the final showdown or someone had called them off. The second answer made no sense, but her gut was telling her the first answer wasn't right. What was going on?

She got her answer. Halfway through the last room before the main hall that was meant to be the sight of their final stand, a barrier came down to block their path.

"That can't be good," Solana groaned.

Terra quickly hit her COMM again. "Brooks, the vault sealed us in!"

"Is there an override?" Wrex asked.

Garrus quickly scanned the area. "I'm not seeing one."

Now Terra was getting desperate. "Brooks, do you read me?! Is anyone on this frequency?!"

"The short answer is no. They're not."

Without even thinking, Terra drew her pistol and opened fire on the source of the voice. She groaned to herself when she realized the barrier was blocking that, too.

Her clone stood there, shaking her head at them dismissively. "The longer answer involves your friends being trapped in iridium vaults and forgotten for…well, forever."

Terra holstered her pistol but made a point of glaring down their opponent instead. "They're not so easily forgotten. And neither am I. Even if you take the ship, the crew's gonna know. The Alliance will stop you."

The clone gave off a considering look. "What do you think, Staff Analyst Brooks? Will the Alliance stop us?"

And there was the dagger they'd been expecting. Brooks stepped up behind the clone, propping an arm on her shoulder. "Well, I wouldn't know." She turned to glare mockingly at Terra. "I don't actually work for them."

Honestly, there was a very small part of Terra that was genuinely impressed Brooks had managed to fool them all for so long, considering Terra's instincts, Garrus' detective skills, and EDI's…well, everything. The other 99% of her was pure outrage, so much so that she practically started kicking the barrier and screaming "You deceitful, barefaced—!" After that, it descended to more turian insults that Garrus and Solana both decided were best left not translated. "Who are you really then?! And do you honestly think we won't hunt you down?!"

Brooks shrugged off the tirade. "My name doesn't matter. I never use the same one for more than a few days. And if the Illusive Man hasn't found me yet, you never will."

That did it. The fire in Terra's glare now could rival a sun. "You're Cerberus?!"

"Was. Mr. Illusive and I exactly see eye-to-eye. He's a ruthless, indoctrinated madman. Whereas I'm just ruthless."

"If it's a difference of ideals, you still could've come to me. I'm sure everyone in Cerberus knows how much I've had it out for the guy over the past year. We could've worked together to take him down."

"In a way, we already did. I was the one who put together all the dossiers for your little 'suicide mission.'"

Terra's enraged look gave in slightly to amazement. "The Collector base?"

Brooks nodded. "There was the salarian doctor, the asari justicar, the turian…" She turned to smirk at Garrus. "Nice to finally meet you, by the way, Archangel."

"Charmed," Garrus sneered.

Brooks simply turned to glare at Terra again. "They were all mistakes! We were a pro-human group turning to aliens for support. I decided I wouldn't stand for it. So I bided my time. And when I found another you who agreed…" She turned to smirk at the clone. "…I woke her up."

Terra sighed. Worse than the Illusive Man, then. And responsible for this entire debacle, at that. Had the clone genuinely agreed or had she been corrupted by her "savior"? Not that it mattered now. "Well, I'll give you this much: the plan was brilliant. Did you even need to play us?"

"Honestly? The deception was a fallback. All we needed was your Spectre codes."

Now Terra could feel the pieces fitting together. The door C-Sec had locked down, the one that she'd had to override to cross the gap to the skycar lot—Brooks had been in the system the whole time. She could've easily opened it for her, but instead she'd remotely copied the code that Terra used to cracked it. And then she'd been the one to trip every alarm on the block.

"But then you survived the hit and tracked the guns. So I had to tie up loose ends."

Terra groaned. "The arms dealer." That one was obvious in hindsight. Brooks had coaxed them into sending her through the vent so that she could get to the panic room first. No one else could've gotten through the door before they disabled the security anyway. It was just a matter of hiding a weapon or salvaging one from storage, buying time by tripping the silent alarm, and then playing dumb.

"But then your AI just had to go and recover the data! So here we are, forced to…contain the situation."

Garrus did Terra a favor and stepped up to take over the threats now. "You do realize that the minute—the second—we get out of this, the squad is going to collectively rip out your vertebrae one by one and beat you to death with them!"

"And then grind those bones to dust!" Wrex concurred.

Solana scoffed. "And that's if I don't get my talons on you first."

"That sounds very dramatic," Brooks said, "And if someone like, say, Commander Shepard made the threat, I'd be worried." She turned to sneer at Terra. "But you're not Shepard anymore."

"You had Miranda, I have her," the clone remarked as she turned to access a nearby terminal, "Mine has more bite."

Terra saw fit to debate that, but the clone's activity caught her attention. "What are you doing?"

"Setting things right. Remember this?" The clone turned on a holo display of Terra's Spectre initiation.

"You are the first human Spectre, commander," the asari Councilor had said, "This is a great accomplishment for you and your entire species."

The clone turned to glare at Terra. "Except you never cared about your species, did you? It's always been about the turians for you. You turned your back on your own people, saved more alien lives than human, and then painted yourself as a hero for it!"

Terra glared right back. "Something that you'd understand if you were on Mindoir, if you'd had a turian pull you out of there. If you were anything like me, you'd see that every life counts, no matter what they are."

The clone dismissed the entire argument. "See, I kind of enjoy being not like you. Proves I'm more than just some 'cheap imitation.' I mean, it's not like Cerberus copied everything. For one thing…they couldn't duplicate our handprint." She held up her hand, prying off her glove to show the subtle differences in her skin. "Turns out life gives it its shape, not DNA. Which is a problem for you." She accented this by leaning back on the scanner by the console.

"Spectre access accepted. Biometric identifier updated."

Now Terra saw the problem. She almost started panicking as the implications settled in.

The clone smirked at Terra's obvious alarm and turned to the door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, the Normandy needs its captain."

"Farewell," Brooks waved tauntingly, "I guess this is where legends go to die."

Right on cue, the vault sealed itself.

Solana: So…that went well.

Garrus: Clearly one of our finest moments right there, yeah.

Wrex: Refresh my memory. Didn't we used to win these things back in the old days?

Terra: She's so stuck up and vindictive. I'm not like that, am I?

Garrus: What? No, of course not, honey, furthest thing from it.

Solana: Uh, Terra? Crazy thought, but shouldn't we focus on the impregnable vault we've been sealed inside forever?!

Terra: You'd just think there'd be a bit of me in there.

Garrus: Well, there's a bit of your sense of humor, I guess, but I stand by my sentiment that you're better looking than her.

Wrex: Is that genuinely in response to the attitude or just because you got the hots for this one?

Solana: Not a lot of air in here either. Between the four of us, maybe an hour if we're lucky? …and take shallow breaths?

Terra: I mean, it does count for something that you only have eyes for me even if I had an identical twin.

Wrex: Right. Take the wins where you can find them.

Garrus: She does have a knack for balancing me that way. Just another thing I love.

Terra: Hmm…you know, I honestly wouldn't mind being stuck in here if it was just the two of us…

Solana: TERRA!

Terra: What?! …oh, right. Glyph! You still out there?!

Fortunately for them, Glyph was not only nearby but also able to hear through the walls, abandoning its scouting efforts to float over to the vault. "Yes, commander?"

"Unlock this thing and go find the others. No one steals my ship. Not even me."