Man off the Moon

by FiendLurcher

A rusted hero let loose in a galaxy of myriad grays, walking the familiar steps and seeking answers beyond death at the end of that long, ever-winding road. (Currently editing ch22, took a break last month cuz of flu&brainfog)

31. Reckless Reunions & Painful Partings

Two minor retcons as of last chapter.

First, Shiawe mentions that Shiala is in Serrice in chapter 24 but she also appeared on Torfan in chapter 30, which should be impossible given travel time and that Thessia is still kind of under lockdown. This happened because I literally forgot I sent her there to back up Shiawe, as per Benezia's orders, which is why she never shows up outside of that one mention.

So retcon goes as follows: Benezia didn't sent Shiala, but the back up she mentioned was just a message to someone who would inform Aethyta in case something went wrong. A minor one, given that Shiala never actually appeared on Thessia and also explains away why she wasn't with Shiawe later on. Chapters have been edited to match this. Done to keep amount of random no-name commandos down and keep half-recognizable characters on the scene.

Second retcon: Emiya never shot the sun or the moon as joked at in the end of the last codex. Simply put, He could do it if he set his mind to it and planned it all out... But on accident it's just flat out impossible. Got some justified flak for it, did some calculations of my own and finally just decided that it should go.

Apologies for any confusion or annoyance caused by the above-mentioned issues and thank you for you patience.

On with the show!

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"Damn it! He was right there!"

Shepard kicked the elevator one more time, seething as she tried to stare a hole into the thick metal doors.

"The whole time! How the hell did we miss him!"

"Lieutenant, calm down. I'm sure we can still catch up to him," Shiala said, trying to calm her down.

"Like hell! These are blast doors! We would need three times the amount of explosive we had from the mines just to get a hole through here! And how the hell did he even seal them?! I can hear the elevator we called down on the other side! How are the doors not opening!?"

She punched the doors one more time, letting out a slow exhale as she rested her helmet and forehead against the smooth surface.

"...Are you sure he was in that box? I mean, those things are vacuum-sealed sheet metal. How would he have even gotten inside it?" Tryna asked, her previous cheerfulness considerably dampened as she realized just how badly they had been duped. "I mean, did he walk away in the box, too?"

"You saw the tracks leading back and away. And once we got back, the box was gone, with the only exit out of this floor sealed. So yes, I am pretty sure I literally sat on top of him." She grit her teeth, clenching her fist to strike the elevator doors one more time. "He must have realized we were after him, listening in on our talking..."

Neither of the two commandos had anything to say to that, only sharing a chagrined stare with one another. They all took it poorly when they realized just what had happened, but the two warriors were much older and more experienced than she was. Things like this simply did not happen to them. Until now.

"Fine."

"Hmm, what is?" Shiala asked.

"I said 'fine'. It's done. Let's figure out what to do and how to get it done instead."

The two asari blinked before nodding, seemingly getting whiplash from her rapid changes of mood. There was no point in moping around and every second she wasted was one which got that bastard further away from her.

"The elevator is the only way off this floor that we found. The vents will be difficult to scale back the way we came and they don't seem to go any deeper either..." She considered their options.

"Right. These are probably the suites for the VIPs and the officers. They must have all run out when the attack started," Tryna said as she nodded.

"Okay, then..."

She let the word hang in the air.

Then what?

Shepard grit her teeth, before finally exhaling. "Let's go take a look around one more time."

The two asari nodded, falling two steps behind her as she began walking back to where they had come. Checking the vent one more time, she confirmed that getting back up would be incredibly difficult because of the angle. Checking both ends of the hallway and finding no other elevators confirmed that they were really stuck. Checking the various rooms they made sure that there weren't any emergency stairs or ladders, either.

Finally, they ended up where the grimy footprints of that man had originally ended and turned around, at a dead-end in the hallway. She sighed, feeling the last bits of her energy drain away. Why did he even come this way? Did he just get lost?

That couldn't be it. She turned around.

You could see the dead-end from all the way back at the corner. There would have been no need for him to walk all the way here. He should have seen the dead-end easily enough from all the way over there. But for some reason he had felt it necessary to walk all the way up to the wall.

Within touching distance.

Reaching out, she placed her armored gauntlet's palm flat against the fresco-covered surface. She pushed lightly, half-expecting a secret door to open up.

Nothing.

She sighed, not knowing what she had been seriously expecting. What did I think would happen? Was coming here a mistake...? I've pretty much disappeared from my post. If something goes wrong, then...

There was no way she would get away lightly from something like that. Not on a mission of this scale. And more importantly, what if her decision caused something to go wrong? What if soldiers died because she ran off to jump in the first open vent she could see, hoping to find some mystery man from five years ago?

"Damn it..."

Sighing once more she leaned forward against the wall, resting her forehead and helmet against the wall.

And immediately blinked, pulling away from the rattling sound against her visor. It ended immediately.

"What the...?"

"What is it?" Tryna asked, the two asari behind her having said nothing while she had been quietly frustrated.

But she didn't answer, instead putting her hand against the wall again, her brows furrowed as she felt nothing. The gauntlet was getting in the way and was too thick to feel anything through. Slowly, she leaned forward and gently pressed the helmet's visor against the wall.

Again the wall seemed to be rattling—no, rather, vibrating against her helmet. Shepard pulled back and stood up, blinking once more before a huge grin settled on her face. So that's what it was.

Turning around, she threw a thumb over her shoulder to gesture at the wall. "Something's behind here... I think there's a generator or engine of some kind there and its rattling against the wall."

"Huh?"

"Rattling against the wall...?" Shiala repeated, perplexed as she stepped a forward to try for herself. "Goddess, you're right."

"Great, let's Warp Detonate the thing and get out of here!" Tryna said with a wicked grin.

"What, you can break the wall?" Shepard blinked, her own ad hoc train of thought for breaking through being cut off.

"Of course!"

"Of all the hasty, reckless things! We do not even know what is on the other side!" Shiala immediately protested. "I say we return to the ventilation shaft and seek to climb back that way. Returning to Justicar Anatha is the wisest course of action here."

"I'm not going back up that hole, you can go on your own if you really want to. I can detonate this sucker by myself. Ready, Shepard?"

She inhaled, narrowing her eyes as she stared at the wall while ignoring the asari still protesting and advising them to return the way they had come. Finally after another handful of seconds, she nodded. Her mind was made up. He must have been interested in something there... Meaning I can't turn around here.

"Yeah. Let's do this. You in or out, Shiala?"

The taciturn asari seemed obviously agitated by their refusal to back down, but finally deflated with a sigh as she drew her sub-machine gun. "Very well. It would weigh on my conscience if you two fools died without me."

Shepard and Tryna both grinned, drawing weapons.

"But this will still take a moment. Who knows how thick the wall is; we will have to slowly erode it with continuous Warp fields until it is damaged enough to be broken through."

Nodding, Shepard asked, "And how long will that take."

"Depends on how thick the wall is. Maybe five minutes with the two of us?" Shiala replied, glancing at Tryna.

"Alright, get to it."

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Emiya frowned, walking through the dark tunnels.

Cramped and much less uniform in size and shape than any of the hallways above had been, even merely getting a solid footing was tough at times. Yet he could see the signs of a well-traveled path as he continued walking down the lowest level the elevator shaft had ended in.

There's probably nothing down here, he thought. Nothing in the way of a batarian command center or a prisoner holding area, anyhow. But something had still caught his interest in this place. Arriving at an open space where he could stand straight and look around properly, he nodded. Figured as much.

There were signs of careful excavation and the remains of imprinted objects in the walls and ground. "This was a dig site."

But by the looks of things it had been cleared out not too long ago. Where desks and piles of boxes had been previously, spots free of dust and debris remained on the ground. Days at most. Mere minutes even, perhaps. No time to waste here, then.

He thought about turning around and returning the way he had come, but something kept him from doing so. Something kept drawing him further in; that strange sensation of something foul in the air. The most illusive of hints, tickling at his nostrils. There was something here.

Just a little bit more.

Heading further in, he picked up his pace until he arrived the end.

Another open space, though much less crudely dimensioned, forming a complex yet regular shape characteristic of uniform polyhedrons. Squares and triangles, smoothly and perfectly cut into the raw rock.

A marvel of stonework.

Yet something was missing.

Something had been here before, but now had been removed. That made sense; the batarians must have brought Henell and her team her for a reason. This place must have tied into that, even if it was obvious that this place was not of Prothean make.

Emiya frowned—wondering why he had concluded that so easily for a moment, before shaking his head as he turned around. No point in wasting any more time here, now that his curiosity had been sated.

Oily ṣ͍̰̮ḥa̬͚̬̼͎d͇͔o̜͇̣̰̤̝̲w̝̫͙͎͝s lurked in the corner of his eye, jumping at him with lighting-fast movements.

"—Trace, on!"—begin projection,

Kanshou and Bakuya roared into existence in his hands as he lashed out, the twin blades slashing sparks through the tunnel wall. His head swiveled left and right as his heart pounded in his chest.

What the hell was that...?

He panted, his breathing loud in the containment of his helmet as he sought out for any presences around him. Yet, there was nothing. The air was so stiflingly thick with directionless malice that even inside his hardsuit he could feel cold sweat forming on the back of his neck.

Furrowing his brows, he lowered the blades from his wary guard and took another step back and turning around in a half-circle. Seeing nothing, he turned around completely and hastened to make it back to the elevator shaft.

