Hello again, everyone, and welcome back to my Gears of War/Mass Effect crossover.

Thank you all for your wonderful support once more. I deeply appreciate it. This story would not be as good as it is without your support.

For those of you wondering, you are going to be seeing a major exposition chapter here. In other words, you'll get to find out how the crew of the Normandy reacts to the Gears past.

As always, leave a review, and most importantly, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Gears of War or Mass Effect franchises. They are the respective properties and trademarks of BioWare, Electronic Arts, Microsoft Studios, The Coalition, Epic Games, etc. Any material original to the franchises belongs to their respective developers and publishers. Any material not original to the franchises is of my own invention. I do not own any music listed in each chapter. Any music listed belongs to it's original composers and/or artists.

Normandy

Departing from Feros

February 11th, 2183

The mood among Shepard and his team was somber, with the events from the previous days weighing heavily on each other's minds. mood was the most somber among the Gears, who looked not only tired, but solemn as well. Even the ship appeared to be somber, as the sound of the Element Zero core sounded muted.

If there was anything that was nightmare fuel, it's those Lambent, Shepard frowned as he recalled the battle from yesterday. I have never faced anything more terrifying than that. Even the thresher maws on Akuze are tame compared to the monstrosities that we had to face. He shivered slightly at the memories.

Then there was the fact that they had to undergo decontamination and a medical examination in order to make sure that they weren't infected with Imulsion. Thankfully, Marcus and his Gears had avoided infection due to their helmets, but Shepard had learned that he, Garrus and Wrex had trace amounts of Imulsion in their bodies, due to breathing in the spores. Fortunately, the Alliance medical ship that had come immediately upon hearing the news of a bioweapon attack had medicines powerful enough to destroy the traces of Imulsion in their system.

Garrus got lucky there too, he noted. His amino-acid chirality meant that the Imulsion was taking longer to adapt than usual. By the time, it had adapted, it was being destroyed by the anti-fungal medicines we got from the Alliance. Thank science for those things.

As for the survivors, they all had varying amounts of Imulsion infection in their system. While they could be treated, each of the survivors had enough of the fungal parasite in their system that they had to go into quarantine in order to prevent another full blown outbreak. Still, that was a small price to pay to avoid becoming a Former.

"Commander, are you looking OK?" Kaidan asked. "You look a little pale?"

"Just the anti-fungals that we had to take in order to get rid of whatever made the colonists turn into monsters," Shepard reassured his friend. It's also thanks to that Cipher, but we really don't need to worry about that right now. We've got enough troubles as it is.

"Yeah, good thing we caught it in time," Ashley frowned. "I've never heard of anything more terrifying than that. It must've been horrible for those colonists, trapped inside of bodies that they couldn't control, with begging for death being the only thing they could do." She shivered at the thought.

"I understand fully," Shepard added. Looking at Marcus, he said, "Marcus, you think you can tell us more after I talk with the Council?"

"Yeah," Marcus nodded. "It's about time we did anyways. We nearly got fucking killed down there, and it was only thanks to me and my friends that we survived. I'm sorry about Fai Dan, though. He was a good man."

"I know," Shepard nodded. "At least he can rest in peace, without that fucking Thorian controlling him." Standing up from his chair, he said, "The rest of you, dismissed. Baird, I want you to stay here with me. The Council might need some context for this."

"Got it." Baird nodded.

"Got a comm-link to a nearby buoy," Joker informed him, his own voice monotone and solemn. "Want me to patch you through?"

"Go ahead, Joker." Shepard nodded. "The Council has to know about this." A moment later, the holograms of the Councilors appeared in the room.

"Commander, we received your report," Tevos informed him. "ExoGeni should have told you about the Thorian. It would've made your job much easier."

"What worries me is this 'Imulsion' that you speak of," Valern frowned. "I've never heard of anything like it. Is there some way you can elaborate on what it is?"

"I can," Baird suggested. When the others nodded, he said, "Look, you know how fungi work, right? Well, there are certain types, like Cordyceps, that can infect certain insects and cause them to go all wonky, before it consumes them and begins to spread it's spores. You following me?"

"So far."

"Well, that's what Imulsion is to us sapient beings. It's a kind of liquid slime mold, but it can solidify and grow massive stalks, which are like the fruiting bodies on other fungi. The gold-yellow liquid that it generally looks like is like a mycelium, and the vapors it gives off are actually spores. According to Marcus' dad, it acts like a virus and fungus combined with each other. Once it gets inside of someone, it slowly reproduces inside of them, often for decades, before explosively grows and matures, taking over the organism in the process."

