Chapters 1-20 have been proofread and edited again. While I did that, I also re-wrote some scenes in Citadel Shindig and Serial Shenanigans relating to cybernetics. Biggest change were some of the dialogue during the party with Mordin, and removing the NP Emiya used to heal himself; it really work since it was just an ad hoc Avalon on my part, which was just lazy, given that there were canon methods for handling that issue. Also some of the dialogue with Hoana and the chase down to Dretirop.

Once I get around to chapter 20 onward, I might also make other similar minor changes. We'll see.

Also, that guest reviewer who keeps dropping essays as reviews: wtf&thx&lol

;

White wall, white ceiling, stretching just beyond his reach in all directions.

Somehow he couldn't quite tell the dimensions of this room at times. He would stare out and then suddenly it would be as if the far wall was a hundred miles away. And then in the blink of an eye, it would be back to where he knew it was.

It wasn't anything strange, or anything wrong with his perceptions.

The lack of features was simply throwing him off when his mind wandered. It was an amusingly accurate parallel to how he had gotten here. Scale. First, he saved one. Then two. One life to save another or two.

There had been a certain faux-enlightened smugness when he had recognized it happening and thought that he understood what it meant. His ideal wasn't to save one person, or even to save the world. It was never something that concrete, rather it was the idea of saving. Of saving everyone who needed it. Everyone who came in front of him and cried for help. Of course, that was impossible. He had known that since his earliest days on this path. That much was an obvious truism.

But it was the act of saving that was important.

Which meant that there could be no retreat. There could be no defeat.

Then ten people—sometimes at the cost of one or two—and soon a hundred lives were saved at a time. An intoxicating amount, enough that he could, however temporarily, forget all of the pain and blood. In hindsight, it was obvious how he would end up. The only surprising thing was that it had taken so long until it finally happened.

And now a thousand, a hundred thousand, millions at a time...?

Regardless, any and all claims he could lay to wisdom and experience were well and truly null and void, since he had been unable to foresee just how far things could grow.

He had lost hope of even counting halfway through this time around.

;

Emiya's stomach lurched back, as they entered relative normalcy again, the SSV Tokyo appearing on the far side of the mass relay, having completed the jump through hundreds of light-years in the space of a few moments.

He inhaled once, then focused on exhaling slowly for as long as he could to recover from the feeling.

Arcturus system; the headquarters and capital of the Systems Alliance, and in theory, humanity. It was the first system outside of the Sol system that humanity had set foot into when in 2149 Jon Grissom first traveled through the Charon Relay at the edge of humanity's then-traversable space. One red giant star, three planets, one asteroid belt, and most importantly, several other relays. To sweeten the deal, two of those planets were hydrogen-helium gas giants, making them effectively inexhaustible sources of fuel for the System Alliance's continued expansion.

Of course, the lack of a habitable world in the system put something of a damper on those plans, initially. Certainly, the third planet, Eunomia, was solid ground beneath your feet if all you wanted was to land. But it was a frozen ball lacking any atmosphere or any useful minerals, so very far away from the best source of energy in the system; the star. It wasn't even worth using as a source of water since the asteroid belt was plentiful with both water vapor and massive ice balls.

Therefore, the burgeoning star-faring species decided to instead build their first new habitat beyond Sol.

Using the materials found in the asteroid belt and from various other celestial bodies within relay's reach, the project began in 2151. Over ten years of work, over a trillion credits in materials alone, the blood, sweat, and tears of countless who helped build it later, Arcturus Station was completed.

A monument to humanity; a massive Stanford Torus-type space station in stable L5 orbit around Themis, the first planet orbiting the red giant. Essentially it was a great, big doughnut, spinning just fast enough to create artificial gravity without the use of element zero, with a massive mirror floating above it to guide the ray's of Arcturus where they were needed most, be it the hydroponics facilities or the massive solar panels at the center of the doughnut.

It was to this day the greatest man-made structure in the galaxy, capable of permanently housing nearly fifty-thousand people.

Which meant that it was utterly dwarfed by the Citadel.

A fact which no doubt fueled humanity's nascent inferiority complex, given how until the First Contact War, they had thought themselves the lone masters of the universe, with this their new throne from which to expand out into the galaxy. Grand dreams, dashed very quickly as the Citadel had intervened to end humanity's first interstellar war, showing all too clearly just how vast the rest of existence still was.

But that was hardly the only reason it interested him very little at that moment, his cybernetic senses reaching out with the cruiser's sensors almost by themselves to follow his thoughts.

The Local Relay—the Arcturus pair of the Charon Relay—hung some hundred million kilometers from the relay he had just come through, all-too tempting as he thought about his return to the Moon Cell. To say that there was no temptation to leave for Sol right then and there would have been a lie, but for now, he could only patiently wait.

Lacking any starship of his own and onboard a Systems Alliance cruiser on a strict schedule, he didn't have many options for striking out on his own. Even ignoring the numerous injured from Torfan aboard, there was still the matter of the entire First Fleet to consider. Largest of the Alliance's fleets, it was tasked with the security of Arcturus Station, the system and nearby space, the various mass relays, and finally and most importantly the Local Relay leading back to Earth.

Not the kind of odds he wanted to take on at the moment, so ultimately he could only sigh as he crossed his freshly re-gloved arms.

Literally re-gloved, as it turned out.

It had been a fairly interesting process to follow, being more than a little distracting during his conversation with the ship's captain. At first, they had fixed several of his torn muscles, re-attaching what would have otherwise become little more than useless flesh back to the ligaments to ensure that he wouldn't experience too much loss in muscle functionality. Even so, his left bicep still felt a little too tight at full extension; something he had been assured was fine, as his mind and body would adjust themselves to it with time.

Then, the various layers which Emiya had never bothered to remember had been fixed one by one, using increasingly freakish and fascinating devices and designs. At one point, he was certain they were literally painting something back onto his body. Perhaps that was some sort of healing agent, or a glue for the next part...

Until finally, the fully grown skin graft was brought in. It had quite literally been like putting on a bespoke glove; a near-perfect fit where all that was necessary afterward was stitching it up to his existing skin. That was then repeated three more times, once for every limb. He almost felt like Frankenstein's monster from the old movies, what with all of the stitches around his limbs and the paler tone of skin clashing with that of his unmarred hide.

All he had been missing was the bolts on his temples and a half-dozen grave robberies.

The skin grafts felt slightly odd now, tingling with what he could only describe as 'white noise' from the nerves that had not quite yet acclimated themselves with his brain. They weren't quite right. Doctor Chakwas had told him that he should remain in bed for a good month before he could even think about beginning physical therapy, preferably with all of his operated limbs upraised at all times. But he just didn't have time for that; there was simply too much to do. It wasn't even that bad now. Having a hole drilled in his hip bone for the marrow sample necessary to cultivate the skin grafts had been much worse, as had the process of losing the skin in the first place. Even if he would have to oil the skin daily, since the pores and sweat glands did not work properly on the grafted skin yet, he didn't see any reason to just lie around.

Besides, working through the pain was almost nostalgic. Maybe he would have a light workout with a blade before they arrived. Some easy rehab to get his nerves acclimatized before things kicked into gear again...

"Huh," Shepard looked up, just then. "We're out of the relay now."

Emiya nodded at her observation, half-surprised she could tell as he leaned back in his chair. "The Tokyo is headed for the dreadnought. Once the patients are off-loaded, it's straight to Arcturus Station."

It was probably from long experience aboard this specific starship, growing used to its engines and the nearly-imperceptible changes in sound and vibration, rather than any ability to sense the colossal mass effect fields like he did, he decided.

She nodded, leaning back in her bunk before his chair. She was still under medical observation, as the good doctor had loudly declared that she would not be getting out of that bed a single second before they were at Arcturus Station. He suspected it was mostly because Chakwas had found no authority to pull on him and he had dismissed all of her advice, once the operation was over and done with.

"We're cutting it a bit close, huh..."

"I'm sure they won't mind," he commented gruffly. "You're here now and couldn't get away anymore, even if you tried."

Shepard nodded again and then put her head back down on the pillow, staring vacantly at the ceiling. Then, noticing that he was getting up, she blinked.

"Where are you going?"

He looked down at her, rolling his shoulders. "I need to see how far I can push myself, and we have a few hours before we're at Arcturus Station."

Her brows furrowed. "But Chakwas told you to stay put," she then pointed out quietly, not wanting to draw the aforementioned doctor's attention.

"That hardly matters if I need to fight or run. I need to see how hard I can push myself—every little bit means I don't need to put others at risk," he explained quietly with a scoff. He had broken enough kneecaps and arms for a lifetime already. If his condition really was that bad, then he would simply have to change his approach entirely. "I need to know how hard I can push myself," he repeated again. "To know whether or not I can help you, if things turn sour."

Shepard blinked then, thoughtful.

Finally, she nodded. "Alright, but I'm coming with you. Grab the wheelchair," she commanded, pointing. "I want to see this for myself."

"What am I, a performance artist?" he groused but obeyed nonetheless.

It was better to get moving before Chakwas caught a whiff of their intentions. Shepard sat down snug and smug in the chair, following him quietly as he left. With all of the injured being crammed onto the warships returning to Arcturus, there wasn't much room for swordplay anywhere.

But he just needed a few square meters, nothing more.

Mentally cataloging and checking through every nook, cranny, and corner of the cruiser, he finally found a half-decent spot; a storage room that wasn't rated for housing personnel due to poor ventilation, usually used for munitions and materiel storage instead. With the operation on Torfan, the room had been all but cleared out, giving him plenty of room.

And it wasn't far if they took the elevator, he thought with a backward glance at Shepard.

He didn't want to overexert her while she was still recovering, or get her worked up into moving about on her own. He would have to keep it short to convince her that he was taking it just as easy as she was. Maybe I should pretend exhaustion...? He frowned, dismissing the idea. It would probably lead her to believe she needed to work harder to compensate, rather than to take it easy. Giving her an aggrieved glance, he mused at how annoying it was to deal with someone like her. Too stubborn, too proactive, and all too sure that they should throw themselves into the line of fire for others' sake. Irrational and volatile and worst yet, difficult to predict and control. If he didn't do something about her, she would be jumping into an early grave headfirst with a running start.

