A/N: To the guest that alerted me to the formatting mess that was chapters 6 and 7, thank you. I've no idea what blew my formating to hell, as it's been quite some time since I've dealt with formatting on this site. Also, another note at the end.

Breathe, Shepard told herself as she instantly re-awoke to the smell and sensation of melted body armor and her own recently-charbroiled flesh. Almost instantaneously, she was hit with a flashback of her first experience with armor breaches during Basic Training-

"For some reason beyond my comprehension, the System Alliance so desires a 'live demonstration' of the capabilities of your body armor," Gunny Ellison began shortly after everyone had assembled for morning formation in the blazing Brazilian summer heat in full body armor. "Shepard," he said as Rathnait automatically snapped her head to face him as he came to a stop in front of her, based on your preference for up-close-and-personal combat with Ferenbach yesterday day-" -Gunny pulled out his sidearm and flicked off the safety in one smooth motion, "I'd say it's high time you learned just exactly how much trouble you can get yourself into, don't you think?"

"With all due respect, sir, Recruit Ferenbach told me to "fight him like a girl," Rathnait quickly retorted. She'd half-expected to be kicked out of Basic after the altercation, but her fellow recruits had told her that Ellison had watched observed her pummeling him for roughly a minute before pulling her away from the six-foot, two-hundred pound recruit with the slight resemblance of an impressed look on his face, according to the other recruits.

Ellison glanced over at Ferenbach, who had been sent straight to the infirmary with multiple broken ribs. "A statement he must surely regret now," Ellison replied. "Not sure where come from, boy, but let that be the last time you ever base your opponent's fighting ability based on it's gender." Ellison raised his sidearm, aimed it directly at the center of her chest, and pulled the trigger-

BOOM. A flash of light and what felt like a slight punch to the chest caused her to flinch slightly as her HUD informed her that both her biotics and shields were now offline. Ellison paused and looked directly at her.

"Biotics?" he barked.

"Offline, sir."

A slight smile appeared on the drill instructor's face. "Shields?" he contined, his voice slightly slower.

"Also offline, sir."

"Good," the drill sergeant answered, his sidearm still aimed at her chest. A second gunshot rang out, followed by the unmistakable sounds of armor plating evaporating into thin air, leaving only a layer of ballistic fabric between her and another bullet. "Private Shepard, it seems I've blown a hole right through your armor...would you like to chance death a third time?"

It seems I already have, sir, she thought to herself as she opened her eyes to darkness. (Prior to taking three shots in the chest from Ellison, she'd learned the hard way with the Tenth Streets Reds that the third shot would result in her suit's microframe computers releasing medi-gel to the damaged area. First time was after the Collector on the Normandy, followed by the suicide mission through the Omega 4 relay...

And blowing up whatever allowed the Reapers existence, her mind continued as held up her arms and examined them. Her current injuries indicated that she'd been exposed to multiple high-energy explosions both before and after her suit had burned through her fairly ample medi-gel supply. So much for the armor boiling away, she thought as tensed her abdominal muscles in preparations to attempt sitting up. As she did so, pain radiated up and down through her chest, but she clenched her teeth and half-lifted, half-threw her upper body into a sitting position. In doing so, a small grunt of pain escaped her throat.

To distract herself from the pain, she glanced down at her dog tags and tightened her hand around them. Anderson…time to find your body, figure out how to contact someone, and get both of us the hell off this wreck, she thought determinedly as she looked around her immediate surroundings for either her beloved M-11 Wraith shotgun or her trusty M-77 Paladin heavy pistol. I'll be damned if I leave your body to rot next to that illusive fuck, she thought as found her sidearm lying just out of reach to her right. This is gonna hurt…again. Once more, she reached out for it as pain shot through her body. Seriously, first painkillers I find, I might just OD... She placed a hand on a piece of wreckage and slowly pulled herself to her feet with a few grunts, groans, and a few choice turian curse words that she'd learned from Garrus after she'd gut-punched him during one of their sparring matches. (Certain subvocals did not translate well due to their guttural sounds, but Garrus had told her they conveyed both extreme pain and anger.)

Somewhere close by, she heard what sounded like footsteps scampering over metal, followed by what sounded like an incoherent chattering squawk. She quickly turned to face the direction that she thought the noise had come from. Shit. Did that explosion fry my translator, too? As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure darting behind wreckage. Despite being half-burned to death, Rathnait's reflexes quickly took aim at the new intruder as a fresh surge of adrenaline hit her system.

Anything trying to hide from me now is only trying to kill me at this point, she reasoned as she took a halting step towards the newcomers' last known location. Out of the corner of her eye, a faint purple glow caught her attention. She snapped her head to her right, only to see a robed figure and a flash of blinding light hit her off-guard. "What the-GYAAAH!" Shepard gasped in pain as she dropped to knees, her sidearm flying out of her hands.

