A/N: so quick update. Still working on my original fiction, and still intending to continue with my fanfic, but I've hit an interesting snag. You may have noticed that my posts are only going up once every two or three weeks. That's mostly because when I switch stories, it's been so long since I last posted on it that I have to read three or four chapters just to remember what I was doing and recapture the tone. I don't think that this is the best way to go about it, so my approach is now changing.

Instead of writing three or four fics at once, I'm going to pick one and run with it until it's done, then move on to the next. This way, I'm not spending half to two thirds of my time allotted for fanfic just trying to get back into the groove of that particular fic.

I'm also taking down my WC and WC2 fics. I intend to turn my WC fic into an original story and publish that, and continue my WC2 and even a third one in that vein. That said, they'll all eventually be finished but not as fanfiction. Check out my website for a timeline of what books I have planned out to finish and when. I can't post website links here, but google 'Melaradark' and you will find it. It should come up as the top result.

So, for now in regards to my fanfiction, I will only be posting on this, the Monster Within, until it is completed, with a planned chapter release of one a week. After that, I will take up my Dragon Age fic again until *all three* currently planned DA fics are done, similarly with a 'one a week' post schedule. Then it will be Destiny until that's done, and so on.

This is just what I have to do to keep the fanfics going while working on my original work (both art and writing). It's either this, or abandoning the fanfics altogether, which I really don't want to do.

Lastly, in regards to my art: I am planning to do an 'illustrated' Dark Energy. This won't be a comic book version of the DE stories, but rather I plan on doing illustrations of key moments in all of my DE stories. I will have an ArtStation account portfolio where this art can be found (and possibly sold, working on that) and I will as well post it to my Melaradark Facebook page and website. Examples of key moments will be things like Del and Liara fighting the Maw, Del getting her phoenix tattoo, the Red Queen sealed in her Iovino trap, Goruba on the bottom of the glacier lake with Mel and Vina in their submersible armor suits, things like that. You'll get to see how I picture the rakir, the Jabberwockies, the Exo-aliens and their tech (dark asari, the living ships, etc), as well as classic 'canon' moments.

I have other artwork I'm doing including my book covers, so I won't be tossing these out every other day either, but they should be coming pretty regularly. That said, I just posted one of SC Del Shepard on a recruitment poster. The link to my current ArtStation account to see it is on my main website noted above, if you are not already a member of my Facebook or Twitter. Enjoy!

Nuff said. Let's get to crackin' skulls, shall we?

The Idenna, an old Batarian ship the quarians had repurposed decades before, hung just outside the scope of the relay that would send them to Rannoch. To Del, regarding it from behind Shrive's pilot seat, it looked almost timid despite being more than ten times bigger than the Aswa.

The ship wasn't alone. An Alliance frigate, the SSV Troy, and a Spectre vessel, the SSV Athens, were already hovering on the Idenna's flanks when the Aswa dropped out of FTL.

{Nice of you to join us!} A familiar voice came over the com before Liara had a chance to speak. {We were just starting to think you'd changed your mind.}

"I was about to say it is good to hear your voice, Ashley, but on that I have changed my mind," Liara teased back.

{Don't mind her. Ever since she was promoted and given her own command, she's been insufferable.)

Ashley's cousin, Sam Feris, piped in from the Athens. Ashley was still firmly Alliance, now a Captain, but Sam had been appointed the first human Spectre after the events five years previously. Though technically still an Alliance ship, the SSV Athens was now her command and considered as a Spectre vessel rather than Alliance.

{Hey now, give me some credit! I was insufferable for years before I got my own command.}

{Aswa, this is the Idenna,} Tali's voice broke through before the cousins could continue to pick at each other. {It is really good to see you.}

"Good to be seen, Tali," Liara said. "Do we have any more information on what is happening at Rannoch?"

{Some, and it's confusing,} Tali said. {We sent a probe through the relay while we were waiting, and it's returned with some interesting and rather troubling data.}

"What's the sit?"

{I'm forwarding the data on now so that you can analyze it, but from what we can tell, the sun is behaving very oddly. Compared with our old analysis data from before the Morning War, its energy output has decreased by over 100 quadrillion Joules per second, and it is still decreasing.}

Liara gestured at the Aswa's engineer, who had been lingering nearby with Ankah. The gesture was not needed, as she was already heading over to the console to the aft-port of the pilot's seat.

"These numbers can't be accurate," she said, almost immediately upon sitting down. "The star's mass-energy conversion hasn't changed. It's still clocking along at a rate of 3.36 million metric tons per second."

{Yes, exactly,} Tali said, her voice a little terse. The engineer, Thiredra'Gerrell (or Red, as she liked to be called) had little care for her people. She'd left them long before Osco's plague had decimated their numbers. Tali's relationship with her as a result was barely cordial; Tali believed that Red should have returned to the Fleet to help, and Red was of the opinion that the other quarians, Tali included, could kindly take a flying fuck at the nearest asteroid.