Entering the storage room, he nodded.

"Alright, this will work." Turning around he glanced at her, noting that she had followed him the whole way and showed no signs of intending to leave. With a disgruntled sigh he nodded again, this time towards a corner where there was space enough for her wheelchair in between two large crates, where she would be out of his way. "Go there if you're not leaving."

"Sure. But what are we doing here? The gym is three levels down from here," she queried.

Emiya didn't answer, instead locking the door with a mental effort as he began rolling his shoulders. Now that he had some privacy, he could take off the damn helmet for a while. Wearing the damn thing constantly was starting to chafe already, especially knowing that he might not get many chances to take it off in the near future, depending on how things went in a few hours. Setting aside the helmet on one of the crates, he stepped back to the center of the room.

Then, without any preamble he Projected his twin blades, grasping them with numb hands. Grimacing, he adjusted his grip and simply focused on how the wrapped leather and hard hilt felt. Because he knew exactly how it should feel.

Just as when his cybernetics had been scrambled on Thessia, if he knew what he was supposed to be sensing, it was easy enough to simply adjust his perceptions and ignore the rest. The extended tips acting as a lever, the artificial gravity pulling them down; the weight on the intermediate phalanges of his index and middle finger, while the pommel pressed against the heel of his palm and the pad of his thumb. Closing his eyes, he exhaled and rolled the blade around in his hand lightly, simply registering the sensation of the hilt moving around in his hand.

Hmm, not bad. I'll need a few hours to work out the kinks for certain, but...

"Hey, it's those swords again!" Shepard exclaimed excitedly.

Emiya's eyes opened and he turned to glare at her, his focus disturbed. But the sheer wonder in her eyes that were unerringly tracking the white blade in his right hand knocked all the air out of his indignation.

"Here," he said, flipping the blade in his hand with only-barely-acceptable expertise, offering out the hilt of the sword for her inspection.

She accepted it gingerly, her eyes going wide at the weight of the weapon as she grasped it.

"It's... heavy."

"A little bit. But that's good," he remarked, before turning back to focus on the black blade in his hand. Maybe with something to distract her, she wouldn't bother him again, so that he could...

"Why do you fight with swords, anyhow?" she asked, immediately deflating that hope. "I mean, I know you can handle a gun."

Frowning, he considered what to say.

How did he explain their mystical aspects without getting caught in the need to explain a hundred other things to her? Well, that wasn't all, even if it did matter a great deal. The swords were heavy, as she had correctly pointed out. Which meant that in the hands of a superhuman fighter they could deal much more damage than a gun could. It was a matter of kinetic energy versus momentum, which was also why he had come to prefer loosing arrows over using guns when at range. Defensively they also held the advantage, since if a powerful opponent crossed the distance, he didn't have to waste any time switching into a defensive mode, and...

"Oh, I get it," she opined, cutting off his line of thought, again. "You just like them. Got it."

He frowned, a refutation hot on his lips but he paused as she pointed at his left hand with the tip of Bakuya in hers. Kanshou stopped the continuous, circular and spiraling movements it had been undergoing as he stared at it; his left hand even in its debilitated state, was still familiar enough to perform the usual warm-ups and joint stretches on its own.

Frown turned to grimace, as he tried to recoup a denial still.

Shepard had crossed her arms over the white blade sitting in her lap, smirking at him with plain amusement now. "It's kind of unexpected, Emiya. I used to think you were super serious all the time, but you're actually kind of a goofball, huh?"

Scoffing, he turned his back to her. I won't even dignify that with a reply. Any answer or argument at this point would only be giving her the satisfaction of thinking she had gotten under his skin. Going back to his exercise, he slowly began working his way up in range of motion and intensity. He was still keeping it at less than a fifth of his usual strength and speed, keeping the flowing magical energy in his body focused on how the skin grafts were holding up. Seems fine so far. I might have to extend a sword or two from within my body, if I kick it up a notch. If I just extend it out from above the back of the elbow, it should keep the rest of the skin from getting loose, with minimal damage.

"I can't exactly fault your choice, though. You were pretty amazing on Benezia's ship," Shepard said quietly.

Emiya only nodded, though he didn't check to see if she was even looking at him. It was time to start incorporating some footwork into his test. After all, the maximum power he could exert from just his arms was nothing compared to what he could do with his feet. Every powerful strike, cut and move began from the ground, moving up your feet and up to your hips and back. Why focus on training your biceps or triceps, when the latissimus dorsi—the back muscles, and the largest muscles in the upper body—would still be stronger in their untrained state? And that was without even considering the quadriceps and hamstrings, no slouches when it come to power generation either. Of course, that didn't mean that it was alright to leave your arms untrained. Every strike was a chain, where the weakest link had to be the target being cut.

That meant training every part of the body involved in the attack was important.

Taking a single step forward, he dropped and shifted his weight, feeding all of the energy created from moving all of his body mass up the chain of his body, through his back into his shoulder, down his left arm into his hand which finally swung out so fast that the grasped blade simply vanished for a single instant.

The sound of the blade parting air was so sharp that he could see Shepard flinching with surprise.

"Where did you learn how to do all this, anyway...?" she asked, clearly impressed.

He twirled the sword in his left hand with a satisfied expression before bringing it in a reverse grip and hiding it behind his arm. Facing her, he shrugged easily.

"Here and there, it's mostly just hard work. Anyone can learn if they try."

"Huh." She blinked, hesitating for a second as she looked down at the sword in her own hands with considering eyes, before she nodded. "Then... Could you teach me?"

Emiya paused, brows furrowing.

"That's..."

He was about to say that it would be useless for her. Contemporary combat made melee weapons useless. She would be better off sticking with guns, like she had been until now. But that wasn't actually entirely true. It had been mostly true back in his day, but it wasn't anymore. Weapons and armor technology always went hand in hand, competing with one another for dominance. When he had been alive, weapons had effectively been dominating given how efficient gunpowder weapons were against people.

But today, with mass effect technology... The biggest limiting factor—besides sheer cost—was the heatsink. And railguns produced a lot more waste heat than kinetic barrier emitters did. Add on top of that the fact that you could strap a bigger heatsink into a hardsuit since it was worn on your body rather than carried like guns were, and the shift in the advantage of armor against weapons was nearly complete. It took several seconds of sustained fire just to breach someone's shields with the average rapid-fire weapon, after which one still needed to deal with the physical armor and any medigel ssytems.

Guns were struggling to keep up. Especially at close range, just as Biotics could attest. Henell had been proof perfect of that.

Meaning that there was a niche for a sword, even in the hands of a regular flesh and blood human being.

Kinetic barriers were set to work only against very high velocities, a slower-moving blade wouldn't necessarily even trigger them. Armor had to accommodate the movements of whoever wore it, meaning that there would still be weak-spots for a stiff and acute point to penetrate, just as it had during the age of plate-clad knights. And medical systems could easily replenish blood and numb injured body parts to allow someone to keep fighting on, but a critical hit could still down someone near-instantly. A strong thrust to a visor, or below the chin where helmet seals are softest, could easily puncture into the brain.

"Well...?" she prompted, having noticed his thoughts.

But he kept quiet, still weighing his words.

The range of motion of limbs means that it could be possible to cut ligaments, too. Or just using the sword as a lever itself—half-swording and entering into a grapple with the intention of breaking their arm and controlling their movements...

Emiya grimaced. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made to him. Not as a primary weapon by any means. But as a short-range, last-ditch weapon of desperation used when a gun would take too long to kill and lacked the punch to control an opponet, it could be very effective. If the right person taught someone the methods and principles behind such combat, anyhow.

"...I could teach you," he said, giving up.

She grinned at him. "Great, Doctor Chakwas kept telling me I'd have to work on rehabilitating my leg. This should work great."

Sighing, he nodded and turned his back to her. "We'll work out the details later."

That said, he went back to checking out how his body was holding up. So far, he felt quite good. Not enough to take on the entirety of Arcturus system, but more than enough to cause some mayhem if it came down to it.

;

In hindsight, running off to Captain Anderson had been pretty stupid.

She had wanted the refuge of authority, to be told that she hadn't been making mistakes all along, to know that she hadn't done a bad job. That she had been a good soldier. But that was exactly what had been stupid. It was obvious to her now that she was standing on the razor's edge, balancing between chaos and order; surfing on the wave to the most dangerous of frontiers of the galaxy.

In N-school she had been taught how to take control of a situation, how to become an authority herself and how to command and lead.

It was what had allowed her to turn the tide in the Skyllian Blitz so completely. The disparate civilians wouldn't have known what to do without her taking charge and telling them where to go and when to shoot. She was an expert and they could trust her judgment to make it through the crisis. And so she had thought that she should reach out to an expert of her own on how to deal with everything. She hadn't wanted to deal with the pressure, had been too scared and insecure to stick to her guns and grab the reins.

But that just didn't work.

Emiya had blown off the captain immediately and decided to handle things his usual way. On his own, without anyone else to help him out or hold him back. It didn't work, because the only expert and authority on Emiya Shirou—or Redhax, or whatever else the rest called him in the galaxy—was her; Jane Shepard.

It was a ridiculous and mind-boggling realization, but one she couldn't deny once she had told Emiya to stop... and he had listened.

It wasn't like with Benezia, who Emiya only dealt with grudgingly and whom he seemed to disdain on some level—even if he also seemed to quite like her at the same time—or the captain, who had almost completely bungled up their first meeting. Though much of the blame in that lay with her; she should have realized how he would have reacted to everything before she sprung it all on her captain. So it came as something of a shock, to realize that she was the only one who actually got Emiya.

When she talked, he would listen.

Really listen, rather than simply consider it for a moment and then dismiss it for his own designs. Sure, he was still quite stand-offish and sarcastic with her, but that was just who he was and she wouldn't change it for anything. She hadn't even realized how much she had missed his dry wit and biting commentary until it was back in her life. Which meant that she had an immense responsibility by proxy, considering the sheer magnitude of matters he was dealing with. It was no molehill to claim that things on the galactic scale now hinged on what she did.