It wasn't anything real. Just echoes and shadows on the walls. Nothing more. He told himself he was only hurrying because he was saving time, yet somehow he felt he was running away from the oppressive darkness behind him.

There's light up ahead?

Emiya slowed down and turned off his headlight, coming to a crouch around the bend as he scanned the path up ahead. Three batarians had stepped out of the elevator car and were scanning their surroundings with their rifle-mounted torches.

"There's nothing here, let's just go back... Come on..." One of the batarians seemed to be whining, standing back by the elevator.

The batarian standing furthest out from the elevator's light snapped back at him. "Shut up. We were told to check all the floors, so we're gonna check all the floors, brushless."

"But if they sealed the doors, why would they call for an elevator? And why would they come down here..." The batarian kept whining. "Come on, let's go back. This place is bad, you know it is."

As a reply, the batarian turned around and mimed a backhand slap at the one still in the elevator, as if telling him to quietly shut up already. Having done that, he turned to the third and last of their group. "Well?"

The last batarian had had nothing to say, yet obviously hesitating at advancing further at the reminder.

"...Come on boss, let's just report back. Maybe we can get some charges from the armory and blow open the doors, or something?" The last member of the three finally spoke, opining for the better part of valor as well.

"...Fine," the third spoke, his voice half resignation and half relief of his own.

Too bad, Emiya thought as he was already moving forward with blades poised as he engaged the STG cloak.

Just a minute earlier and perhaps they could have completely missed him. Hidden in the shadow cast by the nearest batarian, he dashed forward and then leaped at the last moment as the batarian wheeled around at the sound.

"Who's there!?"

"Wha-what is it?"

The middle-batarian must have seen something, as he had leveled his shotgun and overheated it withing seconds with his wild shooting.

But Emiya was no longer there, having jumped on top of the elevator car. The white blade held in a reverse grip sank into the power box there like a hot knife into butter, shorting out the entire elevator and plunging them all back into darkness again. Kicking off, he continued upwards by jumping from shaft-side to shaft-side, as he could still hear the panicked shouts from the batarians below.

No reason to kill them. The Alliance would pick them up sooner or later, no point in worrying about them.

Slamming in the black blade into the wall, Emiya paused as he gained a foothold some thirty meters above the bottom of the shaft as he found the next floor. Getting open the doors was a bit of a pain with just brute strength, but once he managed to get a finger in between the doors it was a piece of cake to pry open.

A mere ten seconds after he had managed to get himself inside and on the floor, he could hear the sound of pounding feet headed his way.

That was fast, he noted as he glanced over his shoulder down the elevator shaft. The three below must have noticed the light shining down from where he had opened the door, or one of the cameras must have picked it up despite his partial-invisibility. No matter.

Kanshou returned to his hand with a pull from Bakuya and he tossed both husband and wife blade into the air. They arced and slammed right into the lights, plunging the hallway into darkness where the stains marking his invisibility could not be seen.

Flashlights and running feet rushed to the hallway, as two dozen batarians arrived in staggered columns.

Emiya walked right past the strike-team as it arrived and took positions around the open elevator doors. Dodging and weaving through the throng, he looked up and noted the positions of the cameras in the hallway as he mentally counted down the invisibility cloak's timer.

In a position out of view, he re-appeared again and continued walking calmly. Depending on whether they had automated systems in the camera room or just someone watching the feeds, they might notice the dark figure walking through the hallway. Or they might not, Emiya concluded with a shrug as fifty meters later no one seemed to be coming for him.

As he entered lit sections of this floor again, he projected another hardsuit to function as a new disguise.

Wandering around while avoiding patrolling batarians, he slowly made his way towards the nearest thumper again. Since the bottom floor hadn't panned out, it was back to his previous sabotage efforts then.

At the doorway the armed batarians seemed wary, yet no one stopped him as he walked right in.

Unlike the security checkpoints and camera rooms he had taken out until now, this place wasn't just a small and discretely marked area. Rather, there were dozens of batarians sitting around desks and haptic adaptive terminals, all speaking and handling hundreds of matters all at once. This was probably the central command of the entire facility's defense, then. It's like an office, really...

Most of them weren't even wearing hardsuits.

All he needed to do was cut a few connections and lock the doors, and this entire facility would become headless. The Alliance would have a much easier time mopping up the stragglers once all communication and real-time logistics broke down. Alright, now to find Henell and then get on with it.

Things seemed to be working out, for once.

And just as he thought that, he felt something. Furrowing his brows and raising his head to look at the corner of the ceiling, he frowned. Isn't that—

Another undulating pattern; like a battering ram against a massive drum skin as the fabric of space thrummed. A Biotic Warp, in other words. Continuous and shifting mass effect fields which tore at the material as it was repeatedly made more and less massive. Much like a metal could be made fragile by heating it up and cooling it down, so too could a Warp break down even the hardest of walls into little more than packed sand, given enough time.

—Where I left those three behind?

Somehow he felt like had been through this already once before as he jumped for cover, half expecting another bomb to be lobbed at him. And just then, he sensed the Throw that was slammed into Biotic Warp, Detonating it violently in a shower of debris and dust. The handful of heads that had turned his way were spared much pain as the wall exploded into the eyes of many sitting nearby.

Emiya sighed as he settled to lean his back against a desk, sitting on the ground and resting his forehead against the palm of his hand. "Not again..."

"We're under atta—" The batarian cry was silenced by the burst-fire report of an assault rifle from above, and a second later the entire command center fell into chaos as the batarians were being gunned down. Seconds later they began to return fire, a full-blown firefight bloomed into being all around Emiya.

He continued ignoring it all, merely accessing one of the terminals and opened up a port for his cybernetics, so that he could more directly access the systems all around him. Seeing as how none of the batarians had time to coordinate and order around the defense, he took the liberty of sending a few groups above into pointless positions, shuffling around the defenders to create fracture points for the Alliance to push through.

At the same time as batarians were being biotically lifted and thrown up all around him, he also began to dig around for any information regarding Henell and what exactly had been going on here. By the second—as he found and downloaded a complete map of the facility and the recent event logs—batarian personnel dropped around him as the three attackers systematically and calmly took apart their feeble attempts at defense.

A mere thirty seconds into the offensive, most of the surviving batarians were already running for the exit rather than standing their ground.

Hoh, the mainframe is where they store everything. But—Damn it, it got cut off manually. Someone must have run off to go and wipe the thing once they realized the command center had become compromised.

That wasn't good, there were still answers he needed on that mainframe. Which meant there was no more time for him to dally around here.

Emiya engaged the cloak and dispelled the disguise on top of it, vanishing in place. Getting up and completely ignoring the last pockets of resistance, he danced through the lines of fire and made his way for the doorway he had just come in through a mere minute earlier.

Reminding himself one more time he thought, the servers and mainframe are down the hall and twice to the left.

Behind him there was a thump of boots hitting the floor, as the last batarians still remaining squawked about how the attackers were jumping down now. Having wiped out resistance, it made sense to continue advancing even if it meant leaving behind a superior position, in terms of conventional tactics.

But that was a mistake.

After all in these forty seconds of combat, the strike-team that had deployed at the elevator due to him wouldn't have had enough time to return. Meaning that coming down would leave them trapped now that the batarians were finally catching on and heading here.

Walking through the doorway, he could see armed and armored batarians rushing this way now.

Turning around and glancing over his shoulder he noted that all three had come down and were securing the command center. The desks and architecture would be to their advantage, since the batarians probably meant for this to be a last pocket of resistance to be able to hold back against an attack from the hallway.

But the number difference should be too great, at most they would be able to merely hold position since they could concentrate all their firepower at the doorway. But even if they fired their guns while managing heat optimally and always hit true, as long as the batarians managed their collective kinetic barriers, then the batarians would always have a fresh kinetic barrier to take point before anyone actually got injured.

That was just the way the numbers stacked in modern combat with kinetic barriers.

Still, they should be able hold the command center for a few minutes and keep the batarians distracted at least. Best to leave them deadlocked while he sneaked around the back. Those two asari should be able to handle that much, at least. Without the command center and with his last set of orders he had sent out, the defenders would probably crack and crumble under the Alliance offensive's weight within the hour.

"Incoming!" A distinctly Serrice-accented asari voice shouted behind him as he moved on.

"Alright, bring it on!" Was the spirited reply in English.

Emiya halted, frowning as he stood in place.

Something about that voice seemed familiar. He knew it was the Alliance soldier who had sat on him earlier, that much he was certain. But something was scraping at his mind just then about that voice.

He shook his head, chiding himself that he was wasting time. With that he ignored the shouting voices and sounds of the renewed gunfight behind him, disengaging the cloak once he was around the corner again.

Down the hallway and twice to the left.

Except, the door was locked.

Clicking his tongue with annoyance, he looked left and right to make sure no one was around. Placing a hand against the surface, he extended his magical energy. There. A small latch snapped inside the door, causing the locking mechanism to become useless.

Emiya opened his eyes and inhaled, opening the door with the same hand he still had against the frame.

"Who—?"

Someone inside immediately noticed, turning around with a gun in their hand. A batarian techie by the looks of it. One of the ones who had run out of the command center first.

"How did you...?" Four eyes shot wide open. And then the batarian seemed to realize what was going on, almost as if he had been physically snapped back into reality.

He jumped for cover, pulling the trigger three times and missing with every shot. "You're too late, human! I've already wiped the hard-drives! You'll find nothing here!"

Emiya frowned, stepping forward and taking concealment behind a rack of servers between shots as the batarian only seemed to be taking potshots while shouting obscenities at him. Alright, enough of this.