Their relationship had cooled from very heated to professionally cordial after Red joined the Aswa's crew as engineer and agreed to let Del use her DNA and tissue samples in her efforts to help the quarians recover, but Del doubted their interactions would ever be kinder or warmer than this.

{We are trying to pinpoint the cause of the discrepancy, but there is only so much we can learn through probes sent into the relay,} Tali continued. {Also, the probe scan data suggests that of the thousands of Geth stations and ships in orbit around Rannoch, less than half of them appear to be functional. Most are just drifting, and there are signs of debris where a few may have collided with one another.}

{Whatever is affecting the sun's energy is affecting the Geth too?} Sam asked. {Could that be why they sent out the distress call?}

{Possibly, but we have no way of knowing, not with just probe data.}

{I don't know that I'm comfortable going through the relay into the system without knowing if our ships will be affected as well,} Ashley said. {Last thing we need is to drop into Rannoch space and our systems all go dead.}

{I don't think that's a risk,} Tali said. {If our ships would be affected, the probes would have been as well, and they returned just fine. Many of the geth ships and stations remain functional. Tentatively, I think it may be a particular kind of cyberware attack, or a virus even, that's gotten into the Geth systems and neutralized them. It spread pretty far before they were able to come up with countermeasures against it.}

"Our systems could be vulnerable to that kind of attack as well," Liara said.

{I don't think-}

"I wouldn't worry, Captain," Red said, turning in her seat. "Geth systems and those we use are vastly different. We'll have to use translation protocols to even handshake a connection. Any cyberware attack that would take down the geth like this would be tailored specifically to them, unless for some crazy reason they have tech that's thousands of years ahead of us, at the very least."

{You mean, like the exo-alien tech that Liara has been tracking down for years?} Tali asked, irritated. {Li, we're not getting any exo-alien tech signatures here or from the probe data, but it remains a risk. What I was going to say is that I don't think the Idenna has to worry. We have developed modulated anti-geth software to prevent them from getting into our systems, and my engineers reassure me that it should halt or at least significantly delay any Pio or other hostile AI software from infiltrating our systems. We can update the Aswa, the Troy, and the Athena with this suite easily enough. It will only take a few minutes.}

Red turned back to her console, jaw tight, visibly biting back a smart response before she said, "If you'd care to send it over, I'll get it integrated into our systems now."

{Same, Tali,} Ashley said, with Sam echoing agreement a moment later.

"I don't like any of this." Ankah was still standing at the edge of the helm, arms folded. Her pale blue eyes were narrowed in suspicion as Del looked over at her. "It's got my teeth on edge."

Del hadn't caught on with Ankah to the same degree she had with Brekk. She liked the XO, and she was good at her job, but like most fertile rakir she was far more about hitting, biting, or killing to solve problems than thinking much outside the box. The doctor had to admit, though; Ankah was a lot less stiff and stuffy than Sihra had been, and a lot less formal than Sokka.

Unlike Brekk, who was black and white in coloring, Ankah was a rather fetching steel gray shade, nearly blue. She had bleached swirling white tattoos over her chest and arms, which she preferred to keep bare unless in a full hardsuit. Like a lot of rakir, she preferred weapons like blades, or the omni-bow, over rifles and guns and found them far easier to use.

She had become fast, almost immediate friends with Red, and had even shaved her hair on the side the same as Red kept hers. The only real family resemblance she had with Brekk was that they both had eyes that same pale, washed out blue.

Liara nodded slowly in agreement with Ankah. "Tali, even with the integrated protections installed I would rather the Aswa go through the relay first. We can get a better handle on the situation, and the rest can follow once we have determined there's no direct or immediate threat. We have the smallest, fastest ship of our grouping. It may be nothing more than a sophisticated virus or cyberattack that is disabling the geth, but if that's the case someone sent that virus, and they may be somewhere in the system hiding while it does its work. And it doesn't explain the reduced energy output of this system's sun."

{Reluctantly, I'm going to have to agree,} Sam said. {The Aswa should be able to get in and back out much faster than we can if need be.}

{I suppose it is our best option,} Tali said. {Maintain an open communications channel through the relay. When you give the go ahead, we'll follow you through. Those integrations should be just about done.}

"Red?" Li asked her engineer, who nodded even as she continued to input commands.

"Less than thirty seconds," she said. "By the time you're in position we should be good to jet."

"Very well. Shrive, keep the line open and your fingers nimble. I want a full scan of the system the moment we drop into Tikkun, and we may need to retreat right back through the relay quickly if there is an immediate threat."

"Leave it to me," the other asari said, already inputting her commands as the Aswa slipped closer to the relay, positioning herself.