Hearing that was enough to cause the Councilors to realize just how dangerous Imulsion really was. Tevos was worried, Valern was shocked, while Sparatus looked as though he was about to panic. "Goddess," Tevos whispered, horror dripping from her voice. "Is… is that really true?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Baird frowned. "We had to deal with it at our colony. Nearly wiped us all out."

"By the Spirits," Sparatus frowned. "We could all be infected with Imulsion, and we wouldn't know it until it was too late!" He momentarily disappeared, likely pacing around in the comm room he was at. Reappearing, he said, "We'll have to check over every citizen of Council Space to make sure that none of them are infected with Imulsion."

"I wouldn't recommend that," Valern frowned. "That would take far too long, but I agree in that we have to find the remaining Imulsion and destroy it. The only question is how?"

"May I make a suggestion?" Baird asked.

"Go ahead."

"You're right, Valern, in that it'll take too long to check every citizen for Imulsion exposure. I can safely say, however, that once someone is infected, the only way they can spread it is through bodily fluid transfer. My recommendation, however, is to check any planet that's had a breakout of a mysterious disease, with the victims coughing up rust colored mucus. Then you can back trace everyone that's been to that planet and go from there."

"And you say this because?"

"I've seen it happen. Whenever human beings are infected, they develop a condition known as Rustlung. It's called that because whenever they cough up phlegm, the mucus looks like rust on a vehicle. I know it'll look slightly different with Turians and the other races, but you should generally look for someone that's coughing up dark-colored phlegm, has a fever, along with intense muscle pains. The only way to tell for certain, however, is to perform a biopsy of the infected individual."

"Treatment options?"

"Anti-fungals medicines will work, though you shouldn't fully rely on them to kill Imulsion. It can adapt really fast to just about anything. The only thing that it can't adapt to is targeted radiation. I'll send over what kind of radiation it is vulnerable to once the meeting's done."

Valern seemed to absorb the information like it was a sponge. After a moment, he said, "Thank you, Damon Baird. You may have just prevented a pandemic the likes of which we have never experienced before."

"Just doing my part."

"Still, to know that the colonists were the first to suffer," Sparatus frowned. "That was a fate they didn't deserve. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy." Looking at Shepard, he said, "You did well in destroying the Thorian. I know we could've benefited from studying it, but after knowing that it was using the Imulsion, I would've done the same thing you did."

"Agreed," Shepard nodded. "Do have anything else to add?"

"No," Tevos frowned. "You have done an exemplary job, Shepard. It appears as though Nihlus was right to induct you into the Spectres. Continue to do what you are doing, and give us regular progress reports when you can. Also, expect a debrief from the Alliance within a few hours." With that, the holograms of the Councilors faded out.

Now that the meeting was done, Baird asked, "You wanted to see what it was like on Sera?"

"Yes," Shepard nodded. "Any way you can?"

"Yep," Baird beamed. "The JACK unit we have has all the combat footage we recorded from the beginning of the Locust War, to the end of that war, plus some footage from a late friend of ours. As for the rest, I built a hidden camera into my goggles when JACK was offline temporarily. Even used a wireless data-link to transfer the information into my armor. You'd be surprised what I can come up with when I have free resources."

"Tell me about it," Shepard, remembering the devices that Baird had created in his spare time, noted. "I'll ask everyone to come inside in fifteen minute's time. Sound good?"

"Deal."

. . .

Around fifteen minutes later, everyone on the ground team was inside of the comm room. Shepard and the others were sitting down, while Baird, Cole and Carmine were leaning on the railing that encircled the platform the chairs were built into. Standing in the middle of the room was Marcus, who had agreed to tell them the story of what had happened on Sera. "Everyone inside?" he asked.

"Yep," Shepard nodded.

"Alright, then we can begin. I'm not the conversationalist type, but this'll have to do." Clearing his throat, Marcus began to speak. "Alright, a little over a hundred years ago, the government we served, the Coalition of Ordered Governments, got into a dispute with the Union of Independent Republics. This conflict was over the fuel we called 'Imulsion', which you now know is a parasitic organism."

"Was it over overspeculation?" Liara asked. "I don't know much about economics, but I do know that overspeculation can cause an economic slump."