It was more than a little bit overwhelming.

But if he could do it, then...

She glanced at him.

"Hey, when we dock at Arcturus Station and I go to meet the AIA..." Shepard began, getting his attention. He lowered his sword with a dazzling flourish that he didn't even seem to realize he had done, before his gray eyes settled onto her. It was like being stared down by a hawk. "I'll take the lead, alright? Don't start doing anything too obvious before I say so, okay?"

Emiya raised a brow archly, his head leaning back so that he could stare at her down the length of his nose.

"Oh? Do you think you have anything to say that they will even bother to heed?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I want to try at least."

It wasn't just the galaxy on her shoulders. It was him, too. Her eyes were drawn to his hands again, the realization that he wasn't quite invincible after all replaying in her mind. He could get hurt. He would get hurt if he kept this up. He would just keep on taking bigger and bigger challenges until he finally crashed headfirst into a wall he couldn't go through anymore. She almost felt like he was already one foot in the grave, at times.

But she could do something about that; just as she had with Benezia and Anderson. She could help him.

"Besides..." she continued, adopting some of his condescending mien. "What kind of ally to you would I be, if all I'm doing is dragging you down?"

He considered her words with a scowl, then shrugged with obvious annoyance. "Suit yourself."

Going back to his training though, she didn't miss the small half-smile on his face. He probably didn't even realize it himself, that whenever she got one up on him, immediately after his initial annoyed reaction he would start smiling. Maybe that was why he liked Benezia after all? The chance for some good banter, or maybe he just liked being talked down to by women?

Shepard chuffed at the thought, careful to keep from bothering him.

Regardless, his mood seemed much improved compared to the first days since their reunion. As was hers, if she was honest. It wasn't as if he was some whipping boy either, giving as good as he got.

Suddenly, the white sword in her lap vanished.

Blinking, she looked up and realized that so too had the black one that he had created earlier with that custom matter fabricator of his. She wondered if that was how he had made that clone body of his earlier, too. Was it some kind of drone-robot he could control like his body, to keep himself from getting hurt? It had seemed stronger than his actual body, too.

Shepard blinked in surprise.

"Did you suffer a concussion while I wasn't looking?" Emiya asked, snapping his fingers in front of her face, trying to get her attention. He was frowning, too.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said we're half an hour away from Arcturus Station. If you want to take point, you'd better be ready." Scoffing, he crossed his arms as he stood tall, looming over her. "If you were only just now thinking about your game plan, then I don't have much hope for you."

Rolling her eyes at his smirk, she waved his concerns away.

"Of course I wasn't thinking about it only just now," she replied with a scoff. She had tried to think about what to say or do the whole trip and hadn't managed to come up with anything. So what could she come up with now, with the little time left to her? "You don't need to worry about me. You just worry about yourself, alright?"

If winging it worked for him half the time, then he couldn't exactly fault her for doing the exact same thing, right? Plus, if it came down to it, then having Emiya in her corner on standby was one hell of a Plan B, so she wasn't worried. About anything other than the ribbing she'd receive from him for messing up, anyhow.

She nodded at him and said: "It's fine, trust me alright."

;

The cruiser drew nearer the great torus spinning in orbit around the burning red star.

Arcturus Station.

What he had seen through the long-range sensors and cameras when they had entered the system did not do it justice, nor had any of the research material or public documents presenting the space station. Now that he was standing on the bridge garbed in his full disguise beside the gruff captain, he could see with his own eyes through the bridge forward window.

It was quite something.

He had expected it to be orbiting around the first planet, Themis, as all the material he had read on the space station described its position in relation to the gas giant. He had imagined a great satellite, skimming the planet for fuel as necessary, all within spitting distance as it were. But instead, the great big doughnut was trailing behind the planet, following its orbit some sixty degrees, as if it was its own entity entirely. It wasn't like Hosin's Hangar, he realized as they began to draw nearer; it was too large to maneuver itself constantly to correct and adjust its position, like an orbital station would. On top of that, there was the great mirror, floating above—or to the side, depending on your perspective—of the station, angled so as to collect the rays of the star and focus them.

If the station moved, so too would the mirror. No easy feat he imagined: to synchronize the movements of the two massive objects in the vacuum of space.

No, he realized as they continued to approach the center of the spinning wheel. This was something much greater than that. Something much more in the category of the Citadel, rather. Overwhelmingly vast; a world unto itself, built in the coldness of space.

A man-made habitat in the void, not something found or given, but something humanity had made for itself.

The craftsman in him could sense the sheer weight of this world, even this far out. It had a dormant mystical power all its own. Subtle and silent, nothing that would ever manage to enact itself in reality without an external push. Yet undeniably there. How many thousands of lives have worked on this thing? How many hundreds and thousands and millions of hours went into erecting this foothold beyond Sol? How much sweat, tears, and blood? How many lives had this place consumed to be born?

They continued to close in towards the center of the spinning wheel, where the spokes met and formed a cylindrical core. He could see numerous starships docked there, leaving and entering on clear flight paths, all in neat and stagnated queues.

Down by the front, an officer spoke: "Station Control, this is SSV Tokyo, requesting permission to dock."

Emiya's attention was brought back and he furrowed his brows, shaking his head minutely.

"Are you ready?" Anderson asked beside him, then.

"Stand-by for clearance, Tokyo."

Whether the captain was asking him about his condition, or Shepard's or both, Emiya didn't know. It was hard to get a read on the man when it came to this new arrangement. Normally, David Anderson would be a very predictable pawn on the great board. An honest man, sworn and loyal to his oaths, lacking any great vices or ambitions; he was very much someone Emiya thought he could handle. But Shepard had thrown a wrench into all of that, so far completely blowing his expectations and predictions for how the captain would react out of the water. This is why I didn't want to get involved...

It was his own presence, he figured. The loss of objectivity found in an outsider's position. The inability to see how all the pieces reacted to his actions at the moment made it very difficult to get any complex plans in the works and would make it downright impossible to keep them going for any length of time.

"Who knows..." he replied, finally.

The captain twitched, making a low sound of disgruntlement. Perhaps Emiya hadn't been the only one trying to avoid the other recently, then.

"Clearance granted. You may begin your approach, transferring you your operator and docking details now. Welcome to Arcturus Station."

"It's in Shepard's hands. For now, anyhow."

Anderson turned to stare at him and for just a moment, he wondered if he wasn't the only one feeling slightly out of his depth. Then, it passed and he scoffed confidently. He had a new image to maintain, after all. Playing in the big leagues, act like it. It was time to head out; the docking bay was just ahead. Reaching out, he willed for a notification to appear on Shepard's omnitool to meet him by the airlock.

Emiya stopped just shy of Shepard as he got there.

She looked over her shoulder at him and he crossed his arms. They exchanged a look, but neither said anything and as the inner door opened they entered as one.

As decontamination finished and the outer door opened, he uncrossed his arms. "Well then, see you around."

Shepard blinked, just as the airlock opened with a hiss, missing the exact moment his repaired invisibility cloak engaged and he vanished.

"Huh."

He walked past her as she tried to look around for any sign on him, but he was already well past the ship's hull and down the walkway before she finally decided to give up.

Okay, play big, he reminded himself.

There had plenty of time to fix his stolen cloak on the way to Arcturus Station, with the additional benefit of now having the geth cloaking technology for reference and comparison. As far as the visible spectrum went, he was nigh-on completely invisible now. But he, like the salarians and unlike the geth platforms, did not have the benefit of a synthetic body made out of materials that could handle a much greater range of temperatures for extended periods of time.

Meaning that camouflaging his thermal signature would be much more difficult.

The human body generated a lot of waste heat, both when digesting food to store energy and when converting previously-stored energy into work, like contracting muscles and the like. The amount of energy 'wasted' as heat ranged somewhere between seventy and eighty percent, in fact. And while in cold temperatures this could be very useful for keeping the water in your body from freezing over, it also meant that in warm temperatures you needed to shed a lot more heat. Human organs did not take very well to high temperatures. And trying to contain all of that heat coming from his body would be like swathing himself in thick winter clothes inside of a steam bath.

He had already tried it once before on the way and it hadn't been pleasant.

The bright idea of trying to use his magical energy to increase his resistance to the heat had only made it even worse, as his burning magic circuits just compounded the effect. Maybe if he had a very powerful and efficient heatsink into which he could gather and dump all of the excess heat, it would be possible to have perfect stealth. But there had been nothing like that on hand aboard the SSV Tokyo and he simply didn't have the know-how to make something like that.

Though he did have some ideas he could try out later once he had studied up on how heatsinks worked, given the overlap with his pagoda. What was cooking with heat, but careful management of thermal energy, after all?

Thus the fact was that more advanced sensors could still pick him up, even if the naked eye had no chance.

The type of sensors which he suspected the heavily armed welcoming party by the elevators might have had with them. Fifteen Alliance marines all clad in fully sealed hardsuits by the looks of it. Though he suspected the four standing slightly behind and aside from the others weren't strictly speaking marines at all. Probably AIA, or N-line specialists.

There was no other way out, the corridor around them still effectively just a tube out into space. The only way into the space station was the elevator up ahead.

One of them appeared to be an Engineer, as he raised his omnitool and tapped away with his other hand at the glowing interface. In response, four floating discs placed along the sides of the walkway from the docked starship began to quietly whirl in place in the air.

Reaching out with his cybernetics for anything to connect to, he frowned as there was nothing. All fifteen had either no connected computers or were running them all in complete isolation from the usual networks. Meaning that he wouldn't be able to hack them. Not without creative measures.

"I'm picking up something..." Emiya heard him say.

Good thing I came prepared, he thought in response as he stopped.

Two things happened at once: a switch was flicked in his brain, thoroughly overriding his hypothalamus as at the same time the cloak around him changed. For a second it seemed to buzz against his skin and then, it began to grow warmer. Much, much warmer.

"...What the...? It's gone."

Looks like the thermoptic camouflage is working.

