A/N: In terms of OC submissions the more you can tell me about where they would be recruited, what their reputation might be, their opinions, how they feel in this current socioeconomic climate the better. If not I can come up with things, just let me know if you have preferences! Shepard OCs are welcome! Just tell me what they'd be doing if they'd never become a Spectre and give them a new surname. The OC intro'd in this chapter belongs to Swiny1262!


Prue checked her two Paladins for any tampering now that she had them back on her person and was out of the confines of the cell she was in hours prior, while the two waited at a table for the ramen she'd ordered.

Unlike Mercy's synthetic self, Prue needed to eat, and was starving from being detained as long as she was. The meal was on Mercy, and the bounty hunter was hardly complaining. Wielding the carbon fiber chopsticks provided to deal precision strikes on her massive bowl of noodle soup as a seasoned ramen eater while Mercy sat back patiently.

She thought back to the taste of food as she inhaled the smells, it didn't illicit desire to consume as she recalled it once had, she'd loved food and cooking back when she was alive, having kept her mother's traditional Indian recipes alive taking time to whip them up in the Normandy's galley while Gardner worked on the plumbing. It had been a huge part of dealing with her mother being assigned to active duty time and time again after her father died when she was a child.

"I'm getting another." Prue informed her bluntly, having inhaled her now empty bowl, Mercy found herself chuckling and waving it off to let her know she could get as much as she wanted.

Tapping the non-business end of one of her chopsticks on the edge of the table after she punched in her next order, Prue's ever scrutinising gaze lifted to Mercy, leaned back in her seat with a foot on her knee.

"How long will it take?"

"Probably eight minutes or so judging by the smells from the kitchen." Mercy answered without missing a beat, and Prue leaned her jaw on her palm.

"I mean the cure."

"That I can't answer immediately, a few months at least, years at most." Mercy admitted with full disclosure, leaning an arm over the backrest. "It is a priority. And data is being compiled at this stage."

"What does that even mean?"

"Quantum computing stuff. Checking billions of years of data for anything useful. A previous cycle may have cracked it and the data was then archived by The Intelligence."

"You mean you?"

"Is a processor or computer the whole extranet?" Mercy answered the question with a question. "Broad comparison. But I'm more of a vessel."

"Then what if the Reapers go bad again?" Prue's tone hardened.

"They won't," was the easy answer from Mercy.

"But if you're just a vessel—"

"Not all Vessels are created equal. And my influence is a prioritised one." Mercy trailed off, finding it kind of difficult to explain in more words than that.

Prue sighed, visibly conflicted at the information given to her. "I don't know if I can trust that. Not completely."

The waitstaff handing her another bowl gave them precious pause to consider their conversation while Prue ate. And Mercy lifted a hand to wave the waiter from leaving yet,

"Plum wine, please."

"Can you even get drunk?" Prue interjected with another question and Mercy chuckled,

"If I can't, it won't be from lack of trying. That's for sure." She smiled at the waiter dropping off the small bottle and opened it to start chugging straight from it. Taking a break at a third in she rested the bottle to pose a question to Prue this time.

"What do you need a cure for?"

"None of your business." Prue responded between eating egg, pointing chopsticks at her in emphasis, "you're literally the embodiment of the destructors of the galaxy for probably billions of years. And you want me to spill all my guts to you?"

"We were friends before."

"That was before the aforementioned came into play. You gotta earn my trust. Hell, everyone's trust. You don't get to sit on the Reaper throne without taking on all the life debt that comes with it." She declared, and Mercy couldn't really argue with that.

She stood now as a prophet of the very thing that had killed countless, too many for even AI to keep track of. Mercy had been a paragon, and this cleansed the intelligence's disregard for life and lack of morality, but it couldn't erase it's bloody history.

"The best I can do is try." She admitted, "I'll start by rescuing everyone the Leviathans took, and making sure they can't get anyone else."

"How do you plan to go about that?"

"Carefully." Mercy lifted her wine in cheers and chugged down the rest. The two enjoyed Prue's mealtime in silence for a fair while without interruption until Mercy received a message on her omni-tool.

'I took the liberty of checking Alliance records for the Normandy, she was decommissioned for display but her shell is intact, I'll clear her and send her to the Catalyst for your people to get her in shape for flying. You'll need her to get Moraeu back in the seat, he accepted early retirement back in Tiptree.