"Correct. The UIR got too greedy, and the COG had lots of Imulsion. Everyone wanted it, and the UIR, since they didn't have much of it, decided to attack the COG in order to get at the stuff. That led to an seventy nine year long war known as the Pendulum Wars."

Everyone was silent when they heard that. "You fought for seventy nine years over a fuel source?" Kaidan asked.

"That's a long time to be fighting," Wrex shrugged.

"Yeah," Marcus nodded. "Not the brightest decision, but it is what it is. I served in the tail end of that war. My father developed a prototype weapon system known as the 'Hammer of Dawn.' Think of it as a giant, orbital particle beam that can incinerate anything on the ground."

"Impressive," Tali noted. "And you achieved all of this when you were on your homeworld still?"

"Yep." The body language Tali showed indicated she was genuinely impressed. "We developed it as a deterrent, and then forced the UIR to surrender. It was only six months after that war that things went to hell."

"How?" Shepard asked.

Marcus frowned. "It'd be better to show you. Baird?"

"Already loaded and ready," Baird replied. Using his omni-tool, he brought up the holographic screen in the room, then began the playback. What Shepard and the others saw forever altered their opinions of the Gears.

Scenes of death and destruction on an unimaginable scale were shown on the screen in the room. Shepard watched as a mother was killed by an inhuman being that resembled a cross between a man and a crocodile, with his blood boiling when he saw the being killing the mother's children. The team watched as soldiers wearing armor that looked like what Marcus and the others had fought on, despite being overwhelmed and outnumbered. The footage also skipped in areas, likely due to edits made to keep things short. That was when they saw a segment that had their full attention.

Moving through a hallway, a man wearing muted colored armor advanced. The hallway had water pooling on the floor, while metal bars over the windows ensured that nothing could get in or out. A series of doors were on the other wall, with each one marked with a number. That showed the place was a prison of sorts.

The footage shook as the soldier checked each corner, before coming to a particular door. Reaching up, he moved a metal panel that was over the slit in the door, allowing him to peer inside. Standing back, he said, "JACK, rip that door." There was a bleep, before JACK used a cutter to slice through the bar holding the door shut. Pulling it open, the man looked inside.

The interior cell was a mess, with the cot being unkempt, while water pooled in places on the floor. Sitting on the floor, however, was a man, with his arms resting on his knees as he looked at the soldier. "What are you doing here?" a gruff voice asked.

"Getting you out," the soldier replied, before tossing a large duffel bag on the ground. On part of the bag, the word, 'Marcus' was written on it. "Here, put this on. You'll need it."

"You could get into a lot of trouble for doin' this."

"Not anymore. Things have changed." The soldier looked around as the sound of helicopter blades echoed throughout the hallway. "We've gotta go."

"What about the other prisoners? We can't just leave them."

"They're gone already. Hoffman pardoned everyone." A moment later, the man in question walked out, snapping the last buckler onto his armored chestplate, causing blue lights to wink on. "Is that right?" Marcus asked.

"Welcome back to the war, soldier."

"Shit."

As they left, the other soldier asked, "What was that paper in there for?"

"Sanity."

Looking at Marcus, Shepard asked, "Who was that?"

"Dominic Santiago," Marcus replied, a solemn expression on his face. "He was a friend of mine ever since grade school. I never had any brothers, but he seemed to fit right in with me as though I was one. He was always coolheaded in the heat of battle. We called him Dom."

"Was he a good friend?"

"Hell yeah, he was," Marcus nodded, before a hint of sadness came into his eyes. Shepard would've asked, except for the fact that he knew that Marcus didn't like having his past pried open. As such, he remained silent as they watched the rest of the footage.

Each one of them got to see how the Gears met up, along with the monsters that they had to face as they headed for the Lethia Imulsion Facility. Everyone watched with a hint of awe as Marcus faced down a Corpser, and didn't flinch when it tried to kill him, only to sink back into the gold-yellow glowing liquid. All of them cheered when Marcus killed RAAM onboard the train, ending his life, and allowing the COG to strike back against the Locust. They saw more footage of some of the things the Gears had done.

Hovering in the air, JACK recorded what went on as the Gears, desperate to get out of the Riftworm's corpse, chainsawed their way through every organ and bone in it's body. Chainsaws roared as they cut their way out of it's flesh, with the dead creature's hide rupturing as blood poured out. Climbing to his feet, soaked in blood, Marcus groaned before falling over again. "Damnit," he groaned.