"You will never—urk!" An arrow through his eye silenced the batarian, and Emiya stepped back into view as he lowered the bow with a sigh.

Walking up to the terminal the batarian had been hunched over until he had showed up, Emiya frowned at the haptic adaptive interface. There was no graphical user interface, just a line prompt which according to his translators were stating that 'all records had been wiped', with large blocky letters.

With a frown, he reached for the chair and settled to sit down by the terminal, setting his longbow to lean against the wall absentmindedly. If that really was the case, then even with his abilities there wasn't much he would be able to do. Deleted was deleted.

Gone.

No longer in this world.

And things which were forever lost could not be brought back. He had tried several times during his time as 'Redhax' to do just that, and already knew it wasn't possible. Often there were times when a single piece of evidence from a wiped omnitool could have made his job much, much simpler in the last five years.

But even he couldn't break that immutable law of reality.

Still, better to make sure that really was the case. Raising a hand, he closed his eyes and intoned quietly to himself. "—Trace, on"—begin insertion,

But after only four seconds he opened his eyes again and exhaled. The computer was still running, but there was nothing there. No way to access the hard drives or find anything. The lights were still on, but no one was home. Should he leave? Maybe try to find Henell on foot? But he was certain that there would be records of her here.

Outside he could still hear the gunfight rage on, and with nod to himself he decided to try a little while longer. This was still his best bet. But outside of the dive, he had no idea what he was dealing with. Which meant he needed a cheat-sheet. After a moment of looking around, he found a five-ring binder that seemed to be a manual for maintaining and using the servers.

Bingo.

Leafing through the manual, he sighed. Even with everything he could do, it wasn't as if he was very good with computers. On top of that, this seemed like a operating system completely different from what he was used to. Something the batarians had probably developed from the ground up themselves.

How long was he here, though...

It couldn't have been here for more than half a minute.

Emiya turned around and stared at the rows and rows of servers skeptically. Given how much data could be stored on an omnitool or datapad, the amount of data that could be stored on this much hardware would be staggering. With a thoughtful frown he turned back to stare at the line prompt, looking at the last commands the batarian had written in. Had the entire mainframe really been wiped that quickly?

Computers were fast, but fundamentally the speed of processing data was inversely related to the size of the storage unit. Since primary concerns for storage memory was that it was reliable and cheap per byte, speed was usually the least of the priorities.

He couldn't have deleted everything, right?

Staring at the line prompt, he honed in on one specific line that was repeated multiple times. It took him a while to decipher the arcane batarian symbols that taunted him.

' rm -rf * '

The binder helpfully explained that this was a command that would forcefully and recursively delete absolutely everything. So that should have been what the batarian had done.

Except...

It's been repeated three times...? And he still continued writing in other commands afterward.

So, it must have failed. Right?

Glancing at the batarian, Emiya checked his clothing and appearance. He didn't seem to be wearing anything signifying status or rank. Did he not have the administrative password for the mainframe, then?

So what did he delete then?

Cracking open the binder again he began to look for that word in the final line. He needed to figure out what a 'record' was, to get to the bottom of this. Two minutes later even as the sounds of the firefight seemed to calm down a little, he still had gotten no further.

With a frustrated sigh he tossed aside the binder.

Records, records, records... What a weird word, he mused as he tasted the batarian syllables silently, resting his chin against the knuckles of his hand with the elbow propped on top of the table. It didn't seem very common to him.

At least, he hadn't heard it a single time in his life before now.

Tapping his helmet's cheek with the backs of his fingers, he frowned and brought out the omnitool's translator program manually this time. And then he sat up straight, blinking at what he read as one of the alternative meanings.

'less common; technical language; computer terminology for Registry'

"Huh."

If just the registry was deleted but the shell was still running... wouldn't it be possible to ghost it back?

The lack of a graphical user interface and the fact that the mainframe was cut off from other machines should mean that the processes for the most recent programs might still well be running, with all that data still in the random access memory or cache equivalent in the system.

It wouldn't be possible to bring it all back...

But some of the most recent files? That definitely should be doable.

"Neat," Emiya grinned as he extended his hand again to the mainframe and dived right back in.

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Shepard spat blood, more on a hacking cough-like instinct than anything else, realizing belatedly that her neck was aching.

It must have been the fall. Her head had hit the desk on the way down after her kinetic barrier failed. She also distantly realized her gut was in pure flaming agony. A shotgun round to the gut would do that to anyone.

Her memory was a little foggy. How did she get shot again? So hard to remember.

Must have been the pain.

That was fine, the medigel and combat cocktails were kicking in already. Didn't do much for the pain now though. That was what adrenaline was for, anyhow.

She pushed off the ground, her rifle still in her hand as she spotted the son of a bitch who had gotten three shots in on her after her barrier had collapsed. He had turned away, certain that the bloody mess on the floor meant she was dead. The folly of those who had never fought in battles involving medigel.

Wonderful stuff, she didn't even get out of bed in the morning without making sure she had some in her pockets.

Raising her rifle she acquired a sight picture and then pulled the trigger. Her mid-section exploded in agony from the recoil, but the vicious thrill of seeing the batarian only have just enough time to turn around before his head and neck were perforated a dozen times over was a sweet enough prize that she didn't care.

"—epard!"

Someone was shouting.

She didn't have the presence of mind to care right then and there. Her stumble had created an opening and it would only last for another handful of seconds. She needed cover. Where was she even going in the first place? No other reason she could think of for her to be in the open like she had been.

Her rifle roared an unbroken line of slugs as she hobbled for cover, every step pure agony. Another round bounced off her side as the kinetic barrier failed, but the unbroken ceramic plates handled it. Still painful as all hell.

Collapsing as much as she meant to get to cover, she grit her teeth as she leaned against the wall.

"Cover me!" She shouted absentmindedly, opening her omnitool.

She wasn't even sure if she had allies, but given that she wasn't dead yet that was probably the case. Irrelevant anyhow until she could get herself back in shape. Waiting for the analytics to finish, she picked up her assault rifle and blind-fired in the general direction of the batarians.

Red blinking light meant... Blood loss? Made sense. Her head felt pretty woozy. And she was thirsty. Plasma conversion 78% done, which meant it would get better soon. The automated protocols were on it. It was just a gut shot; she would live to get back to one of the docs just fine.

No, she had to focus on her hardsuit. The kinetic barrier was starting to seem unreliable—one or more of the projectors must have been hit—which meant she was practically down to her armor. The armor, which was cracked and broken. Alright, no problem. Done this a thousand times before, this shit is what we drill for...

Unbidden the memory of the time she and her friends from the Villa had gotten absolutely wasted and timed their hardsuit fix-times, back right before she had gotten her N7 designation.

"Heheh, and they told me it was a bullshit excuse. Well look at me now..."

The main reason heavy hardsuits with solid armor plates weren't in more common use was because once it was broken, it was a pain the ass to fix. It wasn't like light or medium gear made out of just some tough fabrics, which bent any which way you wanted and over which you could just slap a patch of the same stuff to plug any holes.

No, you had to actually analyze and fix the plates yourself with an omnitool's fabricator.

So if you wanted to run around in heavy hardsuits, you had to be your own damn armorer in the field. Which was the main reason why she preferred metal instead of ceramics. Ceramics were lighter, sure... But with metal you could usually just beat that stuff back into shape and weld it together.

Just as she was doing now.

There's a piece or two in my gut, though. The docs will shout at me again...

That made her laugh for a moment, which made her mid-section burn some more. But her head was clearing up finally, and she was just about done with getting her armor plates back in place and in one piece. Mostly anyhow. That was good enough.

Now why the hell did I get shot? Seems like a dumb mistake for me to make... Shepard looked up and over the cover she had found, blinking as she took in the firefight.

Some kind of office or command room. Lots of busted computers. Dead batarians by the shuttle-load. That was good. Even more batarians shooting at her and a pair of strangers. That was less good. Guess I'm working with those two. Oh, right. Torfan. Asari.

Finally starting to remember what was going on and why, she took in the positions of every combatant still in the fight and grinned.

Ah, so that's why.

There was a pile of dead batarians next to her. Well, four of them, anyhow. The doormen. They'd been killed earlier, leaving behind their guns. Rifles, shotguns and pistols. Weapons, which she could switch to when her own overheated, inflating the theoretical numbers on her side of the equation considerably.

Math, is all about how many hypervelocity slugs you can throw down range, she opined sagely as her omnitool connected to the rifles and began to forcefully rewrite their firmware. Aaaand done, gotta love electronic warfare superiority. Your guns are now my guns.

From here she could also practically fire down into the hallway, removing any and all cover the batarians might have there. Combined with the asari on the other side of the room, they now had control of nearly the full 180 degrees behind the doorway. Well worth the risk, she must have thought before she got shot. A bit of a dick move, really.

But she could appreciate the guts it must have taken to try.

Literally. She was sure bits of her kidney and spleen were covering the floor somewhere over there.

Shepard psyched herself back up, bringing the Avenger to bear as she rolled out from cover and took a shot at the first batarians she saw. From here, she could almost see out into the open hallway and deny them half of the cover they had.

It was a blurry couple of minutes afterwards, but soon enough she and the two asari were finally pushing forward and out into the hallway.

Another key to their success was the two biotics. Before she had been able to balance out the difference in firepower, the two had been dead weight. Needing constant cover and able to put down very little in turn, they weren't able to show off their full potential. But once she had all the guns she could want, those two had gotten the breathing space necessary to use their biotics. The batarians could hide behind the doorway, but once those two caught sight of one, they would with flawless teamwork make that individual weightless and pull him right inside the room.