Normally if he wanted to control his body temperature, he would have relied on his breathing as a means of affecting it. But that had its limits. He knew how to raise his body temperature quickly by raising his metabolic rate and how to cool down by exhaling heat. But neither of those was of any use here, as he needed to cool down without expelling detectable heat. He needed to slow down his metabolism. Something which he would need to sit down and effectively meditate for an hour to achieve at all. And he didn't know if he could lower it to any useful degree, either. Even going to sleep would only slow it down by a tenth of its usual rate that he knew.

Hardly enough to keep him from cooking alive now that he had turned on the thermal containment on his cloak.

Which had been why he had directly manipulated his brain instead. His cybernetic implants were connected to his hypothalamus, which among other things controlled body temperature and metabolism. Ugh, this doesn't feel good. For most warm-blooded animals it is extremely dangerous for their internal temperature to dip suddenly, the range within which his internal organs could function being very specific and unforgiving, due to the numerous and complicated chemical reactions occurring at all times. He wasn't like a lizard, able to simply slow down as a result of being a little bit too cold. This kind of tampering with his body temperature was extremely dangerous, easily leading to hypothermia if he wasn't careful.

But with the absolute containment of heat provided by the cloaking field, he wasn't exactly going to be cold for long. He would be getting more comfortable soon as his temperature rose. And then it would start getting very uncomfortable again, wherein hyperthermia would become the danger. Regardless, now the only source of heat from his body that he needed to worry about would be his muscles, giving him some more time to work with. The more he moved, the more heat he would generate and have to withstand, putting something of a time-limit on this state.

Breathing lightly he advanced slowly and settled down next to the group, leaning against the wall.

Shepard rolled out from the airlock now, coming into view of the group.

"Forget about it. Look sharp, lieutenant," someone chided the grumbling and confounded engineer.

One of the four others moved ahead, coming to meet her halfway down. Then, with a suspicious glance at everyone who had remained by the elevator, he spoke quietly to Shepard. A pair of code names and security phrases were exchanged, but Emiya paid it little mind. Another few seconds passed and then they both began approaching the rest of them.

"You two," the man said. "Search the ship. Don't allow anyone else off." Then, turning to Shepard again he continued. "Let's go. Right this way."

The elevator doors opened and four marines walked inside, followed by Shepard and the man, along with the last of the four others. And Emiya, of course. Luckily, it wasn't a tight fit and there was little danger of being brushed against or noticed, allowing him to remain stationary and minimize his heat generation. No one spoke as they began to descend down, but it seemed as if the marines did not feel very tense judging by their postures. Even the two unknown personnel appeared only vigilant, rather than expectant or nervous.

Had the AIA expected him not to get this far? Or was there something else at play? Doesn't matter.

They came to a stop and the doors opened, allowing everyone except Emiya to file out.

Moving slowly and timing his movements just right, he passed through the closing doors with all the alacrity and haste of a dazed sloth. Only his eyes moved about, taking everything in and poring every detail of his surroundings. Reaching out with his cybernetics again—wincing a little at the increase in temperature it resulted—he quickly found the central security networks, tapping into the systems as he began to follow Shepard's entourage while remaining behind.

No heat monitoring beyond ambient temperature, no vibration sensors, no additional security measures in place... He considered for a moment the possibility of mobile sensors. Other Engineers roaming about and looking for any infiltrators and the like. But the docking tower's control center hadn't been notified of any additional measures regarding the docked vessel. Can't be too sure. I could think of a dozen ways this could go wrong...

Then again, all Alliance Intelligence needed to do to know that he was here was ask anyone on board of the SSV Tokyo, as his presence had been no secret to anyone during the voyage back. Still, getting into Arcturus Station itself undetected would give him a lot more wiggle room. Or would it? If he stayed by the docking towers, he would be within immediate distance of numerous starships and he wouldn't need to move around too much.

Well, whatever.

He sat down against the wall and closed his eyes.

Shepard was still being escorted, he observed through a security feed. She was currently on an elevator down into the torus-section of the station. It would still take at least another minute before the elevator reached the ring, leaving him with plenty of time to snoop around in the various networks and systems within his cybernetic reach.

It was more than he had expected.

Arcturus Station wasn't even a fraction of the size of any of Thessia's major cities—much less the Citadel—but in terms of information traffic, it was punching way above what he had expected. It seemed like every building and facility in the torus-section was plugged in with fiber-optic cables into tightbeam communication units, all transmitting and receiving data at a relentless pace. Still waiting on Shepard to start moving again, Emiya decided to take a peek at some of the comms.

It's all corporations. Half a hundred ventures into various new markets later, he decided he had seen enough. I guess business never sleeps. Mayhaps there was some sort of boom he wasn't aware of?

The elevator stopped and Shepard was moving again.

Something to investigate later; expanding markets always seemed to cause problems. For now, he had other concerns: a team of marines came running past him, wholly unaware and in an apparent rush as they swept the room, before moving on again. There was nothing on the security center comms about that. Hmm... He was realizing that unlike Thessia and the Citadel, much of the data transmitted within the station wasn't through wireless signals, but through cables.

Something he wouldn't notice with his cybernetics by just feeling around blindly. For now, it seemed like staying put was the right call. He needed to dig around and see if he was missing something.

;

Shepard wasn't nervous as the door closed behind her, leaving her alone in a dark room.

Mostly she just felt annoyed that they had jerked her around and taken an obviously extra-long route just to get here. She had been to the Alliance headquarters before and she had recognized the general area; if they had taken the nearest elevator for this quarter of the ring, they could have saved at least half an hour.

Were they trying to mess with her? Or just trying to catch Emiya if he was following her?

Yeah, good luck with that.

A beam of light lit up just ahead, at the center of the room she supposed.

"Staff Lieutenant Jane Shepard."

She frowned, looking around and seeing no one in the darkness. She couldn't even place where the voice had come from, as it sounded like the person was walking around her. Had been behind her, where there was nothing but the closed door.

Nonetheless, she responded: "Present, sir."

As nothing else happened, she sighed and began to roll there until she was in the center of the light.

"Right here," she said, fighting the urge to cross her arms.

Yet, still. Nothing happened. Had Emiya done something already? She frowned at the thought, before wiping her expression neutral, lest whoever was observing her thought that she was acting out of line. In theory, this was supposed to be a hearing, but so far it seemed like nothing was according to the book.

Another minute passed and still, nothing.

Shepard was starting to get annoyed.

She hadn't actually expected an actual hearing, suspecting the Agency's motive for initially accepting her as she now did. But she had at least hoped that there would be some kind of attempt at... something, here. Not this, whatever it was.

What am I? Immediately irrelevant when they think Emiya is around?

"Fine, I guess we're doing this the hard way," she grumbled and allowed herself to show her frustration. Arms crossed, she leaned back in her wheelchair. Then, she asked: "Found Emiya yet?"

The response was immediate.

"So, he did return with you."

She snorted. "Oh, are we finally talking?"

The voice ignored her. "Where is he?"

"Beats me." She shrugged, then leaned back with a smirk. "Don't tell me, you lost him?"

The lack of any reply made her chuckle. She had them there.

"This is no time for joking, Staff Lieutenant Shepard. The man you are hiding is a wanted terrorist and a traitor to the Systems Alliance. By your own admission, you have aided and abetted a deserter. You would do well the treat this matter more seriously."

Again, she snorted. It was a good thing she hadn't come in here with a plan.

"It appears to me that you're the ones not taking this seriously." Then she looked to the side, a thought occurring to her suddenly. "Then again, you just might be that incompetent. It's hard to tell, you know, with who you're trying to antagonize." She paused and shook her head, trying to calm down a little. Her temper was getting the better of her. Continuing, she said: "All the rules, regulations, and laws don't mean a damn thing right now. Did you guys even see what he did on the asari homeworld?"

It didn't seem to make sense. She couldn't see their end goal with all this.

Then again, she didn't know what they were thinking. Or even who she was dealing with and where he stood on the grand scale of things. For all she knew she was talking to the guy who refilled the water coolers around here.

"That does not matter to you. There is nowhere for him to go. With the entire First Fleet present he cannot escape. We already know he was onboard the Tokyo and that he departed with you. Now tell me, where is he hiding and what is he planning?"

Shepard rolled her eyes. Hmm, maybe this guy should be refilling water coolers.

"And then what are you going to do?"

"That is of no consequence to you, Staff Lieutenant." Came the brusque reply. "You are cut-off, this room has been sealed off. All of the elevators on Arcturus Station have mass sensors. We already know he's here and it is only a matter of time before we find him." The voice paused as if to let the words sink in. "If you wish to tell me where he is, now would be the time."

Somehow I don't think this guy even knows why he's supposed to catch Emiya. It did make sense; she didn't know why she had done half of what she had during her time working for—with—the intelligence agency. If everyone of importance was off chasing Emiya, then who did that leave to nanny her? Is it always just about him...?

"Okay... Then how about I talk to someone of consequence?" she asked, growing increasingly testy. "Because to me, it seems like you have no idea what you're doing." She waited for a reply and sighed wearily when there was nothing. "Okay, this isn't going anywhere."

Shepard looked up, unwinding her hands from her chest as she sat up straighter in the chair. It was eerie how similar it was, she realized, to the gangs she had had to deal with back when she had still been on Earth. Before all of this, back on the streets. It wasn't like dealing with individuals, where they had agendas and preferences. To these groups, it was as much about power as it was about actually accomplishing their goals.

The power to dictate terms and the power to do whatever they wanted. And so, like back then, she knew that the only thing they responded to was just that. Power.

Unfortunately, that wasn't something she possessed in excess. Which meant Plan B. Damn it.

"Alright, I give up," she said, throwing her hands up.

"Excellent, then—"

"Really?" Emiya cut in and at the same time, the lights in the room came back on. "Because I'm still just going through their databases. If you want another couple of hours, I've got enough to read."

Shepard snorted. "It just wasn't working out, and I didn't feel like wasting any more time."

"Cut the line, cut the line right now...!" shouted the man who had been speaking to her until now, in obvious panic. As expected, she was alone in the empty room, accompanied only by the set of speakers and a few cameras.