"All that you have loved is gone, human…" a hoarse voice whispered both in her ear and in her mind. As it did, it was accompanied by images of a dead-eyed Garrus lying in a pool of blue blood, Joker slumped over his controls, Liara being overwhelmed by husks, Vega's body impaled upon a dragon's tooth-

Lies! she countered mentally as closed her eyes in an attempt to refocus herself. Garrus and Joker are alive, Wrath. Whatever this is, it's a trick. She opened her eyes back up to see what looked like the outline of a rachni or Citadel keeper making it's way toward her. Except it's not, she thought as the creature came into view. Similar to both the rachni and keepers, this creature walked upright on four legs and had an upper thorax that curved forward, but the resemblance stopped there, as this new alien's body lines were sharper and pointed and the rachni, as if every portion of it's body had been designed to burrow (or tear) through anything in it's path. On both it's back and upper arms, the alien sported clusters ominous-looking glowing orange spikes. As it came to a stop, it uttered a mix of a hiss and growl at her as saliva dripped from a mouth that bore an unsettling resemblance to turian mandibles.

Well, if rachni and turians ever mate, I think I've discovered what that offspring would look like, Rathnait looked around for her Paladin, which, to her dismay, had landed directly in front of where the creature had stopped. For a brief moment, her and the spiked monster her before made eye contact as it kicked her weapon somewhere into the dark with what she assumed was a laugh, judging the pointed, halting nature of the sounds.

"You'll pay-" she gasped as she summoned as much biotic charge as she could muster and released a shockwave that knocked the creature backward about three meters and caused it to stumble, "-for that," she finished as she staggered back to her feet while reaching for the turian-issue talon that she had kept in her boot. As she extracted it from it's sheath, she suddenly felt something wet and rough lash around her wrist. As she glanced down at her arm and saw what resembled a long, red tongue had wrapped around her wrist. As soon as she looked back up to follow it back to it's point of origin, she felt herself being yanked forward through the air and into the coils of what appeared to be-

A giant snake!? She'd barely had time to fully process this when the snakes coils constricted around her, just barely allowing her to breath. Shepard looked up into the face of her new captor. She'd been correct about the snake part, as this particular alien was mostly snakelike in appearance (complete with a cobra hood) with the addition of arms and what appeared to be a feminine-looking chest covered with armor plating. As she made eye contact with it (her?) it hissed angrily at her as her knife fell to the ground with a dull clank. And there goes my last weapon-

"Be careful with this one, arthenn," the voice cautioned again, this time from in front of her. Shepard looked up and saw what she assumed to be another unfamiliar alien clad in floor-length scarlet robes and an ornate bone-white helmet floating towards her. As it drifted to a stop directly in front of her, the spiked alien she'd shockwaved earlier had recovered and now stood upright, but with one major difference: her shockwave had clearly broken one of it's front legs, as the alien seemed reluctant to place any weight on it. "There is much to be learned from her."

In reply, the arthenn/snake alien made a series of hissing sounds, which were followed by rapid-fire hissing growls from the spiked creature. Her translator wasn't able to make heads or tails of what they were saying, but judging by what looked like angry pointing in her direction, it didn't have anything nice to say about her and how she had injured it. Serves you right, asshole.

Two long, pale arms emerged from slits in the robed alien's garments and crossed over it's chest. "Then you were a fool to underestimate it's power in the first place, crothu,"

Crothu, crothu…why does that word ring a bell? Rathnait thought as she tilted her head a bit to one side as she racked her brain in an attempt to recall where she'd seen this alien before-

-Liara, Javik, and Joker looking out the window at a gas giant known for it's anthropodal-shaped moon. "So Joker, you mean to tell me that humans actually did something similar in this cycle?" Javik asks.

Joker nods. "Somewhere in the mountains of Earth, they carved the faces of four former leaders of what used to be the United States into the side of a mountain…Mount Rushmore, I think they call it?"

Liara nods. "If I'm not mistaken, it was completed roughly twenty years before humans achieved their status as a spaceflight species as well-" Liara adds as she looks up from a datapad-

"Farcrothu's moons…" Shepard said aloud as it dawned on her why this alien looked familiar. The crothu/evil spike alein looked up at her and moved closer to her as it began to make the same hissing growl sounds again.

"For the thousandth, time, crothu, they cannot understand your language," the robed figure said as it floated between them, turning first to the crothu. It turned around to face her, and the snake tightened it's hold around her again, which only allowed her to take the shallowest of breaths.

"How…can…you…" she gasped as the robed creature placed one hand underneath her chin and lifted it up so she was staring straight into the wide, black opening of it's helmet. Stop struggling and focus on charging your way out of this, you idiot, she thought as she closed her eyes.

"Understand you? We are survivors of ancient races who have hidden in the shadows for untold millennia, watching…" it paused as the hand holding her chin released her. "…waiting for one who was strong enough to defeat the Old Ones, as we were unable to…and humans have always been eager to make themselves known to us…"

Rathnait felt her biotic energy surge through her, her body awash in the blue glow as she opened her eyes to see the robed figured holding a ball of of light between it's second pair of arms.

Now, Wrath, she thought, as the crothu took one last swipe at her shoulder and drew blood, orange poison seeping into the wound and burning pain spreading throughout her body before the ball of light blinded and immobilzed her-

A/N: A number of commenters were quickly able to identify what other game I pulled these new aliens from. (I 3 you, fellow nerds.) Without giving too much away, remember that there are cycles of extinction in the Mass Effect universe, and who's to say that the aliens from that series didn't exist in an earlier cycle, hmm? (No, Bradford will never appear in this story, as I don't think the universe is ready for a universe that contains both John Bradford and Garrus Vakarian.)