Right in the middle of the killzone where Shepard could gun them down mercilessly.

Another pile was coming along there, nicely.

The batarians grew increasingly desperate as the minutes ran by and they were being pushed back, but even as her own assault rifle ran out of ammunition and its twin-rails were horribly warped from the constant heat and strain, she still managed to repel them by throwing it at them.

Had they known it would explode, she was sure they wouldn't have been laughing. She thanked Franco quietly under her breath for teaching her that trick, as she looted another weapon from a fallen batarian to replace her own. Nice! It's an Armax Crossfire alright, thought I saw one. Good, this thing runs on Citadel-standard firmware. No problem linking it up to my suit. Better format and restore factory settings first, though.

Batarians had funny ideas about c2c-ratios, after all.

Still she had to wonder what such a gun was doing out here, this far away from Citadel space. Armax was a notoriously picky and pig-headed supplier, only regularly making their weapons available to the most elite turian units in the Hierarchy.

Well, just one really good gun was a peculiarity but nothing to get worked up about. It was just one gun, after all.

On wobbly feet, she stood up and holstered her new weapon on her back as she noted that the last batarians were running away now. Noticing the approaching pair of asari, she nodded at them. "Well. That was fun."

"Shepard, are you alright?" Shiala asked, running up to her. "When you fell, I was certain that you were done for."

"I'm fine. Nothing the docs can't fix once we're done here," Shepard reassured the asari with a thumbs up, which only seemed to confuse the asari for a moment.

Their eyes lingered on her stomach for an awkward moment, so she cleared her throat pointedly.

Shaking her head, she looked out into the hallway. "Let's keep moving."

"Well... If you are certain."

"Yeah, come on. Let's go."

Stepping outside without even bothering to slice the pie, Shepard looked left and right with a frown. Most of the batarians had fled down to the left, but...

"Huh, why are we going to the right? The elevator would be to the left, wouldn't it? It was that way on the floor above."

Shepard nodded, not stopping as she scanned the hallways while advancing. "He had checked out the spot we broke down through, right? That means he was thinking about going that way until he realized he wouldn't be able to. He turned around to use the elevator, but he must have wanted something on this floor. Right?"

"...You think he's still here?" Tryna asked.

She merely nodded in reply.

Running through the hallways, they scanned through the various rooms and entrances quickly as they advanced. With that firefight behind them, stealth was no longer really an option.

Of course, if they ran into an ambush, that would be it. But conversely if they moved too slowly the batarians might have time to organize against them.

"There's an open door up ahead," Shiala noted quietly.

Shepard nodded, raising a hand to give a few quiet commands to the two asari as they moved to the door. Motioning for the two to stay back, she slowly started slicing the pie, keeping her shotgun at the ready and shouldered as she grade by grade explored the room. It was dark, but there were terminals at the far end of the room that lit up the insides just enough that she could see the outlines of thing inside.

Rows of shelves. Chairs. And someone was inside, she realized with a startle. No, there was a second body on the floor too. Neither of them was moving. And her HUD's short-range radar reported nothing, even though the sitting figure clearly had a hardsuit.

Meaning he had no kinetic barrier? Or did he have some kind of dampening gear?

She signaled to the two asari what she saw, not breaking her eyes away from the room. Slowly, she started starting inching forward, rolling on her feet with deliberate and quiet steps. Suddenly the man in the chair's head jolted up, as if he had just woken from a dream.

Her breathing halted as she realized from the shape of the helmet that it was That Man from Ares Station. Previously his hunched over figure had been too hidden from view for to see it.

Shepard barely dared to swallow, her dry throat itching and demanding she cough or swallow. But she dared not, some primeval instinct demanding that she remain absolutely quiet.

"Hmm, fifteen percent can be restored. Eight so far done, but it's been nothing interesting... Alright, one more time," a voice spoke in English and she realized with a startle that it was the man before her who had spoken. Somehow she hadn't expected it; his voice was...

And then his head slumped forward again, as if he had fallen asleep.

She wet her mouth, clearing her throat as she took a step forward. "Put your hands on your head!"

A second passed.

Nothing.

Had she spoken too quietly? She was sure she hadn't mumbled or stuttered. He had spoken English to himself too, hadn't he?

Was he just ignoring her?

Something hot rose in her chest and she grit her teeth as she took two steps forward.

"I said put your hands on your head, where I can see them! Do it now!"

But again, nothing.

"...Did he fall asleep?" Tryna asked, flanking Shepard and eyeing the seated man's back.

Shiala scoffed at that. "Don't be ridiculous. Anyhow, this batarian is dead. But the wound looks unusual. Almost like a stab wound. Except... Hmm."

"He doesn't look armed, though. Weird. How did he even get here?" Tryna was moving to stand on the other side of the room, eyeing the slumped over man as she did. "Try poking him, see if that wakes him."

Shepard had to break her eyes away from the man's back, giving the asari a hard stare until she grimaced and shrugged. But just as she returned her gaze to the man, he twitched and stood up.

"Heh, so that's where—" He turned around and whatever he had been about to say died in his throat, as he came face to face with Shepard, the two within an arm's reach of one another.

His helmet almost hit against the extended muzzle of her shotgun, to the point where it would have been squarely between his eyes were it any closer. Somehow he had closed the distance in that one step, leaving them at such an awkward distance.

There was a tense moment of silence as everyone in the room was lost for words, reeling with the sudden change.

And then he sighed.

It was the deepest, most expressive and aggrieved sound she had ever heard, containing the most exasperated frustration she had ever heard anyone manage with so little.

Shepard cleared her throat and spoke, finally certain she had his attention. "Put your hands in the air. Now."

"Three times. Three times," he muttered under his breath so quietly that even Shepard could barely hear him. And then his eyes bored into her. Even with the opaque, featureless visor covering his face, she could feel the sharp intent there. "Fine," he growled out.

"I said, put your hands u—" She repeated louder, intent on hitting his helmet with the muzzle for emphasis. I need to get back—

Only, the next second she realized her shotgun was pointing at the ceiling. She instinctively pulled the trigger, but the iron grip the man had on the shotgun and her hand kept it securely in place above her head even as the thing roared upward. She had barely time to realize what had happened, before the instep low kick broke her knee with a crack and shriek of breaking metal.

"Shep—" Tryna began to shout, but the man turned on his hip and pulled on the shotgun hand.

Shepard felt her legs come off the ground even through the blazing pain as she distantly realized he was tossing her right into the asari, as if she weighed nothing at all.

"Ugh!"

The air came rushing out of the Matron's lungs as she was bowled over by the flying Shepard, sending both right into the tall server rack behind them, nearly knocking it over with the force of the impact. She hit the ground in a tangle of wheezing gasps and agonized limbs, unable to tell which were her own and which were Tryna's for a moment.

She barely had time to get herself back on all fours and look up, when she could hear Shiala getting tossed into another server rack with a pained wince.

"—guess I'll just have to break your legs then," he finished to himself, and there was a distinct sound of a relieved exhalation there.

As if he had been allowed to vent for a moment.

Somehow, that only made her angrier.

Raising her shotgun with one hand and taking aim, she almost pulled the trigger. But he had vanished behind another rack of servers, out of sight before she had a sight picture.

"You know... These are the central servers of this facility. There's a lot of valuable data here. Stuff the batarians would hate for the Alliance to get their hands on. Stuff they would love to delete and make disappear. If I were you..." He trailed off and suddenly she realized he had somehow already made it to the doorway. Her shotgun snapped in that direction, but he was already outside. "I would stay here and make sure it remains safe."

And then he was gone.

Shepard grit her teeth, anger boiling over inside of her. White noise, like a rushing river in her head, her blood pressure roiling with every beat of her heart. Intellectually she understood that she had been handled with kiddie gloves—that she had essentially been spared because despite his methods the man had borne her practically no ill will.

She had had a gun to his face, caught him completely unawares. And he had been surprised. Annoyed. Exasperated.

What did that say about him?

But it was like Anderson said, she was a damn hothead. Someone who wore their heart on their sleeve and never took an insult to her or hers lying down. A soldier with a hundred times more bluster than good sense even on the best of days.

So, like hell would she take this lying down.

Her omnitool flared to life as she tossed the shotgun to the groggy asari next to her. "Stay here, I'm going after him."

---

;

---

Emiya exhaled, stopping as he tilted his head slightly to the left.

That Alliance soldier was still trying to pick a fight with him? He could hear her lop-sided steps behind him, slowly catching up and he had to wonder at what exactly they fed the Alliance soldiers.

She was practically running on a shattered knee.

Turning around to face her in the hallway, he felt like sighing again at the sight. In the brighter light of the hallway, she looked awful. Hardsuit was in tatters, covered in blood and grime, obviously exhausted and in pain. Yet unbowed and uncowed. So she used an omnitool to fuse the hard plates on her leg together to create a splint...

He couldn't see her face, beyond the narrow slit at the eyes covered by a tinted visor. But in the brightness of the hallway, out of the darkness of the server room it was enough for him to see the sheer raw determination burning in those eyes.

"Put your hands up."

She certainly was stubborn, he wouldn't deny that.

But he didn't have time for this.

He could just keep walking, he told himself. Hell, head for the elevator shaft and jump along the walls as he had before. There was no way she could follow him like that. Or use the invisibility cloak and ignore her altogether.

Yet somehow that felt like he would just be running away. Focus. Henell might be out of the system by the time you get to the surface if you waste time.

