Everyone is still in shock about the realization the reapers are coming. I am shocked by how their indoctrination affects being at a much deeper level than I anticipated. I do not believe the reapers know what their technology is doing to our fundamental parts. How could they? They probably think it's just some brainwashing technique. At least this is what I am telling myself until I get more information. This upsets me at more core. A strange hand rests on my back.

Tali asks "Will you be alright? You look troubled. I don't like it."

"I'll be ok. I'm well… I can't believe it" I blurt out.

"I know. Who could have imagined the reapers are real" she said.

I move closer to Tali and whisper "that isn't what I'm concerned about. You know a bit about my special talents. What I felt with the indoctrinated salarians, this is much worse than it seems."

"Worse than a machine race who will eradicate all life in the galaxy?" she sarcastically asks.

"Perhaps" I do not want to concern her more than I already have.

We arrived at the breeding facility. We had to kindly ask the geth security to leave the area with our bullets. I'm so glad they listened. They can be such a rational people. Afterwards Shepard radios the Normandy and offloads the nuke. Kaiden stays behind to arm it. Shepard, Tali, Wrex and I decide to meet up with Ashley and Garrus. They are having a challenge with the geth. The salarians are exhausted and those two are the only ones keeping it together. We ride the elevator that will take us to the pathway in the direction of the AA towers. I am not letting anyone die. I know I should not change things, but I already did with the thorian surviving and they're the first friends I had in a long time. If I have to reveal my true nature, then so be it!

We exit the elevator and see a geth ship bringing reinforcements. The geth are at the bomb site. Kaiden contacts us over the radio.

"The geth are here! There are too many Shepard!" Kaiden frantically yells. We hear the volley of gunfire and biotic blast nosies in the background.

"Can you hold them off until we get back?" Shepard asks.

"Negative commander. I'm activating the nuke. There it is done. Go get Garrus, Ashely and the salarians" Kaiden said. Shepards eyelids widen.

"DELAY that! We can handle ourselves. Go get Kaiden" Ashley said.

"AAHHHHH! My leg is broken!" Kaiden cries.

"Shepard. I can go save Kaiden while you guys help the others" I said. Shepard hesitantly considers it.

"You can't deal with those geth by yourself" Wrex states.

"Shepard, please. I can do this" I beg. He wants to say yes, I can see it in his facial expressions, his rational mind is telling him this is a bad idea. We have no time. I turn back and start to run.

"*********!" Tali screams.

"********* you get back here!" Shepard orders. I ignore him. I enter the elevator and pace around. I can handle the geth easily. I finally get to drop my restraints. The door opens and I see a dozen geth. Their focus is on Kaiden who is slumped over and desperately defending the nuke until it goes off. Kaiden sees me and shouts "NO! Get out of here!"

I lower my firearm and raise my right hand. I open the energy center in my palm and unleash a wave of tremendous emerald energy that vaporizes all the geth. There is nothing left behind. Not even dust. I rush over to Kaiden, speechless. I look at his legs. His left tibia is broken into two. The upper part is poking out of his skin. There is blood everywhere. He lost a lot. Luckily, I can fix this. I first block the pain signals from reaching Kaiden's brain. I then convert the matter in his broken bone into pure energy. I have all the energy I need. Now I need a template. I use his right tibia as a model and mirror it in my mind. I create a new tibia bone and place it back inside him. Kaiden's face is in disbelief. I give him some of my energy to accelerate his muscle and skin cells reproduction to heal the wound. His leg is as good as new. I pull Kaiden off the ground and tell him to run. He is still unsure what is going on. His survival instincts are ignoring his rational mind and ordering him to run. We beamline it into the elevator and we take a moment to catch our breath. Nothing like running away from a nuclear explosion to get the blood pumping. I feel this light pressure like sensation at the side of my head. Kaiden is uncomfortably staring at me, but he remains silent. He is probably in shock from the lost blood. I didn't think I'd have time to replace it, also I could risk adding too much. As soon as the doors open, we sprint towards the AA towers. We must have run for at least twenty minutes, but it felt like five. Adrenaline is amazing. We arrive and see everyone else engaged with Saren.