-Hackett'

"Well, looks like we have our next course of action." Mercy found herself smiling as Prue questioningly cocked an eyebrow. "Make a shiny new Normandy to bribe Joker with."

"... You're kidding, right? That'll take years." Prue dropped her weight against the backrest and threw her arms out.

Mercy's smile didn't falter, "Have a little faith, Prue. Keepers work way faster than humans."

Her singsong tone made Prue groan, "I need a drink to deal with your ego right now."

"In the meantime, we have a special someone to track down on Omega." Mercy added, a sparkle in her eyes at the pronoun game she was playing with Prue.

"... Don't tell me. Him? No."

"Him, yes." Mercy tipped forward to lean her elbows on the table, "who better to go on a hunt with than the King of Omega?"

Getting a lift on a carrier to Omega was relatively easy with Mercy's spectre status. But it was unfortunate that this carrier was deporting illegal Citadel immigrants.

The two women stood holding onto ceiling handles among crammed in lower class families. And Mercy frowned as she came to realise a disproportionate amount were Reapers. Their synthetic-organic hybrid bodies slumped in despair at their situation.

"I never wanted this, I'm sorry," a marauder whispered to their turian significant other and they embraced each other.

"Shit…" Prue muttered, visibly uncomfortable for the sad state of affairs they were forced to be involved in for the next few hours.

Mercy's gaze fell to the floor, was there anything she could do for them? Were these people her responsibility? Had she then failed them? Doomed to live in a society prejudiced against them?

A teary eyed husk woman made eye contact with the Reaper Commander, knowingly, but despite knowing exactly who she was, it was clear her presence did not inspire hope for her, nor anyone else there.

And Mercy didn't know how to help them, Prue watched the conflicted expression cross the synth-organic's face thoughtfully. It looked like she was finally starting to see what the world was like now post-war, outside of her merry little echo-chamber.

Omega was of course the comfortingly familiar cesspool as always. Some things never changed, and this space station was the epitome of just that. A trash heap with trash people and shady goings on in every shadow.

Scarred mercs and seedy scavengers, well dressed scammers and mad raving prophets. Entire sectors running off daisy-chained power switching on and off in dodgy flickers that the residents were simply used to. The deep subtle rattling within the foundations of the eezo mining complex that allowed this lawless land to thrive in its chaos.

Under the rule of only one. Upon her throne in the Afterlife. Prue stuck close to her through the alleys of the station on a beeline for the club. And muttered disgruntledly, "this place always smells like piss."

"Mmn." Mercy agreed. And the pounding bass welcomed them into the lively, sweaty dancefloor of the Afterlife, poledancers gyrating to the tribal beat, and guards beating the shit out of a violent drunk trying to sass the bartender.

Mercy found herself smiling at the immediate scan she was greeted with, having stopped a safe distance from the Asari in prediction. "Hello again, Aria."

"Venari, in all your Reapered glory, standing here in my club? You certainly have some nerve." Aria did not seem surprised to see her, but since when was she ever? Catching her off guard wasn't an everyday achievement.

Despite the man with the eyepatch on the couch with her pointing a gun at her and Prue pointing one right back at him, Mercy sat down. "I'm looking to borrow one of your guys."

"And why would I even consider such a request?"

"Because I'm hunting something big, like me and all my Reapered glory needs help to deal with it kind of big." She gestured at Prue to lower her gun. "We're all in danger if I don't take care of it, including you."

Aria crossed a foot onto her knee, "would this have anything to do with massive slews of my soldiers becoming drooling vegetables and then disappearing?"

Mercy's brow furrowed, so the Leviathans weren't just operating in Council Space, it made sense they considered themselves above the boundaries of organics. "That fits the bill."

"And who would you need for this, should I consider granting it?"

"Your Hitman."

Aria's eyes narrowed, before after a pause she chuckled, and glanced to the man sitting next to her with the eyepatch, who had been watching the whole time with a stark red eye while playing with his gun.

"Looks like she wants you."

"Doesn't everyone?" He smirked, with a careless, dark aura about him as he rolled his shoulders. "Ball's in your court, babe." He side eyed Aria with a grin. And she immediately replied.

"Take him then, I could use a break from his insufferable ass."