"I said—"

"Look," he interrupted her and vanished out of sight, reappearing right next to her with one hand on her rifle to keep it pointed away as he leaned in to finish what he was saying. "I really don't have time for playing around."

She flinched, jumping back on one leg and leaving the assault rifle in his hand. She would be reaching for her pistol, knowing that if he had a grip on the rifle then she wouldn't be getting it back. Which meant he should—

But instead she fell backwards, raising both of her hands to cover her face as if to ward off a blow. It was that discrepancy in action, that moment of confusion that kept him from realizing what she had done.

—peep-pip

Until he heard the rifle make the sound signifying a firmware update had been completed, anyhow. His eyes widened as the mass effect field containing the heavy, solid block of ammunition suddenly inverted and then turned around in on itself inside the rifle.

Oh, shi—I am the bone of my sword!

Emiya had time to barely toss aside the rifle before it exploded with the force of five conventional grenades. His back slammed into the wall as he was knocked off his feet, the shrapnel and ammunition block shattering in all directions under the stresses of the mass effect fields going haywire.

The breath was knocked out of his lungs and his head swam from the impact, but he had managed to keep his chin tucked to his chest and absorb the impact against the wall with the muscles of his back. The front of his chest and forearms were bleeding with numerous gashes where the sharp metal shavings had pierced through, but the blades beneath his skin were already knitting up his flesh and halting any bleeding, having stopped any of the shards from puncturing any deeper than merely skin.

He hated relying on that, but in a fight he rarely had the option of refusing to use it if he get really injured. Even if the long-term costs would destroy his body. But for superficial scrapes such as these it was nothing.

"Hah, that's what you get for underestimating me, you son of a bitch," the Alliance soldier was gloating now, trying to get up on her feet. The jump back and their relative positions had spared her from the worst of the blast.

He really had been out-played.

But that's what he got for not taking this seriously. The worst part was that this was exactly the kind of trick he had used before in his life, only with broken phantasms. The old hot potato-bomb.

Groaning, he pulled his feet under him and moved to sit up.

Next to him the smug woman froze up at seeing the movement, realizing that he wasn't down for the count after all, as he spoke up. "You know, you're absolutely right. Which is why you won't mind that I'll break both of your arms this time, right?"

She had been reaching for her pistol, but had frozen in mid-motion. Staring at him with wide-eyes, he could see her brows rising up beyond the visor.

"Emiya...?"

He blinked, freezing in his crouched position at that sound. It was almost alien to his ears; a name he hadn't heard in... years? At least, that's somehow what it felt like. But that voice. Who...?

Raising a hand up, he realized that his face was bleeding. Because right side of his helmet had been cracked and fallen to the floor, revealing half of his face.

But even more importantly, something about that voice... No, it couldn't—

"...Shepard?" He couldn't help the name that tumbled out of his mouth, almost by itself.

She reacted as if she had been struck, almost jolting in place at the confirmation. They both blinked, staring at each other for a long moment. Neither denied it, but nor was either willing to confirm out loud what they both already know to be true.

Both were confused.

Should they continue fighting, or...?

The silence was stifling, yet nothing would come out of his mouth. A dozen thoughts criss-crossed in his mind, becoming all too tumbled for anything resembling coherence. Why was she here? Right, Alliance operation. N7.

He felt like an idiot. Both for not noticing earlier and for getting so worked up and falling into her flow. He could have just walked away and she wouldn't have been able to catch up. He could have—

She kicked him.

"You broke my leg!"

Something snapped in him. "You threw a bomb at me! Twice!"

"Twice...?" She blinked, obviously having no idea what he meant. But then, "You were there with the batarians...?!"

"Ah ha! I knew it! That was you!"

"Forget that! What was that box?! You were in it the whole time, weren't you!? I sat on you and you said nothing!"

"Yes, you sat on me," he seethed at her. "Not to mention that you must have followed me into that ventilation shaft, huh? What kind of idiot would do that?"

"Oh wow, you're saying that? How the hell did you even fit in there? Did you bring a barrel of gun oil to lube yourself up with?"

He blinked at that mental image, snorting despite himself. That only made Shepard blink, seeing as how he hadn't denied it outright.

Somehow the flow had been broken, even as the previous words exchanged had come tumbling out by themselves. They stared at each other, everything else completely forgotten for a moment.

Finally, she broke the silence. "What the hell are you even doing here, Emiya?"

"Well, what are you doing here?" He rolled his eyes, motioning with his hand vaguely upwards to refer to the Alliance presence in general.

She somehow understood what he meant, blinking twice and looking down thoughtfully.

"You're... You're here to fight the batarians? Or, save the captives? That was you! You collapsed the tunnels to keep them out of the fighting! To minimize the number of fronts we had to fight on!"

It was his turn to blink again, surprise from having been seen through so easily leaving his face a blank slate for a second.

"And, and you were looking for that place around the corner the whole time! You've been sabotaging them from the inside the since the start!"

He looked away, somehow not sure what he was feeling at that moment. Clearing his throat he got up. His head had cooled a little now, allowing him to think more clearly again.

Still, he didn't deny her words.

"Shepard."

"Hmm? What?" She looked up at him from the floor where she had been lost in her revelations.

Reaching down, he offered her a hand. "What's your rank right now? I need a favor."

"Huh? Oh, uh, I'm a Staff Lieutenant... Why? What is it?" She asked, reaching up to remove her own helmet with one hand at the same time as she accepted his hand with the other.

Standing up, she shook her head and rolled her neck while holding the helmet with one hand by her side. Somehow as her matted and sweaty hair came into view, along with that usual crease between her eyebrows more easily visible between those burning eyes, he had to wonder how he hadn't been able to recognize her instantly.

"Emiya?"

"Huh? Oh, right. I came here looking for a group of kidnapped asari. So—"

She blinked. "You too?"

"...'Too'?" He repeated with a twitch. "Don't tell me, those commandos with you... Are they working for a Matriarch called Benezia?"

"Uh... Not sure. Their boss is someone called Anatha, so I guess not...?"

The Justicar with Benezia...

He sighed, palming what remained of his helmet. "Wonderful..."

Shepard had to chuckle at that. "So what about the missing asari?"

"Well, anyhow. I know where she is, but we need to hurry. I had planned to break out and chase after them myself, but with your authority it should be much simpler to just inform the Alliance fleet and let them handle it," he explained. "The asari had been kidnapped to do some research here, but they were slated to be transported to another facility a few hours ago. With any luck, the starship is still in the system."

"Really? Okay! Get me to the Alliance lines and I should be able to make the call!" She grinned, raising her hands to show that he would have to carry her. At his momentary hesitation, she raised an eyebrow, making it clear that he had done this to her.

He cleared his throat at that, offering a shoulder for her to lean on as they started moving.

"We can just go back to the command center and use the intercoms. With your name and authority, should be easy to get the message across."

"Wait, that was the command center? But that would mean..."

"Yeah, you pretty much cut off the head for this place. Good job, I guess."

She grinned, only to wince as her broken leg brushed up and jostled against his.

"...Sorry about the leg," he sheepishly muttered. Perhaps he had been a little excessive? No, he had been too soft. She had nearly taken him out, hadn't she?

His head hurt, and not just because of the rifle-bomb anymore.

"...Sorry about the bomb. The first one, I mean. You earned that second one."

He snorted.

"You know, I only need you to be able to talk. I could still break your arms. Just to be sure you don't try a third time, I mean."

She grinned as he kicked up a chair and set her down on it, letting out a sigh of relief at getting off her foot. Though her gut was still pretty much one solid mass of hurt, it was better than standing up.

"Let me get a terminal working and hook you up to the intercoms. I should be able to get some of them working..." He said, already taping away at one of the terminals in deep focus.

"Huh, so you're some kind of hacker now. Well, you were the type, I guess. Always fiddling with everything."

Emiya paused at that comment, eyeing her queerly for a moment before sighing. "Yeah, I something like that. Anyhow, the starship I mentioned, it's the 'Traskrash'. A Volus freighter."

She didn't know about Redhax? Huh. Well, this reunion probably won't last for long then. Maybe that's for the best.

It didn't take long for him to have everything up and ready, so he glanced at Shepard. Receiving a thumbs up, he raised three fingers and counted her down as she leaned to the presented microphone.

"Attention all personnel. This is Staff Lieutenant Jane Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy, service number 5923-AC-2826." She paused for effect, inhaling slowly and then continued in the same clearly and precisely articulated manner. "I have successfully taken over—and am currently speaking from—the Dusk Raptor's underground installation's command center. I repeat, I have occupied the underground installation's command center. To all Dusk Raptor combatants; cease resistance and surrender to the nearest Alliance patrol. Prisoner of war rights as afforded by the Citadel conventions are guaranteed to all who lay down their arms and surrender."

Emiya blinked, but didn't stop her as she spoke off-script. Well, this was fine too since it might mean fewer casualties.

"Additionally, all Alliance personnel be advised and advise your nearest officer; Priority 8-Delta target, Volus freighter 'Traskrash'. I repeat, Priority 8-Delta target, Volus Freighter 'Traskrash'."

Having said that, she exhaled and gave him a thumbs up. With a nod and a hand-sign showing that he was doing so, he cut off the broadcast.

"Alright, put that on repeat and it should be good, right?"

"Yeah, that should about do it," he said with a nod.

Tapping away for a few seconds for effect even though he could have simply done it with his cybernetics, he did just that. Then her stood up and turned around to look at Shepard.

She was looking at him too.