Shepard turns around and is about to shoot us until it realizes it's us. He flashes a smile. Saren also notices us. He tris to attack us but Kaiden threw a biotic shield up just in time. He collapses onto me. That last biotic move took everything he had left. I move his right arm over my shoulder and drag him to cover where Wrex is. I lay him down and make sure he is safe.

"********* TAKE HIM DOWN!" Shepard screams at me. Oh, hey I just realized the thing Saren is flying on looks like what the green goblin rode.

"Shepard, you know how temperance is very important to me? Maybe we should talk this out" I said. I want to pass the speech check.

"OH COME ON!" Shepard screams in frustration.

"What is there to talk about human? You spoke to sovereign himself. I know because you triggered an alarm when you entered my office. We can't fight the reapers. I already discussed this with the pretend spectre the council sent. There is no use" Saren said.

"How do you know we can't fight the reapers? Did you even try?" I ask.

Wrex asks "What are you doing?"

"Buying time and seeding doubt" I explain.

"Sovereign showed me visions of the reaper fleet. I studied his capabilities. Our most sophisticated ships cannot compare to them" Saren said.

"He showed you visions?" I ask.

"Yes. the cybernetics upgrades he bestowed upon me allowed my mind to see whatever memories sovereign wishes to share" he explained.

"But did you see the fleet with your own eyes?" I ask. This makes him pause.

"No, I haven't. I know it is real as sovereign revealed to me" he said.

Sarcastically I said "Yes. We all know advanced mechanical beings are utterly incapable of video editing." He must have thought this before, I see him trying to bury his feelings. He feels conflicted. I can sense it. His body is generating a large amount of raw power, which is being converted into fear. He really is terrified of the reapers and not using sovereign as a tool in order to win control over galaxy. I hear a faint high pitch noise.

"Enough of this! No more debates" Saren flies off. The battle is over. There is not much time left until the macgyvered nuke goes off. Shepard radios the normandy for an emergency pick up. Within a minute I can see the normandy burst through the clouds. I pick up the sleeping biotic and group up with everyone. The ship is over our heads and slowly descending. The wind it generates blows all the dust up. Joker's baby is on the ground and the ramp is being lowered. I walk to the ship with Wrex.

Wrex asks with surprise in his voice "How did you survive?"

"I told you I hold back. I let you underestimate me so I can see that adorable surprised perplexion" I said gleefully. Wrex nods. Then he punches my shoulder. He put some real force behind it. My shoulder really hurts. It's throbbing. What the heck man?

Liara and Chakwas, along with other staff members carry the injured salarians inside. Dr. Chakwas sees me carrying Kaiden and orders me to put him inside her office. I waste no time and speed walk to the elevator. I extend my pinky and carefully press the button while preventing Kaiden's head from hitting the wall. I step inside the slowly ascending metal box. To pass time, I play elevator music inside my head. I look down and the exhausted soldier and think to myself.

I will never get a better time to draw something on his face.

The door opens. Pressley sees us and goes to open the doors to the doctor's office for us. I lay Kaiden down on the examination table and thank Pressley for his assitance. The whole room vibrates and the gravity shifts. The normandy begins to take off. I prevent Kaiden from sliding off and feel a huge THOOM! The nuke went off. Man, I miss all kinds of fun things to help these people. I won't let Kaiden live this one down. Pressley returns to his duties. I stay with Kaiden for a few minutes to see if he'll wake up. In the meantime, I play with doc's tongue presser until it breaks in half. I blame the manufactures. A few minutes later, Shepard comes to see his best friend.

"How is he?" the commander asks.

"He is exhausted. He lost some blood, and we ran to the towers. I think he'll be fine. I went through worse" I said.

"That is a relief. I am happy to hear it" Shepard smacks the side of my head.

"OWW!" What was that for?

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?! I gave you a direct order to return and you disobeyed. You could have died. It would have been hell enough to lose one person, but two?!" Shepard is pissed. I have never seen him so angry. He is invading my personal space and I see a vein popping out of his forehead. I know what I should do. I stand tall, my chin up, and place my hands behind my back. I knew there would be consequences. I take this like a true man.