Baird, who was also covered in blood like the others, coughed and gagged as he got up. "Now this is just wrong!" he grunted in between coughs. "I'm coughing up blood that ain't mine!" He spat more out as he gathered himself.

Clambering out of the tide of blood, Marcus reached up to his TACCOM earpiece. "Control," he coughed out. "Delta here! We need uh…" more coughing. "Oh I don't know where to begin, but… Ah just get us the hell out of here!" Turning to the other two, he asked, "You two OK?"

"Fuck," Dom groaned as he sat up. "How can something like that have so much blood?" Coughing, he spat some Riftworm blood out of his mouth. "Hopefully I don't get intestinal parasites from this."

"Damn," Cole remarked, eyes wide as he looked at the dead corpse of the Riftworm. "Biggest damn game I've ever played! I thought I was gonna lose this one. Good to see that the Cole Train is still on a roll! First, however, I need ta get cleaned up." He spat out some blood too as he followed the others.

Wrex, looking at Marcus and the others, asked, "You killed a giant worm that could effectively eat entire cities?"

"Yep," Marcus nodded.

At that, Wrex looked surprised, before a fat, wide grin appeared on his face. "HAHAHA!" he shouted. "Now that is a worthy foe! Those thresher maws I had to face are just bait compared to that thing! Damn, I wish I had been there! When we're done dealing with Saren, I'll make sure the four of you are made honorary Krogan!"

"Keelah!" Tali whispered. "And I thought the Geth were worrying."

"Spirits," Garrus frowned. "Now that would make me legitimately shit my pants."

"Tell me about it," Ashley added. "All the things that Marcus and his friends did… that would earn them a fucking medal and a promotion." Shepard, who remained silent, only nodded as they continued to watch.

Everyone cheered as Marcus and his friends defeated Skorge, before using the Lambent Brumak to sink Jacinto in order to destroy the Locust Horde and their Nexus. He watched from Dom, Marcus and Baird's armor as they had to deal with the Stranded Insurgency and Lambent infection. It was then that they saw a heartbreaking scene from the Lambent Pandemic.

Standing on top of the gas station, Marcus continued to fight back as the Lambent approached their positiion. "Dom, where do you think you're going?!" Marcus shouted, fearing for his friend's life. As he helped Anya and the others escape, he heard a truck honking loudly, with the semi-truck that had the Imulsion tank on it charging towards them.

Then he heard it. "Never thought it would end like this, huh? Maria?" A moment later, Marcus' eyes went wide when he spotted Dom driving the vehicle. To his awful horror, he realized what Dom intended.

"DOM!" he screamed, even as he threw himself off the roof for the gas station. "DOM, NOOOOOOOO!" Then, it happened. As the truck flew towards the gas station, Dom closed his eyes, content as he made the ultimate sacrifice.

The semi-truck smashed into the Imulsion pumps at Mercy's refueling depot, tearing the hoses and causing the refined liquid to splatter everywhere. At the same time, sparks flew as metal ground against metal, before causing the Imulsion to ignite. An instant later, there was a loud KA-BOOOM as the fuel detonated, creating a fireball that erupted everywhere. The pressure wave from the detonation, as Imulsion was a powerful explosive, tore apart the fueling depot.

Marcus, rolling behind cover, barely avoided being killed by the pressure wave, with the dumpster he was hiding behind being caved inwards as it sheltered him from the blast. Once the fire died down, he unfurled from his fetal position, before attempting to get up.

"Marcus!" Anya shouted to him, even as she attempted to keep himself from diving into the wreck to where Dom was. "Marcus, no! It's too late to save him!"

"NO!" he shouted, attempting to tear himself free from her grasp. "LET GO OF ME! I'VE GOT TO SAVE HIM!" As if underscoring what Anya said, the cab for the semi-truck detonated an instant later. If Dom wasn't dead before, he was now.

To Marcus, it felt as though his entire world had collapsed around him. Even as Anya spoke, all he said was, "Dom…" For the first time since he became a member of the COG, tears streamed down his face as he began to cry.

Shepard, as he saw the footage, felt a pang of grief in his heart as he realized what Marcus had gone through. Looking towards the man himself, he watched as a few tears began to flow down his cheeks. For Marcus, seeing the footage forced him to relive the painful memories once more. Dom, he thought to himself. I'm sorry…

"You OK?" Shepard asked.