And then the mood turned awkward once more.

Neither said anything for a good ten seconds.

"Right, I should leave. You can probably handle it from here," he finally said.

"Leave...? No, you. Oh, I mean—No, just hold it right there!" Shepard protested, immediately getting back to her feet. And to make obvious that she wasn't just puffing hot air, she had her hand on her pistol again, making it clear that she wasn't anything resembling done just yet. "I've got a bunch of questions for you, Emiya. You're not going anywhere until I'm satisfied. Like, I should be arresting you for that stunt you pulled on Mars!"

He blinked, not quite certain what she was referring to.

A lot had happened on Mars, and it had been more than a few years ago. And a lot had happened since.

"Mars?" He prompted.

"Yeah! You go AWOL from Ares Station and then just vanish! I thought you were dead, but as it turns out you're just a deserter! I should be putting you under arrest right now!"

"Oh, that." Emiya nodded. That did clarify it quite a bit.

What should he tell her?

"Well...?" She glared at him.

I guess the truth will do, he thought.

"Well, the truth is I went to bed and then I wake up bound to a chair and completely drugged. That guy we saw in Brazil, Burns-something-or-other? He was working for a secret organization called Cerberus all along. So more of a case of kidnapping than AWOL, I guess."

Her mouth made a perfect o-shape as she blinked.

He could see the pieces falling in place in her head as he'd said that. Good, that was outrageous enough that it should keep her distracted.

"Wait, so then he took you to his house in Armstrong City? How did you—who rescued you? Who burned down the house?"

"That was pretty much all me," he shrugged.

"You broke free and burned the whole house down on your own? After you had already been kidnapped?"

He nodded. Good, she's already—

"No, wait. I saw the tapes from Ares Station. You were there, in the security room with the monitors, after the break in. Why—how would you have gotten free and then come back to the Station afterwards?"

"Err...?" He intelligently tried to buy some time as he tried to figure out what she was talking about.

"You're even wearing that same hardsuit, it's the only way I recognized you!" She accused.

"Oh, that... Right, I..."

Had he done that? He didn't honestly even remember anymore. It was honestly such an insignificant event during that whole fiasco, that it hadn't left much of an impression on him.

"If you managed to get free, why didn't you just come clean? You hadn't done anything wrong, right?" Her eyes bore right into him as she pressed him on. "There was no reason for you to just disappear..."

Damn, can I change the story still? Maybe say Miranda took me down and flew me to the Citadel afterwards...? No, that still wouldn't explain how I was back on Ares Station to be on camera like she says. Emiya sighed, rubbing the back of his head. Uh, more truth?

"It just couldn't be helped."

"'It just couldn't be helped'," she repeated his words, with an obvious look of skepticism.

"Right, because of the... brain problem I had...?" He realized then, that he really had no idea how to explain his condition from then. Brain cancer?

"...'Brain problem'."

Her skepticism and air quotes were turning slightly painful now, making him clear his throat and break eye-contact. "Khrm, anyhow to make a long story short, I had to get a cybernetic operation with the STG or I would have died within days after I left Mars."

She blinked, licking her lips as she digested his words. Somehow it seemed that she was actually believing it, even.

"Ok, so... You're working for the Citadel? Are—are you a Spectre?"

"Erm, no." He felt sheepish, having to deny that idea. At her confused expression, he further clarified. "I sort of... ran away from them too?"

She looked like she wanted to retort with a straight, but a second later she turned thoughtful. "So that's why the salarians always kept coming back and asking the same questions about Mars...? No wonder they didn't tell us a thing."

That did sound like something the salarians would do. It just wasn't like them to actually share what had happened with the Alliance. Though the question was, how did Shepard know about that? Would a mere Staff Lieutenant have access to that kind of information?

"You're a real piece of work, Emiya." She glared at him now. "So who are you working for now? The Shadow Broker? No, wait you knew the asari... Are you working for them? They would have the pull to protect you from the salarians. Probably."

"That's..." He hesitated for a moment. "I'm mostly just working for myself, I suppose. Freelance work, you know."

Her stare was turning slightly painful again, forcing him to cough and look away once more. He didn't remember her being like this five years ago. And she didn't seem to miss a thing.

Finally, she sighed and looked away, rubbing her temples with one hand.

Emiya perked, turning his head towards the doorway. With a frown, he spoke. "There are people coming here. Maybe a dozen of them, all wearing hardsuits."

They were still at least thirty meters away, meaning he had time to decide still. If it was the Alliance, he should make his exit without revealing his presence to them. As long as Shepard wasn't implicated and kept her quiet, his passing wouldn't produce too many ripples. But on the other hand if it was the batarians coming to take back the command center...

Shepard seemed to understand his thoughts, as she drew her pistol. "Let's put aside this conversation for later. I'm still not satisfied with everything you told me... Like, why didn't you send me a message, huh?"

He blinked, realizing that she might still be more than a little angry with him, now that she realized he hadn't actually died on Mars. "Right, uh... Later."

Hopefully never.

"You gonna make another disguise? If you copy mine, maybe you can pass off as an N7 Infiltrator or something."

Emiya froze, turning to look at her with narrowed eyes. When did she...

"I saw you outside, in the rift," she answered with a grin. Obviously enjoying his reaction, she even chuckled at him. "Can you do that with any hardsuit, or do you need like a blueprint for your omnitool's fabricator? Where did you even get it? I've never seen anything like it before."

"Err... It's custom work."

He blinked again, before shaking his head as he muttered his aria beneath his breath. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth—begin projection,

The Onyx hardsuit he had worn in basic appeared on his body, only this time it was adorned with the basic markings of a Corporal rather than any which he had actually ever worn while in the service. There should be plenty of those here. I can vanish into the crowd without too many questions.

Getting rid of the broken fragments of his helmet and making a non-functional one in the Onyx design, he put a mental note to get a working helmet before he left the installation. That, or taking apart one of the environment suits to remake his own helmet. For now, this would have to do for just hiding his face.

Grabbing a pair of batarian rifles and tossing one to Shepard, he settled across the room so that they could cover each other and the doorway into the command center if it turned out that hostiles were coming. Somehow Shepard seemed like she was enjoying herself all the while.

And not five seconds after they were both in position the attackers arrived.

"Systems Alliance! Surrender suckers!" An armored rifleman shouted from the door.

"That's not how that goes, say it right or I'll have you scrubbing toilets for a month, soldier!" Shepard shouted back. "Eh, never mind. Site clear!"

A head peeked around the corner, looking around the room.

It seemed to linger on some of the dead batarians until it finally nodded and the rest of the body entered into view. It was a man, wearing a fairly simple and nondescript Onyx hardsuit of his own.

Running up to Shepard, he crisply saluted her.

"Alright, good job making it here. What's your name? Run into any resistance on the way? Did you come alone?"

"Thank you, ma'am! Gunnery Chief Truong, and no we did not, ma'am! There are another four fire-teams on this floor, securing the rest as well, ma'am!"

While the Gunnery Chief was talking to Shepard, some of the others were looking around with obvious awe at the sheer destruction around them. The destroyed terminals, flipped over tables, the piles of dead heavily armed and armored batarians and the huge hole in the wall all left them quietly whispering and glancing at him and Shepard.

She nodded. "Alright, good. This place is busted, but down the hall and twice to the left there's the server room. It's a priority site, Truong, so keep it safe. Those servers are important. There's two wounded asari there too, so don't get too jumpy alright?"

"Yes, ma'am! Leave it to us, ma'am!"

"Good. Now, I've been shot and my leg is broken, so I'm gonna report myself right to the docs..." Shepard nodded, turning to look right at Emiya. "So, you. Get over here and carry my ass."

Emiya shrugged, tossing aside the batarian rifle without much care as he walked over to her. Is she helping me get out? Or will she try and arrest me once we're near more soldiers?

Regardless, it was obvious she wasn't letting him out of her sight just yet.

Well, it didn't matter.

In fact, if he got into a big fight with the Alliance it would probably help them avoid suspicion from the Citadel. Their matching timing was troublesome in more ways than just leaving him in the middle of an active invasion.

The soldiers saluted them as he borrowed a shoulder to her to lean on. Heading towards the server room, he inhaled slowly as they entered along with some of the Alliance soldiers. Both of the asari were already up and awake, behind cover and obviously not surprised by the new presences.

They must have heard the intercom.

"Did you get him?" Tryna asked with more than a little heat in her voice, nursing a bruise on her shoulder from before. Neither of the asari paid him any attention, not with all the other Alliance soldiers setting up defensive positions outside the room.

"Erm..." Shepard raised a hand to rub the back of her neck, obviously not sure what to say. "Nah, I think he got away."

"Oh... That's..." Tryna looked sheepish, her previous bravado deflating as she realized she might have raised an awkward point.

"Goddess, but we are lucky to have lived through that," Shiala said, hurriedly changing the subject. "Are you alright? Your leg must ache. Mine does and I merely saw it happen."

"Yeah, it's busted. Gonna have to pull back and check in with the medics. Live to fight another day, and all that," Shepard reassured them with a grin.

The two Matrons nodded at that, obviously relieved. "It seems that we still managed quite something nonetheless. We shall escort you back, yes?"

Though Emiya had hoped to avoid further contact with the two commandos, he said nothing as Shepard accepted the offer with a grin. Well, this makes getting back up easy.

Though matters after that became slightly more difficult. Can I still disappear among the slaves? No, no. With the servers back up, they can probably cross-reference and identify them all too quickly. Besides, the slaves would probably realize that I'd slipped in; a group like that should be very tight knit... Better to try and blend in among the soldiers until I can disappear.