The quality of sound was unexpectedly great. It really sounded like someone had been in the room with her until now.

"I would say that at least you tried, but I'm honestly a bit disappointed," Emiya opined dismissively, but he also sounded amused. "You could have tried to take a hostage if you wanted their attention. The lieutenant commander who escorted you here could have gotten a discussion rolling."

She blinked, the thought not even having occurred to her. Shaking her head, she said: "If you haven't noticed, I'm in a wheelchair."

Emiya scoffed. "Hah. We both know you're only in that thing by choice."

"How is he doing this?" the voice of her nanny spoke, confused and overwhelmed in the far corner of the room. "Cut the connection already!"

"What, you thought that by staying on the dreadnought you would be out of reach and harm's way? Honestly, you would have been better off on Arcturus Station," Emiya said, his mocking tone of voice merciless, sounding as if he was stalking the voice through the room.

Shepard frowned. They really had made her take the long way for nothing. She shook her head, focusing on the matter at hand. "Well, now that we have their attention, we can actually get this talk going."

"Sounds good," Emiya said and the door behind her opened. "Why don't you get back to the docking bay. I'll send someone to pick you up."

She almost didn't want to know what he was planning, his playfulness promising nothing good.

"Sir, it's moving on its own!" Came a quiet, new voice from where she supposed her nanny had been talking to her from, the now continuously open line hiding nothing. "The dreadnought is moving on its own and the helm can't stop it!"

Oh. Well, that explained Emiya's apparent good cheer.

;

Emiya stepped out of the shuttle and into the Everest-class dreadnought Mt Fuji looking around with interest at everything, Shepard rolling out after him.

"Hmm..." He couldn't help the impressed sound as he took in the vessel.

It was by far the biggest starship he had been aboard until now, dwarfing even the freighter he had used to get to the Citadel years back. Hacking into the ship's computer and knowing the specs on paper was one thing, but actually stepping onboard it was something else. Just the mass effect fields used to generate the artificial gravity put a tingle down his spine.

Emiya almost wanted to try out the spinal railgun, just to see how far-off a target he could hit with it.

Enough playing around, he told himself. Getting carried away was no good; taking over the dreadnought was a calculated move. Overt enough to panic those in charge, but still low-key enough that it could still be reasonably covered up once an agreement had been reached. The point wasn't to upset the entire structure, simply to cow the leadership into backing off while giving them just enough to maintain face.

This wasn't going to be a repeat of Thessia—in any regard, if he could help it—and the Citadel wasn't going to be hearing about this anytime soon.

He made certain not to stray too far ahead since he was relying on her as his 'daisy chain'. Sure, he would probably be fine even if they were separated by hundreds of meters, given the speeds at which he was operating right now, but it paid to be careful. A single moment of inattention could well be the end of her, given how little he still trusted their hosts if worst came to worst. And the longer the distance, the greater the pauses would become. Right now, the short moments of stillness were still essentially non-existent, barely more than a stutter in-between steps every five to ten seconds. Even Shepard hadn't seemed to notice them.

But that was no reason to push it.

Even having her actually come here was a risk. One he had calculated and weighed carefully, but one nonetheless. Of course, she wouldn't let me hear the end of it if I tried to exclude her, he thought ruefully.

Just up ahead there were several obviously annoyed Alliance officers who turned to and glanced at them with interest. They were obviously out of place even with Shepard in uniform. Not enough for the palpable annoyance and resentment in the air, just at the edge of his awareness, to be aimed at them. Not yet anyhow. He couldn't really fault the officers; the two of them were the obvious odd nail sticking out, now that the Alliance Intelligence Agency had suddenly—without asking anyone for permission—and completely commandeered the First Fleet's flagship. A flagrant overreach of their mandate, if they had ever seen one. Who the hell did they think they were, anyway? Surely, Alliance Intelligence couldn't simply take over and supersede the entire chain of command on a whim?

Right?

They couldn't, of course.

The Alliance wasn't stupid. It was all only possible through his spirit hacking crossing normally uncrossable wires, bypassing hundreds of safety measures, dozens of checks and balances, and scores of highly-trained professionals in an utterly unimaginable fashion. But the Navy did not know that. Hence the scuttlebutt when the unscheduled surprise shuttle from Arcturus Station docked.

"I can't believe they tried it. I mean... Just Thessia," Shepard commented then as she looked around, having noticed the prevailing suspense and tension aboard the Mt. Fuji. He hummed in reply, not really disagreeing. Then again, it wasn't entirely unexpected now that he had been rifling through their databases for a while.

"It's not really that surprising. The Citadel and the salarians covered it up for the most part and spread quite a bit of disinformation. I'm not sure who came up with the 'asari hacker gone rogue'-angle, but it's the one most of the Systems Alliance seems to believe was the case." He tilted his head, then, thoughtful. "They probably thought anything they couldn't confirm themselves was the actual disinfo, too."

A normally very reasonable measure. Had they known half of what Shepard did he was certain they wouldn't have tried any of this on Arcturus Station.

Still, all of that was only scratching the surface.

Even working with incomplete and intentionally misleading information, they had compiled a staggering amount of plans and contingencies for this meeting. Compared to Thessia, it was difficult to directly compare how well-proportioned those preparations were... But it was by no means a considerably lesser attempt. While the Alliance did not have any Spectres, there were fifteen N7-operatives other than Shepard present in Arcturus System, ranging from pure combat to electronic warfare specialists. Given that it was the Alliance capital, the number might not have seemed like much, but considering that the Torfan operation was still ongoing it was a very impressive number they had managed to round up on such short notice.

But this wasn't going to be a repeat of Thessia. Just the once had been more than enough for Emiya. The decision to take over a dreadnought wasn't one he had reached willy-nilly; it had been the quickest and most efficient means of nipping this in the bud.

She nodded, not entirely sure about what he had said. "I guess..." Then, deciding to ignore it for now, she exhaled in a rush. "So what are we doing here? Delivering the terms of surrender or making friends?"

Shrugging, he replied: "Haven't really decided yet." He ignored her scoff as they walked on, heading for the meeting room where the director of the AIA was waiting for them. "But," he continued, as they arrived at the last door separating them from one of the heads of Alliance Intelligence. "Right now, I'm leaning towards 'terms of surrender'."

The automatic door opened with a soft sigh, that almost concealed Shepard's sharp intake of breath, and he stepped through. There was just the table and chairs, along with a lone man sitting there, waiting for them. He did not stand up as they entered, merely shooting a measured glare at them.

Emiya didn't let it bother him, instead deciding on his approach.

If their reception was this cold, then he was going to be warm.

"Kolkkonen—Juha! You don't mind if I call you Juha, right? Of course you don't—how good to finally meet you face to face," he said with false cheer, enjoying the startled moment of incomprehension in the other man's eyes. "I've been following your work. We just missed each other on that party. The Presidium, five years ago? Great work, that." A spark of barely repressed antagonism. "Though, I'm surprised how well you've done for yourself, given how poorly that turned out for everyone involved. Well, excepting me, of course."

The man in question grit his teeth and for just a second there was a vein popping out from his temple.

Smirking viciously, Emiya noted the man's reaction. This was all to remind the Alliance Intelligence Head of Internal Affairs of just how things would play out if they didn't come to some sort of accord here. I'm two for two; do you really want to try me a third time?

"Indeed," the man replied evenly, managing to apparently calm himself down in the space of just that handful of seconds.

Quite surprising.

Hooh, this guy could be trouble, Emiya thought even as he could feel Shepard's surprised gaze on his back at his unusual behavior, and he was glad that she managed to get it under control before Kolkkonen noticed. Not just her reaction to his change in attitude, but the underlying cause. They were very different conversationalists. The difference between his evasiveness and careful control of the dialogue clashed horribly with her frank and forward attitude. Things he wanted to keep quiet, she would raise up and smack on the table. Things he wanted to pursue, she might entirely miss and lose the cue for.

It was probably why she felt like a bull to his china shop, whenever they talked to each other.

Shepard, having tired of sticking behind him by the door rolled forward and past him towards the table. Just as Emiya had been waiting for her to do. Something Kolkkonen did not miss; she was not subservient to him. He followed her and then sat down, diagonally opposite the man. He had made a list of demands on the way here, but a certain intuition spoke to him in that moment as the situation and his needs clicked.

Shepard was the key, here.

With Benezia controlling the conversation it had been one thing, and he might have dismissed it given that he was certain she was in a league of her own. But with her ship's captain, it had been different and that had been obvious. As far as talking went, they would be hamstringing and tripping over one another with every step. And now it might completely screw them over if this man's rise in rank, the fact that he had been chosen by the rest of the Alliance Intelligence to be here, and his apparent self-control were anything to go by. It was likely that this man would not just be able to notice that dissonance, but drive a wedge between their talking points, perhaps even upsetting it entirely.

A good choice for meeting them.

These were by no means new revelations to Emiya.

Obviously there would excellent negotiators among the Alliance brass and just obviously Shepard was more familiar with them after having served years in the organization. He had agreed to let her do the talking long before they had arrived. The problem was that she did not have any leverage. She had walked onto the station as a footnote to his arrival, as far as the Alliance Intelligence was concerned. He had power, but could not convince people — the result of a lifetime of never bothering with trying to talk to anyone, he reasoned. She, on the other hand, could make others listen but lacked the necessary purchase to get the first crack in.

What she needed was authority.

But he was certain that merely stating 'she's my ambassador, agent, manager, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, talk to her' would just undermine both of them. She would be no different from the useless fellow who she had tried to talk to at first, while he would be all-but admitting his shortcomings.

If she needed de facto-authority, then he would just have to generate it from nothing.

"Alright, here's the deal..." he began, drawling his words. "I really don't care about any of this."

"I find that... a little bit difficult to believe," Kolkkonen replied, shifting in his seat and betraying his confusion.

This wasn't going like anyone here had been expecting it to and so far only Emiya was really aware of it. "That's alright. I don't really care whether or not you believe it, as long as you agree to my terms."