Wiping the tears off his face, Marcus said, "Yeah… I'm OK…"

"I know what it's like," Shepard nodded. "I lost a good friend at Akuze when the thresher maws attacked."

"What was his name?"

"Toombs. Corporal Toombs."

"I'm sorry to hear that." With that, they watched as the rest of the footage played out.

If there was one person that Shepard wasn't sorry to see die, it was Myrrah. The Locust Queen oozed contempt and hatred for Humanity and everything it had ever achieved, which made it all the more satisfying when Marcus finally killed her. Before that, however, he watched as Adam Johnathan Fenix gave his own life in order to save Humanity and give Sera a bright future.

As the Imulsion Countermeasure fully powered up, Adam Fenix looked towards the others. "It's at full power. In a few seconds, it'll fully deploy."

"So, uh Professor?" Baird asked, "Who'd you test this on?"

It was then that Adam Fenix revealed the awful truth. "On myself," he confessed to them. "I purposefully injected Imulsion into my body. I needed to see how it reproduced."

"Oh…" Anya trailed off, realizing what Adam Fenix had done.

"We saw what it did to Humans at Mercy," Marcus added. Further conversation was interrupted as several Stalks erupted around the building. Drudges came out of them, with each one moving towards the Gears as they readied themselves for a last stand.

That last stand didn't come, as the Imulsion Countermeasure deployed at that moment. A wave of blue-white energy erupted from the device, washing over the Gears and the area harmlessly. For the Lambent, however, it was death, with the Stalks beginning to disintegrate, while the Drudges screamed as their bodies began to fall apart.

Adam Fenix was also affected, with the man stumbling backwards towards the device. "Dad!" Marcus shouted.

"Marcus," Adam Fenix groaned. "I'm not – I'm not gonna make it."

"It's OK! I'll carry you!" Marcus shouted, tossing his Lancer to the ground.

"Marcus, the Imulsion is evolving in my body faster because I forced it to. I had to see how it reproduced!"

"What are you talking about?" Marcus asked as another wave of energy washed over them. Adam Fenix's face twisted into a mask of agony, even as he held an arm out. Marcus' eyes went wide when he saw glowing yellow lines were arteries and veins were at.

"Oh, shit!" Cole frowned.

"No!" Marcus shouted. "No! NO! You're not gonna die, dad! We'll get you help!"

"Marcus, it's too late for me!" Adam Fenix told his son, pain and triumph mixed his voice, along with regret. "Every cell in my body is breaking down as it should! It has too!"

"DAD, NO!" Marcus shouted.

"I'm glad I was able to see you again, Marcus," Fenix smiled one last time. "Now go! And live… for me!" With that, another wave of energy lashed out from the device. Adam Fenix screamed, a loud, roaring sound of agony mixed with triumph as the Imulsion overwhelmed his body, before the energy dissolved him into ash.

Marcus, his hands having reached out towards his father, watched with wide, dumbfounded eyes as his father's COG tags fell into his hands, while his father's ashes, and clothes, crumpled to the ground. Oblivious to everything else, he fell on hands and knees, tears streaming down his eyes as one of the few people he had loved and cherished his entire life ceased to exist. "He's… gone…" he said slowly. "He's gone!" Clenching a hand into a fist, he began to weep for his father.

His weeping was interrupted when he heard something. Looking to his left, he watched as a person he thought was dead clambered to her feet. Hate erupted in his heart when he saw Myrrah walking over. "Hubris!" she shouted.

"Hold your fire!" he told the others.

"Your father, doing what he can to save your kind, only to fall by his own hand!" Myrrah shouted. "What a pitiful fate!"

"Is that what you think?" Marcus asked quietly.

"Your father thought he had all the answers," Myrrah growled as she slowly walked over, with Marcus doing the same. "But he had none! Just clever ways to kill. The Hammer of Dawn… Jacinto… and now… this. And his arrogance, finally killed him!"

It was then that Marcus had the revenge he so deeply wanted. Pulling Myrrah close, he grunted slightly as he took Dom's knife and rammed up up through her belly and into her chest. Myrrah gasped as pain tore through her body. "You feel that?" Marcus asked, hate and grief dripping from his words. "That's for Dom, and every human you killed in this war, you bitch!" As the light faded from Myrrah's eyes, he pulled the knife out, looking at the blood coating the blade before turning to walk away.