Of course, that assumed that Shepard was going to play nice. Somehow as her arm over his should seemed to tighten around him, he doubted it would be quite so simple.

"Alright, let's go already. I think I might be bleeding out here..."

With that, the four were off to head for the upper levels. And since he had broken down the elevator, that meant he would have to carry her up all the stairs.

Joy.

---

;

---

"Lieutenant Shepard!"

She winced at the shout that echoed through the hangar bay. The walk up had gone a lot smoother than she could have even hoped, but she had figured this would be coming. She had technically run off from her post in the middle of a battle, and all.

"Major Kyle," moved to stand by herself and to salute the man stomping her way.

Gotta keep some distance from Emiya, can't let him get made here. She still had questions for him, and the fact was that if he got spooked then there would probably be very little that could be done to stop him. He had managed to sneak into the Torfan base with an almost disgusting level of ease, and had played both sides of the conflict as a mere afterthought. So if he thought he needed to disappear, there would probably be nothing she could do to stop him.

So, she would have to take the heat here.

It was a good thing the two asari had already left to rejoin their own companions, since that would have only complicated matters further.

"Explain yourself, Lieutenant!"

"Sir, I discovered a hole in the enemy defenses and—"

"Your orders were to secure the eastern entrance and captives, not to rush off and leave your post unattended!"

Already a crowd was forming around them and she could almost sense the tension building up in Emiya.

"Your thoughtless actions might well have cost hundreds of your subordinates lives, or this entire operation!"

He is angry, right. No. Venting. Frustrated. Something unexpected. But nothing did happen. Friction with reality eroding his plans and he was unable to account for it. She glanced at Emiya again, wondering for a second if the Major had somehow noticed his presence on the battlefield.

No, that wasn't it—Emiya had used the same entrance and fought around the same sectors as she had. And if she hadn't heard anything about him from her subordinates before she picked up his trail by sheer luck, then there's no way the Major could have either.

So it was something else.

But what? She had no clue. Certainly she had acted on her own, but was it really such a big deal? The batarians hadn't been able to push back at all and the Alliance had managed to dig into defensive position well before she had left. While she hadn't received express orders to hold position, she had been told to acquire and defend that sector. That, and to free the captives. But given the collapsed tunnels, that would take hours. Even now, with most of their personnel no longer tied to the fighting it would take a while.

Was it that she had managed to end the battle so decisive seemingly by herself? Or that she had made use of the asari to do so? She wasn't familiar enough with the politics involved at his level, so even her best guesses were little more than shots in the dark.

"You—" The Major's nostrils narrowed as he inhaled powerfully, intent on shouting at her again.

"Sir," Emiya suddenly stepped forward, causing the Major to stumble mentally for a second as he wheeled to stare at the would-be Corporal. "As a result of Lieutenant Shepard's orders, we were able to prevent the complete wipe of the enemies' servers."

"Corporal, you would do well to—"

"And there we discovered the origin of the non-standard munitions and materiel that the Dusk Raptors possessed."

What?

"What?"

That one sentence managed to change Kyle's mood completely.

"It is all still down there, full records, dated and verified, sir."

"That's..." The Major blinked, obvious relief visible on his face as he exhaled slowly, almost shuddering with the effort of calming down. He turned to regard Shepard, the look in his eyes completely changed. "...You did a reckless thing, but it worked this time. I will not praise you for it, but if it becomes a matter of the military courts then I will speak on your behalf."

He nodded and turned to leave, shouting at a group of soldiers that he needed an escort immediately down to the lower levels.

Blinking as she realized the storm had passed her by in an instant, she turned to regard Emiya. "What was that?"

As he offered her his shoulder to lean on and they continued towards the medics, he explained.

"...The batarians had some pretty advanced gear on some of the fronts. The marines took pretty heavy casualties and even now they're still struggling with pockets of resisting fighters," Emiya explained, though made no mention of how he knew that. "On paper, there's no way they should have access to anything like that, which seems to have left that man a little on edge."

She exhaled, shaking her head. "The Armax gun...?!"

No wonder Major Kyle was so worked up. Materiel of that standard could change entire battles, if they were supplied in sufficient numbers. For a moment she imagined it, the scenario the Major must have seen on his tactical map in the rear of the battlefield. Reports coming in about the enemies possessing much better firepower than they should have had any right to. And then one report of the commander of a front over-extending and potentially leaving the entire sector vulnerable to a counter-offensive by moving out on her own.

All the ingredients for disaster were there, obvious for anyone who could look at the entire battle from above and see all the pieces at play. She frowned, not agreeing with the Major even if she understood his reasoning. But for now she would keep silent.

She had been there. She had fought her way forward in that sector. She had had boots on the ground and knew what had been going on. They hadn't had those weapons there. Maybe it was just her bullheaded pride talking, but she didn't think she had made any mistakes. With her ear on the ground and her finger on the pulse of the battle, she was certain she had been able to grasp both the timings for pushing forward and for hunkering down properly.

She hadn't made a mistake; she would do it again all the same.

Or had that just been Emiya, supporting her from the shadows and propping up her weaknesses? A sliver of doubt. She turned to look at him, though he seemed to still be staring at the receding back of the Major.

"Gutless rear-echelon officers should remain in the back and just handle the logistics, honestly..." Emiya muttered quietly and she could hear the disparaging scoff despite his helmet.

"What do you mean?" She asked, more curious than anything.

Noticing her looking, he cleared his throat and elaborated. "Those tunnels were obviously expendable ground meant to buffer invaders. There wouldn't have been a counter-offensive—no way to leverage it to an advantage in the other fronts or to launch a flanking attack on the Alliance rear given your airspace superiority."

While she didn't necessarily disagree...

Emiya made no sound, even as she rammed her elbow into his side. Somehow his silence made her more annoyed than his badmouthing a superior officer had managed to.

"Thanks, anyhow."

He paused. "No, don't misunderstand. That was just me getting rid of him. He was attracting too much attention."

She said nothing, but they both knew that sounded a little weak. He's still a pushover if you know his buttons, huh.

Thinking back, he must have had a reason for wanting to go to Mars. Even if he had deserted, he had been adamant about being posted on Mars specifically. She had asked for his help in Brazil, though. And that had caused him a lot of trouble, to the point where he had had to fake a medical condition to keep going where he wanted to.

Another thing which she had thought about often and long. 'Don't worry. I'm fine', huh.

Somehow she felt like punching him again, remembering those last few days. But...

Shepard sighed. She was fairly certain that if she had just asked, he would have told her everything. He had that mindset of focusing one thing completely, but if you blindsided him with a straight then it was pretty easy to get answers out of him. Ask him for help and he would do it in a heartbeat, and then afterwards rationalize it as having been something he had planned to do all along no matter how much it inconvenienced him.

"Hey," she nudged him as they arrived by the triage point.

There were hundreds of wounded, laying all around in cots and being taken care of by dozens of medical officers. They'd be fine, though; the rule of thumb was that as long as you got to the docs on a modern battlefield, you would at least live. So, for a given definition of 'fine', they were.

"Hmm?" He prompted her, as she hadn't continued.

She realized she was feeling pretty woozy and light-headed already. She had bled a lot, hadn't she?

"Did you find what you were looking for on Mars?"

"Uh..." He blinked, completely blindsided by the question.

Somehow that made her grin.

"Kind of. It's... complicated."

"Heh. Seem like everything is, with you."

That made her grin, knowing that she'd gotten a bullseye on him. He must have been grumbling but unable to refute, looking away as he did.

He was practically sulking.

---

;

---

I really need to get out of here, Emiya grumbled.

The longer he stayed the more likely it was that he would be discovered. He had already deleted the footage in Shepard's helmet camera and combed through the Alliance logs for any mention of him, but he wouldn't be able to hide like this forever.

Not as a nameless, faceless mook.

Even in an military force this big.

And the longer he stuck with Shepard the more people would remember him afterwards. A strange Corporal who wasn't on any of the rosters, and whom nobody remembered having as a comrade when going in, would just draw heat onto Shepard in the aftermath.

Staying for much longer wouldn't be bad just for him.

Shepard noticed his quietness, staring up at him from the cot she had been directed to lie down on and wait for someone to come look her over. "Hey, we're still gonna have that talk, alright? So don't just run out on me."

"...No promises, but I'll try to stick around."

At least Shepard seemed to be enjoying herself in all the chaos, as she grinned up at him. Though he wasn't sure how much of that was just her tripping out due to blood loss currently.

Finally someone with a datapad and a medical uniform approached them.

"How bad is it, doc?" Shepard asked, looking up from her cot.

"I am not a doctor, ma'am," the man hovering over her answered testily. "And what the hell have you gotten up to down there... Jesus Christ, ma'am."

"That bad? Doesn't feel that bad. I'll live, right?"

The man scoffed, tapping away at his omnitool. "No, you're definitely dying. Your liver, spleen and upper intestine are practically all mush. What did you do, get hit with a shotgun? And how are you still even coherent—Oh, wonderful. Combat stimulants in your blood work; a real cocktail. Right, that means we'll have to check out half of the drugs we can use on you for the next two weeks..."

What.

"Shotgun? Yeah I think I remember a couple of shotguns."

What.

Emiya blinked, glancing at her hardsuit's abdomen as the cot began to hover and move after the man who was still fiddling with his omnitool. Those who lay around here mostly had superficial wounds and perforations in their limbs, nothing that would require immediate surgery.