Kolkkonen stiffened just a little, the smallest cue to his sharpened interest. The man was still only listening and observing, probing for a way to handle this situation. It would only be after the Alliance Intelligence Head had a clear understanding of everything pertinent that he would begin saying anything out of his own initiative.

"Of course. And those would be...?" he asked Emiya, any attention he had been paying to Shepard now gone, while she was keeping quiet and observing, biding her time and in turn trying to figure out their plan.

Emiya gave the Alliance Intelligence Head a rueful grin, entirely put-upon for his benefit. "Simple. You have no idea I'm here. You don't get in my way. I get to do whatever I want while I'm staying here... and in return, hmm..." Crossing his hands now in an affectation of sudden consideration, he pondered. Time for the threat: "For starters, I won't tell anyone about that little VI development project you have going on the moon... The Citadel wouldn't be happy to hear that dear Eliza might have a little brother on the way, and neither would you or the Alliance, I'm sure."

Kolkkonen's face stared back at him like sculpted stone, but his eyes were sparking shards of flint with their intensity.

It wasn't really a surprise that attempts at developing useful Artificial Intelligences had only been slowed down for a few years by the leak of the Eliza-project—the original reason he had managed to hitchhike a ride to the Citadel with the Cerberus operatives, years ago—but he really hadn't expected them to reel the attempts even closer to home. Or perhaps it wasn't so surprising after all.

Gagarin Station was much closer to the Charon Relay than Luna was. So deep in human territory, next to the much more bustling and populated Earth, it did make a certain amount of sense to hide away a new project there if they wanted to keep it hidden from the Citadel. They had had to start from scratch too, since all of the notes, material, and personnel from the original Eliza-project had been more or less scrubbed. At this point, it was little more than a highly advanced Virtual Intelligence, since the new project heads were being very careful. There was really no overlap, other than that both were nominally Alliance projects.

Not that it would mean anything if the Citadel were to find out since the aim was quite obvious — Artificial Intelligences as a military asset.

This whole thing had the smell of Cerberus all over it, even if he hadn't been able to find anything yet to prove it. Or anything else, regarding that subversive organization. They really had gone underground since he had blown open their operations. Probably won't be able to find anything on Jack Harper in the next week...

The journey to Arcturus Station had wasted some of his time, meaning that he only had about a week—give or take a day—before he had to head for Eden Prime. That was including any trip he would be making to the Moon Cell, a trip he did not feel secure in making in just his Servant body, spirit hacking dive through faster-than-light communication relays or no.

This whole AI business really is just the excuse I've been looking for to head over there myself, he thought as he settled on his next words.

"In fact, I'll be making a trip down to Armstrong sometime soon," Emiya said, continuing without skipping a beat in the eyes of the others in the room. His eyes crinkled with amusement. "Just to... check the measures in place, of course."

Last time he had acted out within human territory, it had seemingly been because of the AI project of Gagarin Station. Playing up to that expectation, acting as if he was worried about any further research into Artificial Intelligences, would play into that and obfuscate his actual reasons for going to the moon. It might even stir up some of the Cerberus elements out of the woodwork when he did it, assuming the AIA couldn't keep it a secret. Who am I kidding? They will probably just straight up leak it themselves.

"Of course," Kolkkonen repeated, his voice dripping with a barely restrained cocktail of contempt and acrimony.

It was a good threat. But not quite enough to shake the man. But that was okay, too. It was just a casual one, anyhow. The real one would be the one he wouldn't say out loud, right now.

"Good talk," Emiya stood up, extending a hand. "Shake on it?"

The man blinked, betraying his confusion again at the sudden change. This was by no means the conversation-ender anyone had expected. This was just the beginning, lacking any concrete details or room for negotiation. Nothing to grasp onto or leverage.

Emiya didn't hold a certain mercenary-cum-Omega in particularly high esteem, but there was a simple elegance to 'don't fuck with me' that could not be understated. It left very little room for letter-of-the-law arguments. Really why laws weren't written on the basis of perception in the first place. If he wanted to argue that he was being fucked with, then it was very difficult to prove otherwise.

"Hmm? Not a touchy-feely kind of guy?" Shrugging, Emiya retracted the hand. "That's alright." Turning to Shepard, he flashed a boyish grin that only she could hear beneath the helmet's opacity. "We still on for lunch? Alright, see you then."

And with that, he astralized and dispelled the hardsuit, helmet and all.

Kolkkonen jumped up, mouth agape as the man before him vanished into thin air, leaving absolutely nothing behind.

Still sitting on the floor by the docking station on Arcturus Station, Emiya inhaled slowly as he managed his excess heat under the cloak.

Projecting the hardsuit hadn't been difficult by any means, but constantly jumping back and forth between his body and the empty shell had been something of a hassle. He couldn't project any kind of omnitool either or bring a real one since it would be left behind, forcing him to use Shepard's instead. And having to make sure that the hardsuit was always balanced just right for the half-second he left it behind to reset his self-destruction timer, so that it didn't fall over, had also been a headache and a half.

But seeing the expression of sheer confusion, fear, and shock that it had allowed him to leave, it had definitely paid off. As far as 'I am so completely and utterly beyond your league, so don't even think about it'-impressions go, that one was a solid 9 out of 10. He could have rounded it up by adding in his ability to manipulate the mass relays, but that would have become too complicated for a good threat. Perhaps if they tried something, he would turn off all the relays in the Arcturus system and see how they liked that.

Turning back on an inactive relay was quite easy. So long as the internal communication units still worked, that was. Something so very easy for him to sabotage if he wanted to. Not permanently, but so that only he—and perhaps the Keepers within—could turn it back on. As far as the Systems Alliance went, being cut off from Earth would be The End. As far as humanity as a whole went, on the other hand, it wouldn't even really matter much. Most of humanity still lived in the Sol system and were relatively self-sustaining. On top of that, if there was some form of great galactic calamity on its way like all the signs were pointing, it might even protect Earth from it.

And... it seemed like Shepard had finally caught on. It only took her a few seconds, luckily.

"Yeah... he, he does that sometimes," she said reaching up with a hand to rub the back of her neck, sounding just the right mixture of contrite and annoyed. Like it was the annoying habit of the brother she was ashamed of and nothing more.

...now she has authority, as the only one who has any pull with me.

This approach wasn't so much 'good cop, bad cop', as 'good cop, unreasonable force of nature', but she seemed to figure it out on her own all the same. She knew most of the pertinent details already and she had been the one asking for a chance to prove herself, so she could hardly fault him for giving it to her now. Besides, he was more interested in just digging through their data right now, preparing for his meeting with Saren since he wouldn't be bringing her along there. He could just pay attention in the background and back her up if really necessary.

Back on the dreadnought, Kolkkonen let out a huff of air as he collapsed into his chair, his previous stoic mien having completely vanished.

Shepard meanwhile looked like she was holding back laughter. Good for her.

This now probably also meant that he didn't have to worry about the marines that had been on stand-by near the negotiation room, ready to charge in and take everyone down on a moment's notice. The Alliance had probably been banking on the negotiation distracting him enough that they could move in unnoticed, jumping him once they were in place. They had even managed to plan it all out without using their computers or omnitools, keeping it all in meatspace. They learned quickly that cables weren't necessarily reliable, he thought. If he were a normal hacker, unable to keep an eye on it all at the same time, it might have even worked. It could have become a very dicey situation with him still 'there' if they did decide to jump him since he would have had to lock the doors and act at a distance while keeping Shepard alive. Not that it would have been a hopeless fight.

But with him just gone, where did that leave them? What would be the point of taking down or capturing Shepard, when all it would do was annoy him, wherever he was?

Play big, he had told himself. And he had.

As far as he was concerned, demonstrating the ability to completely take over any of their warships while remaining utterly untouchable was about as big as he could make himself. This combined with the no doubt soon-to-be-revised reports from Thessia and Torfan would paint a very imposing picture. Every little thing they had dismissed as impossible or ridiculous would spring new wings. Attacking him would be impossible. Trying to hide anything from him would be meaningless. Everywhere and nowhere at once, hovering over them at all times even when he wasn't. When he didn't act, it was simply because he didn't care to.

Because why should he?

It was ridiculous, to the point where even despair would lose meaning. Hopefully.

And from the looks of it, he wasn't the only one now following the conversation from afar. He had been aware of the outgoing feed but hadn't bothered to follow it up until now, what with his constant back-and-forth hopping and keeping tabs on the immediate threats. The room where the feed was being directed lacked any surveillance beyond a terminal's face camera, but the layout was clearly spelled out on Arcturus Station and it was a face he recognized with relative ease from the news.

The Prime Minister of the Systems Alliance was wringing her fingers while watching Shepard negotiate with Kolkkonen, while advisors milled about just as nervously behind her.

Oh. He had intellectually somewhat realized that by doing this he would be more or less entering into interactions with the highest echelons of power, but he hadn't quite realized that it meant the democratically elected leader of humanity would be sweating in her seat because of him. It wasn't as if he was gunning for her or anything. Yet, anyhow.

Should he check her background for any funny business, to see if there was a reason for her to be so worried about him? Or would that be needlessly destabilizing the Alliance? He wasn't beholden to them or sworn to uphold their authority, not like the Justicars or Spectres were. But if he was worried about the danger of indoctrination then taking down the until-now legitimate government was probably not the brightest move.

Not unless they proved themselves incompetent and he had a puppet government ready to put in place. And do I really want to go there...?

Then, should he go and directly talk to the Prime Minister and her advisors? The thought hadn't quite occurred to him, given how Shepard had focused on her meeting with the Alliance Intelligence as the crux. But now that he was aware of it, he could just skip straight to the top, and...

No, that would be defeating the entire point of what I just did with Shepard. It would undermine her newfound authority and negate his stated attitude of 'don't care, just don't fuck with me' if he cared enough to backtrack and then go have a talk with them in person after having already delivered his message. Additionally, if the Alliance leadership wanted to play proxy-games through Kolkkonen, believing that it granted them some measure of protection, then he had no issues with playing along.