"I understand commander Shepard. I disobeyed a direct order because I wouldn't have let my friend die when I knew I could have saved him. I'll accept any punishment you give me even if it includes banishment from the Normandy" I said. I really hope he doesn't do that. I like, No, I love it here. I love how I fit in this crazy bunch and how close we all became. I don't want to leave, but I can't get everything I want. It might be my time to leave this universe and move onto another place.

"You didn't know for sure you could have saved him. You were lucky this time. I have no idea what I am going to do with you. I'll decide that later. I have to deal with the salarians. As for now" Shepard takes a step closer. I close my eyes and expect the pain of a punch or a slap. I turn down my pain resistance. It is called a punishment for a reason. If I get hit. I get hit. What I wasn't expecting was a pair of arms around my neck and Shepard's body heat on my torso.

"Thank you for saving my best friend" Shepard's voice conveys gratitude and relief. I return the hug.

"You're welcome, Shepard, although you don't need to thank me.I saved myself" Shepard holds me closer. I know how much he would miss me. I'm his best friend, the title belongs to me. His hold tightens. He must be very grateful. Man he gives strong hugs. Wait, that vertebrae isn't supposed to go there. My ribs are bending. Shepard needs to ease up. My airway is collapsing.

"S-shepard.. yo-your chokin me" I'm lucky I was able to speak. He lets go.

Shepard opens his mouth, about to say something. Maybe he is promoting me, and then quickly turns around and exits the room. I think he had enough headaches today. My promotion can wait. I follow him and we return to the cargo bay. The salarians are wiped out. Kirrahe briefly tells us how to take care of salarians. What their body temperature is supposed to be and what to do with battle injuries. I was in charge of getting ice. I emptied the freezer of all the cubes and even grabbed a package of frozen chicken nuggets. We were that desperate. I was planning to eat those. Still might.

I close the door and see Tali's reflection in the silver surface of the fridge. I turn around and she hugs me. Her plexiglass face shield lays in my left pectoral muscle. Her hands reach around and meet at the center of my back. I feel a warmness inside my body that I never felt before. I like it. I wrap my arms around her boney yet strangely cushy figure.

I softly said "Hey it is ok. It is over now. What is wrong Tali?"

She furiously said "Don't ever scare me like that again!" oh crap I forgot about her feelings. I was so focused on saving Kaiden I kind of forgot about everyone else. Between Wrex punching me and Tali's amazing hugs, I must hang out with quarians more often. I pull her head off my chest and aim her face towards my eyes. "You don't have anything to fear happening to me" I said. I can't see her face. She exhales and I see her shoulders lower. A good sign she is letting go of tension. I quickly realize how intimate this moment feels and so does she. We step away from each other and try to ignore what happened. I grab my chicken nuggets and head down. We don't speak another word.

We tend for the salarians, except Wrex who refuses to help the people who sterilized his race. I can't say I blame him. While turian-krogan relationships are still very tense, they cooled down enough for professional connections, most salarians do not treat the krogan very nicely. some of the STG soliders whispered things I will not repeat. I give the last resort ice pack to a salarian, who wasn't being a jerk, for him to ice his horn for some reason. Liara and Chakwas do most of the work. While Dr. Chakwas was in charge, Liara had more years taking care of salarians during her expeditions. After a long day of driving, hiking, discovering a genocidal machine race determined to harvest us, and sprinting, we have a very quick debrief. Kirrahe joins us.

"Whatever I say must stay in this room until I decide what to do. Do you understand?" Shepard eyes all of us and ends at Kirrahe.

"I'll only inform my superiors," he said. Shepard reluctantly agrees.

"We found another prothean beacon in Saren's office. More information was downloaded into my brain. Captain Kirrahe I'll quickly explain" Shepard is interrupted by Kirrahhe.

"When we reconnected to the extranet, I received a message from my superiors. In it they informed me of what you have been through. I know just about everything relevant" he said. He knows? The salarians know?

"This is why I say to never trust a salarian" Wrex said. We all kind of look at each other, wondering what they know about us. Fortunately, he does not seem interested in me. I think my secret is safe, except for Kaiden. I'll do that song and dance later.

"Anyway… afterwards… We talked to…. We talked to a reaper. A real living reaper. Through a hologram. It is Saren's ship. The reapers are real, and Saren's ship is one of them. It said they created the mass relays, not the protheans, and that they wiped the protheans out, with who knows how many civilizations before them. Some kind of cycle that takes place every 50,000 years and the clock is almost up. They are looking for something called the conduit. Whatever it is, we have to find it first" Shepard cannot believe the words he is saying or that any of this is real.