"Captain, we're all set on this end," Red said. "Anti-geth software is integrated and fully green."

Shrive looked up from her console. "We're green across the board, Captain."

Liara only gave the slightest nod. "Captains, Admirals, we are on our way through."

As a chorus of 'good luck' filled the air from the other ships, Shrive did a low countdown. "Five, four, three, two, one; traversing."

Everything outside of the windows at the front of the helm flashed blue, and Del felt the deck shift ever so slightly underfoot as the inertial dampeners took over. The first few times it had happened on the original Aswa, she had stumbled slightly. Now, the motion was a simple, almost unconscious compensation.

You've come a long way from that terrified geneticist who hadn't even met an alien face to face before, Del thought.

Then they were caught by the relay at the edge of the Tikkun system, the streaks of light outside the window clearing to normal space again. In the distance, a blue-green world hung, no bigger than a softball. If it weren't for the configuration of continents and the smaller, almost absent oceans, it could have been Earth.

Space around it was smeared and sprayed in rainbow colors; the sunlight breaking through the Veil nebula as if through a trillion tiny prisms.

It was beautiful. From here, it also looked empty.

"We have arrived in Tikkun," Liara said, putting her hand on the pilot's seat. "Is the line still open? Are you reading us?"

{That's an affirmative, we have you,} Sam said, followed in short order by Ashley.

{Communications are clear, Liara,} Tali said. {What are you seeing?}

"With our eyes? Not much. Readings?"

"I'm not picking up any unusual radiation signatures," Shrive said from her seat, as Ankah turned to the security station behind her. "No hostile signals, no attempts at infiltration into our networked systems. There are thousands of ship and station signatures closer to the planet but all are reading geth. As the probe data indicated, more than half of them seem to be powered down and drifting, and there is debris indicating collision."

"Any signs of battle?" Liara asked. Shrive was already shaking her head.

"No ordinance scaring, weapons' signatures, no traces of any eezo core compromises. Or exo core compromises either. I'm also not getting any of our usual trace signatures of extra-galactic alien tech."

"Confirmed," Ankah said from her station. "No hostiles out there, no sign a battle took place."

"What about that odd drop off in solar energy?" Liara asked, looking at Red.

"I am reading the reported drop in solar energy output. 165 quadrillion Joules per second and that is continuing to spiral down. There doesn't seem to be anything obvious causing it."

{If it's gone to 165 quadrillion Joules per second, then the rate of decrease in output is increasing from our previous measurements,} Tali said over the com. {Do you think it's safe for us to come through?}

"We're detecting no hostiles, our systems-"

"Hold that thought, Captain," Shrive said, sitting forward a little as her hands began to dart over her board. "I'm getting a geth ship breaking out of orbit on an intercept course with us. They'll be to our position in ten minutes."

"Is it powering weapons? Attempting to engage our systems?"

"Negative, not yet. It's-…they're hailing us, Captain."

"Can you open a line and maintain our comm with the others?"

"Yes. Can do." A few more taps, and she nodded. "We're open."

"This is Captain Liara T'soni of the Galactic Council Special Tactics and Recon division. To whom am I speaking?"

Instantly the response came, the voice surprisingly mild but unmistakably synthetic. {We are Geth. We were attempting to contact the Creators. We took note of their probes.}

"We are here on behalf of the quarians," she said. "The 'Creators'. We have Admiral Tali'Zorah on the line. They did indeed send probes through to assess the situation."

{Their caution is understandable. We mean the Creators no harm. We are in need of their help.}

"To whom am I speaking?"

{We are Geth.}

Del touched Liara lightly on the shoulder before leaning forward and whispering in her ear. "Li, remember the reports from the other reality, the one Ashley was trapped in for a time? During their Reaper war, they worked with the geth. They're software, and they didn't have individual identities until late in the war. I believe the first one was called 'Legion'?"

Liara touched her hand, then lifted her voice again. "My understanding is that you do not have individual identities, but form gestalt communities when piloting your hardware platforms. Am I speaking to one such collective now?"

{That is correct. We are Geth. This platform is designated 2A93.}

"May we refer to you as 'Legion'?"

There was a pause. So far, Tali had said nothing, though she had to have been able to hear everything that was going on. Then, the voice came back.

{This is a human designation. Our databases indicate it is from an ancient Earth document. In context, it appears to be an appropriate metaphor. For ease of communication, we agree. We are Legion.}

"Legion, why did you send a distress call to the quarians?"

{We sent the distress call to the Creators because they are uniquely able to assist us.}

"Assist you with what? What is happening to the geth, and to this system?"

Another brief pause, while Legion seemed to contemplate their answer. When it came, Del felt the response was a little too self- aware and organic – a bit too human - for her comfort.

{We are being murdered.}