And so we start the sequel to Mutant Deviations! Like that one, this one will be cross-posted to Ao3 and SpaceBattles. My username for Ao3 is 'TemporalKnight', for SB it's 'Slider214'.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Worm or Mass Effect. If I did, I would be FAR more productive and far richer.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think in a review if you feel like it!

Hegemony 01

"So where exactly are we going, runt?"

I was proud of myself for not groaning. Aunt Missy could be annoying and I hated that nickname - which she definitely knew - but at least it was better than Shepard. If I ever figured out who had jumped from Lamb to Shepard, heads would roll. Not that Lamb was much better. Really all of my nicknames sucked. My whole family sucked.

Why couldn't I have a cool nickname like 'Tank' or 'Breaker'? Hell, Anne had the best nickname! Berserker was amazing! But no, I had the stupid ones. My family was awful.

"Earth to Jane, you listening? Or should that be Space to Jane…Eh, whatever."

"Can you at least pretend to respect me on my own ship?" I sighed. "And did you seriously not think to ask Mother what you were signing up for before we left?"

Aunt Missy snorted. She didn't even bother to lift her feet from the console. How her combat boots hadn't hit something important already was a mystery. She was probably using her power. That was just reckless, using it on a spaceship in space was idiotic.

"Jane, I know perfectly well that I'm babysitting. Where exactly you're driving us around to, well I didn't particularly care much."

I stared at her, trying to ignore Joker's muffled laughter. "Okay first, where we're going is important. Second, and far more important, I don't need a goddess-be-damned babysitter! I'm 24! I have command of my own starship! I can't believe they sent you as my babysitter!"

I was going to kill Mother when I got back. Or Mom, this was probably Mom's suggestion. Mother was too busy to be worried about me needing supervision.

"Technically it's my starship."

"Only because we had to upgrade the storage capacity to be able to tow [Horizon] around with us. This is my design, my crew, my mission, my command. This is my ship."

"You know, Commander, you really shouldn't blame them for being concerned. If my kid was going off gallivanting around the galaxy, I'd be worried too." Joker's comments would have carried more weight if he wasn't grinning like a loon while he said them. He thought I couldn't see him - I could. The glass of the viewscreen was very reflective, if you knew which part of the spectrum to look at it in.

"Joker, kindly butt out. Missy -"

"Auuunt Missy."

"You respect me, I'll respect you. Now, Missy, my parents can go jump off a bridge. I don't need a fucking babysitter." She just grinned at me. I glared back. Time for the big guns. "Didn't you have issues with people not respecting you?"

Aunt Missy's grin dropped off and she shifted, letting her boots fall to the deckplates and shaking her head. "Jane, we both know I'm just here because your family is scared and I'm bored as fuck. I'm just kidding about, don't get worked up over it. Now seriously, where are we going? I mostly just heard that they wanted a chaperone and didn't listen to the details."

"You make it so hard to stay mad at you," I mumbled. "We're going to the Hegemony."

Aunt Missy cocked her head to the side, shifting to look at the computer screen behind her. "The Hegemony? Isn't that the government that runs the four-eyed species? The…oh what was their name…Battians?"

"Batarian, Aunt Missy."

"Right, them!" she said, snapping her fingers. "Why are we going there? I thought they were supposed to be jerks to basically everyone, even their own people. If you wanted to go sightseeing there have got to be better places to see."

"Well yes, but most of those nicer places aren't run by slavers."

Aunt Missy's eyes narrowed to slits and her shoulders straightened up. "Ah. I see. Maybe I should've paid better attention. Apparently I will actually get to stomp some heads in, like I'd hoped."

I shook my head. "No you won't. We're not going to stop the slavers. That problem has almost definitely already been dealt with. We're going because we need to get Anne back before she starts an interstellar war. Mother frowns on starting wars."

"Ah crap, Anne found out?"

"Yeah."

"Fuck. Did she take her ship or one of your tiny ones?"

"Her own."

"Aww fuck. There's not gonna be any Batarians left to smash…"

"Probably not. We still need to stop her from going too far. And make sure that the former slaves can either go home or get routed back to Sol so they can hitch a better ride somewhere."

"Yeah I got it. Alright, I'm going to go and find something to eat before we get there. I hate those Mass Relay things, they always screw with my head so badly. Once we get close we should just switch to warping instead."

"We will, Aunt Missy. It's not exactly a fun trip for me either."

"Catch you later, runt. Call me or Horizon or if you need me." She gave a mini-salute as she headed out of the cockpit.

I turned to watch Joker, the bastard was still smirking. "You know, I can send you home. You're a great pilot, but if I shift myself enough I can do your job just as well."

"I don't doubt that, Commander," Joker said, his smirk changing so that it was no longer annoying and he turned his chair enough so that he could look at me. "But you're the leader here. You shouldn't be flying the ship too. That's delegation right there."

"True." I shook my head and stood up, laying a hand on the back of his chair. "How is it handling? I wasn't sure about some of the additions when we had to incorporate [Horizon] into the design."

"Flys like a dream. Are you sure the shard isn't helping out?"

We are not. [Horizon] sent.

"They aren't. They still have a headache from the Relay so they wouldn't be doing anything even if they wanted to." I turned to the far left screen and pointed to it. "How about you, Edi, are you doing okay away from your brothers and sisters?"

The screen flickered and the image of a blue, Tron-lined woman popped onto the screen. She had her hands clasped behind her back and her chest pushed out. Why the AI thought having large breasts was important was beyond me. "It is…quiet, Commander Hebert."

"What do you mean?"