If they made plans and he could listen in surreptitiously, Shepard would be all the better prepared for any future talks. Just focus on Saren and the turians for now.

But even as he told himself that he noticed that he couldn't quite focus.

It was all very dry and technical, written in a language and manner he hadn't had to pore through since he had deserted from the Navy. By itself, that was nothing new. But the constant information traffic kept tugging at his virtual senses, like a buzzing crowd across the street from him. Even without paying attention to it and keeping an eye on Shepard, he kept catching bits and pieces.

How Thessia's Fall—as it was being called—was sending ripples through the galactic economy, allowing for smaller powers to gobble up old monopolies and incontestable markets, which had remained under asari control for hundreds of years. Salarian, human, volus and turian enterprises all were muscling in for a slice of the pie as the asari focused inward on Thessia to lick their wounds. It was an utter free-for-all, and Arcturus Station wasn't falling behind. Bekenstein was shifting production, hundreds of starships were being re-routed to Earth for additional workforce to fill the new shortages. Time was money, bandwidth was money, money was money.

Thoroughly distracted already, he sighed and let his thoughts run free.

Everyone wanted to solidify their new holds before Thessia inevitably began to wave around its endless stores of eezo again and reacquired those markets. Millionaires and billionaires were being born every hour at the moment.

Most of the hurry was utterly pointless, Emiya realized as he leaned back against the wall and set aside the Alliance Intelligence files. Certainly, everyone had to compete with everyone else going for the old asari territories, but there was no point worrying about the asari. They would get everything they wanted back once they set their minds to it.

Their stranglehold on the eezo supply was simply too strong.

That was simply a fact.

But that would be so far in the future that most of the people in a rush right now would be long dead by then. The asari were long-lived and in certainly no hurry. Those markets had been monopolized for two millennia and in another half, things would be back to how they had always been. I guess I really did acquire the asari logos, if I can figure that out so easily. A depressing thought all on its own, since it hadn't been acquired through the means he had hoped to actually practice.

Perhaps he should try finding the i'usushij he had left behind on the Janiri's Sickle. Or the corvette itself, now that he was muscling his way in the Alliance. Maybe I could start up a company and try selling the pagoda in all this chaos...? he thought almost leisurely. He had wanted to sell it back on Thessia, not just because of the capital it could generate, but because...

Emiya shook his head.

They were just meaningless frivolities. Tinkering with artifacts, ships or household appliances during his downtime was fine, but he was on a schedule with a purpose. Saren Arterius, he reminded himself.

And then, a familiar name popped up in the background buzz of the electronic crowd. Following the chain down all the way to a business meeting the Alliance Navy was having at this moment—utterly unaware of all the suspense and drama he had been generating—he found the man in question. And the discovery came as an actual surprise.

"I thought he was dead," Emiya muttered, tuning in curiously. But apparently not. Then, he had to wonder, "Does Shepard know?" But there was no answer from the empty hallway. "Hmm..."

Lunch was coming up soon.

;

"—and through this cyclical function, the mass effect fields are capable of displacing up to 14% more powerful rounds. I believe with further funding and data from the field that this could be improved upon further, at least up to 20%."

The Rear Admiral nodded at the speaking man, eyes sharp. Then, he inquired: "And what of the costs?"

The man in the wheelchair smiled politely, his fingers under that table tapping against the haptic interface to bring up the relevant slide. "Less element zero will be required for these types of kinetic barriers, as you can see. Instead, it will require more powerful computing units and advanced sensor arrays, as you can see here. By striking a balance it is possible to maintain the same reliability as older generations of personal defense systems, even with less element zero."

This wasn't the complete set of relevant data, but the meeting wasn't entirely official either. Not yet, anyhow. The rough outline in preparation for whether or not the Alliance would move forward and begin inquiring into the matter.

"I see. Shifting some of the dependency from imported eezo to hardware that is possible to produce locally. Are you certain that Aldrin Labs is capable of picking up that kind of slack?"

"Of course." He nodded, changing slides again. "Our newest factories on Luna have just been opened and can provide the newest batch of recruits with refitted hardsuits by the end of the quarter. And, as you can see, element zero prices are projected to rise by 300% within the next few months."

"It might not be enough to offset the rise in eezo costs, but if these projections are correct, then..." The impressed Alliance officer nodded, raising a hand to run along his beard in thought. "You mentioned a balance."

The man in the wheelchair nodded, already seeing where this was going. The Rear Admiral's greed was by now all too familiar to him.

"Then would it be possible to... scale down the costs by foregoing this balance?"

Was it possible to make hardsuits even cheaper by using even less element zero to power the kinetic barriers? Of course it was. He wasn't the foremost expert on the exotic element for nothing, hired by Aldrin Labs right out of the gate as he entered civilian life. He could even overclock the kinetic barriers in such a manner that they would appear to work at 140% the expected efficiency at the cost of some reliability.

Doing something like that, it might be even possible to produce hardsuits at nominally the same performance level at a price that would have undercut the older generations, even without the rise in element zero prices.

Starships on fire, dotting the blue sky — The dead and dying all around him — falling from the sky like so much refuse in the wind — the crack and numbness that followed as he was bleeding out — Four-eyed aliens, killing and being killed — The despair of watching the dying man beside him.

His back twinged with ghostly pain for a second, threatening to reveal his true loathing for this man through the expertly crafted salesman's smile for just an instant.

But kinetic barrier emitters like that would short out exactly when the soldiers wearing them would need them the most. Not in such numbers that it would be possible to lay any blame on anyone; the very rigorous testing the hardsuits would go through would, of course, conclude that such errors were astronomically rare. Any deaths would be tragedies of war. Unaccountable accidents. Numbers on a dotted line being compared to just another number.

Money talks, shit walks, he reminded himself.

There was no point in getting angry, just as there had been no point in staying in the uniform if he wanted to change things.

So he smiled instead.

"Of course." Another slide appeared.

He had come prepared for this, knowing that it would come up. In fact, it had been the real reason he had even come in the first place. A 14-20% increase in efficiency in existing technology was just the bait for this old fogey to bite onto. He was a dinosaur; a pre-First Contact War officer who had climbed in ranks through simply sticking around long enough. He didn't understand half of the realities of modern warfare, much less what would be proposed to him right now.

"A personal patent of mine," he said conspiratorially as if letting the Alliance officer in on a secret. The Rear Admiral nodded, something resembling understanding flashing through his eyes. "Combining kinetic barriers with the high-fidelity sensor arrays, it would be possible to measure the exact strength of kinetic slugs and scale down the kinetic barrier to a level just below successfully stopping the slug."

Furrowed brows; incomprehension. Dumb it down.

"A peashooter cannot punch through a hardsuit, even were the kinetic barriers turned off, yes?" he asked and seeing the nod continued, "Then, rather than attempt to stop the slug entirely with expensive kinetic barriers, why not instead sap just enough energy out of the slug so that it will not even scratch the hardsuit's surface?"

The division between hardsuit protection was far too rigid. Kinetic barriers, he thought. The hardsuit's physical exterior. Medigel and other healing systems. They were separate systems, almost as if they only existed when the previous level failed. The hardsuit's exterior could not stop more than a handful of full-power shots, just as the medical systems could not heal more than a few perforations without the combatant being incapacitated.

It all relied on the kinetic barriers far too much.

So why not instead combine these layers? Weaken the kinetic barriers just enough, so that bullets could harmlessly impact upon the hardsuit's exterior? It would save on batteries and capacitors, in theory allowing the complete personal defense system to operate much, much longer. The exterior could only handle one or two full-power slugs, but if one cut down the kinetic energy to a third then suddenly the amount of punishment the exterior could take would rise exponentially.

"How much would this cut down on costs?"

Of course, that didn't matter. What mattered was money.

"We could halve the amount of element zero in kinetic barriers emitters," he admitted truthfully. An admission the Rear Admiral very much liked to hear, judging by his expression.

Which was why nothing was said about other costs.

Sensor arrays and computing units capable of handling something like that were not cheap by any means. They were cheaper than the element zero for comparable performance using the older generation hardsuits, but not nearly by the margin of the previous proposition. Something, were the Rear Admiral to hear, would no doubt lead to the scrapping of the idea entirely.

"Your patent, you say?"

"Yes."

A knowing smile spread on the Alliance officer's face. The promise of a quid pro quo; the man was not bought, per se, as he was agreeable to certain understandings. Accepting and pushing forward with this proposition, which would lead to a lot of credits rolling his way thanks to that patent, was a very subtle give.

One that would in the future, of course, be reciprocated in full somewhere down the line.

"I see, I see. Yes, this does sound very promising. We'll have to schedule another meeting with the full board in the future."

He nodded at the Rear Admiral's suggestion, smiling in full. It required very little pretense this time around, the full satisfaction shining through as it reached his eyes. "That would be excellent. Shall we slot it in for the next week?"

"That would work quite well. Now then, how about lunch?"

Looking down at his omnitool, he shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm meeting someone flying in from the Citadel. Raincheck for next week? I'll buy of course, as an apology."

"Of course, of course," the Rear Admiral allowed easily. "Far be it for me to keep you from a lady friend."

He laughed lightly at how accurate the guess had been, even if there was nothing more to it, merely grateful for the out. They said their goodbyes and soon parted.

Rolling his way out of the Alliance's headquarters on Arcturus Station, the wheelchair-bound man exhaled. Starliner traffic to and from the Citadel had taken a nosedive due to the waves in galactic economy, meaning that this was the only public starship bound for human territories from the other territories for the next month or so.

Cerberus had been aware of the woman's return since yesterday and he had been tasked with feeling her out. Normally he wouldn't have been slated for this kind of work, given his importance to their research and development of element zero-related technologies.

But he was a former Alliance Navy special ops.

Even if he had given up the uniform he was still an N7, wheelchair or no.

Given the sheer level of fuck up she had been involved in, Cerberus couldn't send just anybody to meet her. Their last confirmed sighting of the woman was far too damning; she had been escaping the Citadel forces through Thessia's relay along with the priority target. He had escaped. She had not.