But Shepard—he could see the marks where the plates had been repaired and fused back together. He hadn't thought anything of it before given how she didn't seem hampered by it, but had she been fighting him with a wound like that the whole time?

"Sign here and here."

Shepard took the datapad she was presented and signed it with a flourish. "A new liver? I'll have to toast the Sirta Foundation when I get out."

The man sighed as he took back the datapad. "Sometimes I think you soldiers get shot just so that you won't be able to drink yourselves to death. Your knee will have to wait for now..."

"Great! How about some painkillers? I think I'm coming down now and I still need to talk to my friend for a few minutes."

The man sighed, shaking his head even as he took out his omnitool and noted down something. Then, taking a hypodermic needle, he administered something straight to her neck.

"You're not going to be doing much talking, but the morphine should keep the worst of the pain at bay, now that you're going to start coming down from the stimulants. Your operation will start in twenty minutes." With that, the man walked away, leaving Emiya and Shepard in a corner of the hallway near the sealed operations tent erected by the doctors.

"So, about—"

Shepard began, but paused at the intent stare she realized he was giving her. Is she suicidal? No. Is this normal for the Alliance? No, no. That guy was just as flabbergasted by her recklessness as I am... Meaning—

"Are you an idiot?"

She blinked at the abrupt question, somehow taking no offense. She actually seemed to consider it seriously for a moment before she shrugged.

Emiya sighed, palming the front of his helmet and wishing he could rub his temples through the damn thing. Looking up, he noticed she was looking behind his back at whoever was walking up to them. Quiet, soft steps. Not good, it's probably...

He carefully kept himself from tensing up, even as the voice spoke up and confirmed his suspicion.

"Shepard."

The woman in question raised a hand to return a greeting he couldn't see. "Anatha, what brings you here?"

Emiya kept his body language in perfect control, only affecting mild surprise as he turned to stand aside and let the Asari Justicar speak directly to Shepard. He could feel her eyes on him, taking every inch of him and committing it to memory anyhow. Really not good.

"Those two conveyed the events of hours past to me. Had I known whose trail you were on, I would have joined you. For my failure to understand the severity of the situation and for allowing this to come to pass, you have my apologies," she offered a slight bow of her head. "The man you sought, I suspect is someone very dangerous. I am both relieved and disappointed that you did not find him."

"Uh, yeah, that... It's fine. Really." Shepard vaguely tried to reassure the Matriarch, throwing an awkward glance at Emiya as she did. "And it wasn't like you didn't try to get in, hahah—Krhm, I mean... Uh."

Her words trailed off as she realized she might have said something she shouldn't have.

He carefully did not react, remaining quiet even as Anatha definitely noticed the glance thrown his way. She was definitely suspicious of him now. Oh boy. Should I leave? But what if this idiot says something, stoned out of her mind on morphine as she is?

"And yet, you came to great harm. From what I heard, you were saved by this man here, yes?"

"No, that's—"—saying a little much, I simply carried her up here, really. Is what he would have said to minimize his role in everything. To remain as much as an unremarkable background figure as he could, so that he could eventually slip away without being remembered.

But.

"Yeah, that's right!" Shepard immediately agreed, seeking to assuage any suspicions the Matriarch might have had regarding him, cutting him off in the process. "He was a huge help! Did you know, he was the guy who thought to check the servers for where that missing professor was!"

Damn it, Shepard.

"Oh my," Anatha said, most definitely having not heard anything of that nature. "I had heard that Henell and her team had been discovered aboard a vessel on its way out of the cluster... But I had not heard anything regarding how their locations were discovered."

She turned to regard him again. But unlike the first time where it had been merely a sense of professional curiosity at an unknown person in her presence, now it was a deep scan fueled by keen interest and truly ancient curiosity.

"It would appear that you have done us a great service... Mister...?"

He ignored her, turning to Shepard. "Hey, you surgery should be starting soon. Shouldn't we get you out of that hardsuit?"

"Huh...? Oh yeah, let me just pop the seals and... Huh, it's stuck?"

"Here, let me help you with that," he said leaning in and whispering next to her ear. "Shepard you're sloshed out of your damn mind right now. Shut. Up."

Her eyes widened as they met his as he pulled away. "Huh...? Right, right. You're... Right. Whoa, you're actually really right."

And any modicum of subterfuge had now been blown right out, given that Shepard had all but confirmed that he had said something to her to make her shut up. Damn it, Shepard.

As he worked to get the hardsuit off of her, including cutting through the fused together pieces holding her knee together, he could feel the painfully intent stare of the Matriarch never leave his back.

And just as he thought things couldn't get any more hectic, someone who should have already long since become a non-issue saw fit to return and insert themselves into this drawn out mess.

"Shepard? I was told you were here...?" Major Kyle came walking down the hallway from the general triage area. Spotting them, he began to briskly walk over. "Shepard, good. You're still awake. The server room, it's right there and mostly intact. But we don't have the password for the mainframe. If you used it earlier, you must have the password, yes?"

Shepard who had raised a hand in greeting to the Major seemed to have trouble paying attention to his words. She frowned, her eyes wandering to Emiya as she tried to start several half mumbled sentences.

"Here, I have it. Let me come and show you," Emiya tried to salvage the situation.

If he just wrote down the password, surely the man would leave?

The Major blinked, noticing him again and narrowing his eyes to make sure it really was the same Corporal he had seen earlier. "Oh, it's you. Yes, that would be fine. But... What unit did you say you were with again? Who is your commanding officer? I asked around and no one seems to be missing in the lower levels..."

Ah, damn it. Damn it...!

As Emiya hesitated for just a second too long in answering, and he could see both the Major and the Justicar suddenly grow suspicious of him as they noticed his pause. The fact of the matter was, neither of them actually knew a damn thing about him when they thought about it.

Shepard didn't miss the change in mood either, even as high as she was. "He's good guy... Good, guy..."

The thumbs up she threw from her cot did little to reassure the two now staring intently at the quiet Emiya.

Should I run for it? Still don't have a helmet, but I can get one on the way out. No, that would still burn Shepard.

The asari know she was hot on his trail, but minutes later she was making the intercom call? And then the Alliance soldiers arrived to find some Corporal with her? There was no way they wouldn't put two and two together there and realize what must have happened. Could she really have been fooled by him so easily? Would anyone believe her if she tried cover for him by saying that? And she had known him in basic; there was no way anyone would believe her.

If he ran now, it would completely blow up in Shepard's face. No matter how he spun this, it would be taking her down with it.

"He—I... Ay-eye, uh... DCFP-A3...?" Shepard tried to mumble something, but trailed off.

But Major Kyle blinked, looking away from him to stare at her. "Alliance Intelligence? What was that, Shepard?"

Emiya paused at the man's reaction. An out. Something about what Shepard had just said was an out for him. His cybernetics reached out and connected to her omnitool, breaking through and digging deeply to access everything he could find in a matter of centi-seconds.

This...!

Completely unexpected. But something he could use. There was no way either of these two—or anyone else here for that matter—would know that he was usurping her role and stealing her hidden identity like this. He would have to deal with it afterwards properly, once Shepard was sober again.

Alright, you can do this. At this point it should be second nature to you already.

Emiya sighed, his shoulders slumping in feigned annoyance as he brought up an arm to tap away at his omnitool. He was pretending to be taking out something, but in reality he was busy manipulating the data with his cybernetic connection to make it fit him.

"I had hoped to remain in the shadows for a while longer, but it can't be helped I suppose."

Anatha tensed up, already expecting the worst as she had surely seen through his disguise. But too bad, he was about to double down so hard on his cover that even she would be too bewildered to realize she had actually been right all along.

"I am with the Alliance Intelligence Agency; Deep Cover Field Operations. My service number is DCFP-A341CJS. My name is not important."

And at the same time he brought out the holographic badge with 'his' ID number and specifications. His name and face were blurred out—or rather where Shepard's name and face could have been, were left empty. But there was a contact detail for confirmation of his identity, just for situations like this. For when a Deep Cover Field Operative needed to get out of a sticky situation by calling home, for a 'get out of jail'-card without revealing their actual identity.

Well, for that's how it would have been for Shepard anyhow.

He would be using it now for his own purposes though.

"You may contact Arcturus Station and request confirmation regarding my presence here if you wish. Of course, that is all they will confirm. My identity is a matter of sealed records, after all."

"The AIA...!" The Major said through gritted teeth, glaring at him now. "What are you doing here? You have no right to interfere with my—this operation!"

"As it happens, I had been working with Lieutenant Shepard on a very important mission. This is a matter of state, and galactic security. You see I am pursuing a very dangerous man...

"To that end... Could you tell me everything you know about the figure known as 'Redhax', one 'Emiya Shirou'?"

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;

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Proofread by a hobo in a barrel.

lol that was fun

Shepard gets a double bonus against Emiya, because she's both a cute girl he knew in the past (like Rin), and she's a hot-blooded redhead main character (like Shirou), so she gets past his thick skin pretty effortlessly. Plus, she's got the power of the DIALOGUE WHEEL on her side. Emiya thinks he can throw distracting topics at her to avoid specific subjects, but she never forgets and will always jump back to ask all the awkward questions :V

That and she imprinted on all the worst(best!) qualities of Emiya back in basic. "Oh, senpai got himself shot again! How sugoi!"

Also the title? Really just "Reckless Reunions". The "Painful Partings" part was just there to fuck with the readers who might expect me to have Emiya and Shepard to part ways again. Well, I guess it was a painful parting for a moment when Emiya broke her knee :V