Garrus, Ashley, Liara, and Kirrahhe are speechless. They take a moment to process. Kirrahhe is silent and unmoving. Ashley hunches forwards and takes slow deep breaths. Garrus's mandibles move up and down. Liara seems almost… giddy?

"I knew they were real. I knew my hypothesis was correct. Shepard, you said you found another beacon? We should meld minds once more. Perhaps what you learned can fill in the gaps" she offered. Shepard agrees and they make eternity babies or something.

"ILLOS! The conduit is on Illos. I don't know what it is, but I know it is there" Liara excitedly said before she has to sit down. Shepard asks if she is ok. She replies she is fine.

"Illos is in the terminus system, outside council jurisdiction. You are going to have trouble getting permission even as a spectre" Kirrahe warned.

"We have a saying. Sometimes it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission" the commander said.

"Do you forgive me for driving you crazy?" I ask.

"NO!" Shepard jokingly shouted.

"Doesn't always work" I said.

"In any case, we have to meet the council immediately. I'll contact my people to pick up my men at the citadel and request a joint session with the council. I advise you do the same. I am well respected among the council. With the both of us, they'll have to listen" Kirrahe said. He is pressing his luck.

"Alright. Everyone is dismissed. Joker, take us to the citadel" Shepard said.

I leave the debrief room and observe all the brave salarian soldiers. They are exhausted and injured, yet I see a mental strength in their eyes. Hang on a second, where are my chicken nuggets?

Several hours pass and my body needs a recharge. I take a quick shower to wash away the sand off my body and head to my room. I walk in and see Kaiden awake. Oh, crap here we go. He looks up and stares intently at me. He remembers. I try to ignore him and crawl into my covers. I can feel him watching me.

"What the hell are you? My leg was broken. I know because my pants have a hole and blood stains. Who are you?" Kaiden asks with fear in his voice. I sit up, look him in the eyes, and speak to him from the bottom of my heart.

"Kaiden, you know I am a bit weird; I have my secrets and would respect that if this stays between us. I never once lied to anyone here. What happened today was not supposed to happen. I saved you because you are my friend. Something I haven't had for a very long time. I'm not evil, mischievous sometimes, but I like to think of myself as a good person. Now I am going to leave what happened today in the past, but one day I will bring this up again and when I do, I need you to understand what is happening is very important. It won't make sense until it does. Please keep this our secret" he is still shocked.

"Are you even human?" he asks.

"Yes. I was born a human and things happened how they happened" this seems to ease him a smidge.

"What happens now?" he asks.

"What I want is to continue the mission. I want to enjoy life and found a purpose for the time being. I don't like talking about my unique side with others because it is a massive migraine. Please don't treat me any differently" I ask.

Kaiden nods. "Ok. I still don't understand what happened, but I won't press it any further. I guess I owe you that much. I had enough crazy for today. I'm going to bed" Kaiden turns off his lamp and rolls over. I lay down mentally exhausted. This is difficult, a normal person knowing about my special talents. Although this is one of the better reactions, I have gotten from someone. I close my eyes and take a short, relaxing breath.

"Are we going to be ok?" Kaiden asks.

"Shepard has been making a lot of good choices. Things will be challenging but when is it not? I think things will turn out ok. I know they can." I go to sleep. oh, hang on.

"One more thing, now that you know, I do not need sleep. So, from now one I will be meditating instead. I don't want you to freak out if you get up in the middle of the night and see me sitting in the darkness. We cool?" I said.

"I-I uhhhhh. Do whatever you want. Just don't wake me up" Kaiden turns over and goes to sleep. I get off my bed and sit on the floor. I focus on my breathing for the rest of the night. Slowly and softly I breather as to not disturb my roommate. With the time I have now, I ponder about the Reapers. How are they able to affect souls? the technology to even detect the building blocks of our beings is lightyears away. While technological levels are not a requirement for ascension, the level needed to confirm its existence makes quantum physics look like the four elements. wait, the reapers absorb the civilizations every 50,000 years. Did one of them find something?