Maya Brooks and Kai Leng were still stuck on Thessia at Trellani's compound, laying low for the moment and waiting for a chance to return. But their communiques and reports had been very clear at just how badly things had been fucked up. There was only one possible way for her to have gotten out.

She was working double-duty for the enemy.

It was his job now to feel her out. Where did her loyalties lie now? She had never exactly been a true believer, but her loyalty hadn't been in question until now. So why had she been let go and by who? How big of a threat did she present? Could she be turned into a triple agent? Or would he have to dispose of her? He was quite certain it was the end of the road for her here. After the events of five years ago—long before he had joined up with Cerberus himself—the organization had taken a very exacting stance on operational security.

The wheelchair continued to roll on its own towards the central elevators. He would ride up to the docking station to meet her right as she walked off the starliner, giving her as little time to prepare herself as possible. Whatever her fate, it would be decided within the hour.

His mind played out the possibilities and before he knew it, he was at the terminal waiting for the starliner's passengers to arrive.

Distantly he eyed the large viewports, curiously noting that one of the Alliance warships appeared to be awfully close to the station. He couldn't tell by eye just how far or large it was, but the shape suggested at it being one of the cruisers. Because surely the dreadnoughts wouldn't be flying this close to Arcturus Station.

One of the docking terminal elevators landed, not more than fifteen meters away from where he was waiting. Curiously, he checked the schedules before shaking his head. It was one of the smaller terminals. Some shuttle or another, not the starliner he was waiting on. It had nothing to do with him.

Except when the elevator doors opened, a familiar shock of red entered his field of vision. His heart froze for a second.

"Huh? Franco, I didn't know you were around. I would have sent a message."

"Shepard...?" he asked, blinking and very much confused. What is she doing here?

"Meeting with some Alliance people," she answered shrugging. "Just got back from Torfan a few hours ago, came with the other wounded."

Had he asked that out loud? Wait, why was she back? And...

Following his gaze to the wheelchair she was sitting in, she appeared a little sheepish. "Yeah, I got kinda busted up. You wouldn't believe by who. And what. It's been crazy like you wouldn't believe. But hey, now I can race you fair and square."

The lame joke somehow managed to restart his brain and he realized this was very bad. The Cerberus Operative would be arriving at any moment and he did not want to have Shepard around when that happened. He had to call it off, no wait, he couldn't leave a loose end just—but it was Shepard, he couldn't just...?

Forcefully repressing his confusion, he hastily tried to cobble together a plan.

"That sounds like something I have to hear for myself. You up for some lunch over it?"

If he could get her out of here—send her ahead, down the elevator to some restaurant—he could just quickly handle the Cerberus business—a seat on the starliner was way back, the Cerberus Operative would be among the last out—she shouldn't have anything with her on a civilian starliner, two shots from the heavy pistol and I can hide the body somewhere—and then meet with Shepard afterward to ensure she didn't have any problems... No wait, there's cameras everywhere, oh shit, oh shit, this is bad...

"Yeah, that could work..." Shepard began but then trailed off as her eyes shifted to look past him.

No, behind him. He could feel a presence there, somehow. Like someone was radiating heat and a physical pressure. He couldn't move, frozen in place both mentally and physically.

A footstep, someone walking past him to stand beside him and Shepard's wheelchairs. Towering above them. And over them, tall and somehow terrifyingly familiar despite the off-white hair and tanned skin.

Grey eyes bored through him, nailing him in place.

"Cassani. Been a while," Shirou Emiya said, that still all-too-familiar half-smirk on his face.

"Oh shit," Franco Cassani whispered, all other thoughts utterly blown away.

;

Franco looked like he had seen a ghost, pale as a sheet and mouth hanging agape as he stared up at Emiya. She almost laughed at the reaction; it was by no means less dramatic than hers had been.

She had been suspicious when Emiya had showed up on the Mt. Fuji again, demanding her presence for lunch in the middle of the negotiations, incidentally scaring the pants off of Kolkkonen. But the smug glint in his eyes all but confirmed that it had been because he wanted her to run into Franco. And himself, apparently. She hadn't seen her other old teammate since the funeral, but they had fallen back into the old ribbing easily enough, even with Rodriguez's death after the Skyllian Blitz hanging over them.

It wasn't exactly the reunion she had expected or hoped for after so long, but she wasn't going to complain.

Shepard knew that he had been honorably discharged, because of his crippling spinal injury and that he had gone to work for some big company through the mails the occasionally exchanged, but that had been the extent of their contact since then. But from the looks of things, he was doing good. Though at the moment, his mouth was only able to catch flies, still hanging open as he stared at Emiya.

Then again, she supposed his reaction was appropriate seeing as how he was looking at a dead man, back from beyond the grave. This would complicate things even more, but given how many people she had pulled into this mess already she supposed she couldn't fault Emiya for this little prank.

Besides, it was funny.

She looked around then, frowning with the realization that he hadn't been waiting for her. "Were you waiting for someone?"

Shepard thought she had seen a starliner arriving beside her shuttle.

"Uh... No," Cassani answered quickly, looking suddenly even more uncomfortable.

"Really? We can wait, if you want." Exchanging a curious look with Emiya, she shrugged. It wasn't as if they were in any hurry, given how royally spooked Emiya had left the Alliance Intelligence. "Maybe we should just locate the meeting here..."

She vaguely understood that she was keeping an entire dreadnought hanging just off of the station, waiting for her to get back from lunch, at that moment. Realizing she had missed entirely what Franco had said, she looked at him quizzically.

"What?"

But before he could repeat himself, another elevator door arrived from the docking tower with a loud pling.

"I have another meeting soon, so we should really have that lunch now," Franco said, repeating himself more insistently.

She nodded, not opposed to that. She and Emiya might not have a schedule, but he probably did if he was here for work. "Alright. Know any good places?"

"Uh..." Franco's eyes swam, his flustered state obvious. This was getting a little weird now, she realized.

But those thoughts were cut short as Emiya stiffened suddenly, catching her eye with his alert body language. She turned and noticed he was looking at the elevator. Following his gaze, she spotted the shock of familiar blue immediately. An asari had arrived on the starliner. The other passengers—humans one and all, by the looks of it—were obviously still curious by her arrival. While one of the most numerous and well-known of the Citadel races, any non-humans were still a curious thing in Alliance space.

The alien blinked, hesitating for just a moment before she squared her shoulders in a subtle way Shepard had seen Benezia do before, and the walked over to them through the crowd. No, to Emiya.

"Uh, we really should..." Cassani began but was interrupted.

"Why am I not surprised to see you here," the asari said, surprising Shepard with the sheer venom in her voice.

"Come for Mars, then?" Emiya asked, utterly unruffled as he rested a hand on his hip.

"Yes: there was not much left on Thessia for me, after everything you did."

Emiya only tilted his head, raising a lone brow at the words. Shrugging, he turned to Shepard and gestured with one hand to the alien. "Mind another one for lunch? Liara looks like she needs another chance at venting her frustrations at me." Appearing thoughtful, he added: "Not that I have a clue what I did this time..."

"Sure, I guess." Shepard shrugged and looked to Franco. "You alright with that?"

"Of course," he answered immediately with a strained smile, gesturing towards the nearest elevator down to the station ring as he began to move. He pressed the button and the elevator doors opened, allowing his immediate and hurried entry. "We should go before the rush starts."

She shrugged, glancing at Emiya and this 'Liara' who appeared to be engaging in a silent staredown at the moment. "It's nice to meet you, Liara."

The asari blinked, looking away from Emiya and suddenly her entire body language changed. It was as if the moment had caught up with her and she realized she had been acting very much unlike herself in the heat of whatever emotion that had taken her over. Flustered and a little bit overwhelmed, she nodded hesitantly at Shepard.

"Ah, y-yes. It is a pleasure to meet you as well. I hope I have not offended you, it is merely that..." she glanced at Emiya again. Then, what looked like tattooed brows furrowed in a very human expression of puzzlement.

Liara looked, eyes moving between her and Emiya curious and suspicious.

"Come on, the elevator will be full if we don't go now..." Franco said, sounding increasingly desperate.

Shepard turned to reassure him that they would be right there, when she noticed that his eyes had gone wide, looking right past her. She blinked, turning around to follow his gaze this time and spotted the raven-haired beauty stepping out of the elevator. But the immediate appearance of the woman aside, it was apparent that she was not feeling well; the stooping posture, tired steps, and gaunt look quite evident.

She had not noticed them yet. Had not noticed anyone around here as her eyes trailed only a few feet before herself.

"Miranda," Emiya said quietly, catching Shepard's notice with his astonishment.

The woman in question did not miss the utterance either, recognizing her name through the soft murmur and bustle of the arriving crowd around her. She looked up, eyes going wide at the sight of them a second later. A dozen emotions ran through her gaze, all a jumble. Jumping from face to face, her icy-blue eyes narrowed and settled on one of them. The set in her shoulders straightened as her entire mien shifted in an instant.

Her entire being changed, growing resolved, and something else Shepard couldn't recognize in that instant. Stepping forward, a transformed woman strode to meet them.

Gaze still and unmoved from Emiya, she spoke.

"We meet again... Though I have to wonder, who are you today then? You've dyed your hair, so is it back to Emil again?"

Shepard paused, staring alternatively at the two. The tone of the woman's voice was light, almost playful. But the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, as if she knew someone was a second away from death. Beside them, the asari seemed just as confused and taken aback, as she looked at the addressed man.

"Emil? I believed your name to be Saiga."

"Uh... Emiya?" Shepard asked, now too staring at him. She wasn't sure what was going on, but there was an indescribable emotion welling up at the realization that she might not actually know his real name, either.

He shrugged. "What can I say... I guess I'm just no one. Call me whatever you want."

Behind them, as if trying to shrink out of sight, she could hear Franco cursing again.

;

Hah, this chapter was half fun, half utter chore. Emiya flexing to avert Thessia 2: Electric Bogaloo was fun, but setting up the AIA was boring because there's so little in canon to work with and I have no real use for them. Also, the chapter ending had been in the outlines since before we got to the Citadel :D