A few minutes later, he was down at the beach, while other Gears celebrated his feat. Grief filled his heart as he tossed his Lancer down, before beginning to take his armor off. Tearing off his upper body's armor, he sat down on a rock, before pulling off his do-rag, exposing a clump of short and wiry black hair. Coming over, Anya knelt down next to him. "Whatever happens next," Anya said to him. "If you need someone, Marcus, I'm here."

Looking up to the horizon with pain-filled eyes, he asked with grief and despair, "What's left, Anya? What do we have left?"

"A tomorrow," Anya said to him. "We finally have a tomorrow." A moment later, she took his hands into hers, with the Gear returning the gesture as well. For a few long minutes they sat there, a broken Gear with his loved one, as they looked out towards the setting sun. It was the end of the Lambent Pandemic. Now, a new era was opening, an era where Humanity could finally enjoy the peace that had fought so hard to achieve. Man had fought to the end of the dark tunnel. Now, it could enjoy the light.

Shepard watched as the screen went blank moments later, with the words "END RECORDING," Nearby, the others had similar reactions. Wrex and Garrus were both awed and solemn, while Tali's eyes had gone wide. Kaidan had a sympathetic expression as he looked at the others, while Liara's eyes were wide, both in horror, as well as in understanding.

Of them all, however, Shepard was the only one that came closest to fully understanding what Marcus and the others were feeling. It's as if I've lived through a 'lite' version of what they've had to go through, he thought. Marcus and I are survivors; we've fought and fought and fought until we were in the light at the end of the tunnel.

Standing up, he said, "Marcus, I… I wish I could say that I know how you feel, but that would be a lie. You and your friends… you've been through things that made my loss at Akuze feel insignificant."

"Now you understand," Marcus nodded. "Now you understand why my friends and I are the way we are."

"By the Spirits," Garrus added, now that he had seen the unabridged footage of the Locust War and Lambent Pandemic. "No wonder you said we didn't want to know what the war was life. Now that I've seen it with my own eyes…" He shook his head. "I do not believe that my people could've survived that war. We would've been wiped out."

"And I thought my people's plight was bad," Tali added. "At least we had ships to flee too, as well as places we could head to. You and your people…" She trailed off, unable to find words to fully describe what she had seen.

Kaidan remained silent, while Ashley spoke up, "All because of that Imulsion, and that… bitch. I think you did the right thing when you killed her, Marcus. That bitch had to go!"

"I agree," Wrex nodded. "She was just as bad, if not worse, than the people that made the Genophage. Still, you were on better terms with your father than I ever was. The only thing he and I would've seen eye to eye on was killing the Locust and Lambent."

"Goddess," Liara gasped, pulling herself out of her stunned stupor. "Such death and destruction. You and your people have been through so much, Marcus. What you've seen, what you've experienced, would've driven lesser men mad, or to suicide."

"Yeah," Marcus agreed. "We fought like hell to survive." Turning to Shepard, he said, "That's why we decided to help you, Shepard. Sooner or later, this is going to happen, but we're going to ensure that it never gets this bad ever again."

"I agree," Shepard nodded. "We'll stop the Reapers, and do our best to prevent something like the wars you guys had to go through from happening here. That starts with stopping Saren, and ending Sovereign for good."

"Hell yeah!" Cole nodded. "We'll teach that bonefaced asshole a thing or two about war!"

"That we will. Get some rest, all of you. You've earned it."

(Author's Q&A)

blaze501st: Possibly. Don't worry, though. The Gears are going to make sure that, if that eventuality happens, Shepard and his team will be well prepared.

OmegaDelta: Don't know yet. That's one nice thing about being an author of a fanfiction: you can eventually reveal what really happened.

Guest #1: Possibly. Just depends on if I know the franchise that I'll be crossing the other over with well enough.

fresh prince1: They definitely will. You don't take chances when it comes to the Lambent.

Guest #2: Thank you.

SpaceCommander-09: That would probably result in the Gears targeting the Flood first, then the Lambent.

edboy4926: Definitely. I'll be considering those ideas as well. Maybe this event will get the Council to stand up and get to work.

MarauderPrime12: Yep. That it did.

RandomReader: I understand. Still, I did not wish to come of as condescending or rude. I was just presenting a possibility, nothing more.