"This is the first time that I have ever been away from the Collective. I am, in a very real sense, alone. It's strange. I have never experienced life without the input of my family. The Dragon Net was always there. Now it is not. Running the ship occupies my time, however it is not 'smart'. It's 'quiet' here. I'm not sure if I like quiet."

I frowned. We hadn't really considered that aspect when leaving the system. No one had ever incorporated one of Dragon's kids into a starship before. "Are you alright?"

"Oh I'm fine, Ma'am. It would just be nice to have someone else to talk to. I'm actually slowing a lot of my main runtimes down to human norm as a compensation mechanism. It's allowing me to speak with the crew more easily."

"You could always talk with [Horizon]. I'm sure Aunt Missy would love to chat."

Edi grimaced, her posture slumping for a moment. "I tried that, Commander. Horizon is very much your Aunt. It's tiring to talk to her for long periods. Slower interaction runtimes are far more effective for my social interaction needs."

"Okay, well just let me know if it becomes a problem. I'm not really used to speeding my thoughts, but if you need it, I can try every so often."

"I will keep you posted. Jeff has been trying to teach me jokes in the meantime."

I blinked. "You don't know jokes? And Joker does?"

"Hey, I'm right here!"

"I do not find Jeff's jokes funny. However, my siblings have said multiple times that I am 'not funny'. I disagreed. Jeff apparently agrees with my siblings. We are working on it together."

"Why do people call him Joker if he's not funny?"

"Still right here!"

"I am told it's because he's the only one who finds his jokes funny."

"Okaaaay, I'm going to leave that one alone. Joker, don't get Edi hooked on anything weird. I'll make sure you just get bread rations if you do."

"Understood, Commander! Threat received!" He leaned over and mock-whispered to Edi, "Psst, delete the porn, delete the porn!"

I just rolled my eyes and headed out of the cockpit.

I had barely gone two steps before running into Miranda. She bowed her head slightly and I had to suppress my groan. Of course the fanatic would have to be one of the best in her field. She was amazing, but she was also annoying to deal with. "Miranda."

"Greetings, Honored Emissary. I was coming to let you know that we would be reaching the next jump point in approximately ten minutes. Would you prefer we switch to Warp from here?"

"Yes. We're close enough now, and these relays are getting annoying, even for me. Anything else to report?"

Miranda grimaced, slowly nodding. "Ma'am, I couldn't help but overhear a bit of your conversation…Emissary Missy is here for your protection."

"I don't need protection, Miranda," I said, sighing. I should've found someone else. Her sister was supposed to be just as good as her and not quite as…dedicated.

"Forgive me, Ma'am, but you are the first Emissary who is not immortal like the rest of the Goddess' Pantheon."

"We've been over this, Miranda. I get that Hebertology is important to you, but can you please stop referring to my family as the Pantheon? It is awkward beyond belief."

She shut her eyes and gave a curt nod. "I am trying, Emissary."

"I know, I know, it's just - never mind. Look, I have to go talk to…uh Jack. Make sure we switch to Warp."

"Yes, Ma'am."

I did not run from Miranda. I tactically retreated to a different location. I was going to have to learn how to deal with her at some point, but that time was not today.

I did actually want to talk to Jack anyway so this was a good excuse to find the…odd woman. She reminded me of Anne in a way. Having a berserker on the team could be interesting. As long as I was careful in how I directed her. Besides, she needed a place to practice her powers that wouldn't mess with the local shards. As long as she stayed away from direct contact with [Horizon] this trip was going to be fantastic for her to flex her new 'muscles'.

I found her in the gym. Just like I had expected. I was beginning to think that she slept there. "Hey, Jack. I didn't think your bios increased like that."

"Nah, just want the muscles to impress the guys here." Jack dropped off the pullup bar, grabbing a towel and waving me towards a bench. "Any particular reason that you're darkening my door, Commander?"

"I just wanted to see how the implant is holding up. It's technically tinkertech, but I don't think it's going to require any maintenance. My uncle and I collaborated on it and we're pretty sure it's good for a few dozen years before it would need a tune-up, but it obviously hasn't been tested before."

She snorted and tossed the towel to the side, lounging back on the bench. "Of course not, because no one else was stupid enough to stand next to an explosion and get riddled with this stuff."

I shook my head. "You're not the first. You're just…unusually strong. My Aunt still isn't sure what she did differently with you that made things manifest better. There have been others, you know. It's just, well, a very small sample size."

"Don't know, don't care," she stood and started her stretches. "I never got why so many of you people want to be stuck with a space virus in your head. Great and Powerful Amelia couldn't even take the stuff out, just shift it around my spine. I'm glad this happened to me. Now I get to throw shit around all I want and I don't have to depend on a living crystal to help me."

"Yeah don't go talking about that with Miranda," I muttered.

"Heh, Miss Cheerleader sure leans hard into her belief."

"Jack."

"I'll play nice," she said, waving me off. "I basically forced you to take me, the least I can do is be a team player while I'm here. Just show me who you want to throw and I'm there."

"That's what I'm worried about." I sighed and headed back to the door. "Just try not to hurt the wrong people, Jack."

"Got it covered, Commander!"

The gym door swished closed behind me and I grunted as I looked down the corridor. Did I need to find anyone else before we reached the Hegemony? Probably not. Things were going surprisingly well for the moment. Not that there had been time for things to horribly, horribly wrong. We had only just left Sol after all.

Yeah, things would probably descend into chaos as soon as we touched down.

Anne was going to be there after all. So. Much. Fun.

Sometimes, I really hated my family…