A/N:

So, some of you may have noticed - I've taken great lengths throughout TNFW to keep the scope as limited as possible to the Alliance, with few, if any, brief peeks to the universe outside. Obviously, it was intentional, but the thing is - the Alliance has been throwing its weight around these twenty years it's been on the galactic stage.

But the thing is, it wouldn't be wise to think that a superpower as massive as the WarVerse's Alliance, throwing its weight around, wouldn't cause fundamental changes to the universe it resides in, when the beats of just a butterfly's wings can cause hurricanes; and as we all know, the Mass Effect universe is astronomically big, and that's before Andromeda ever played into it.

Chapter 51

"You think you're the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."

— Colonel Nicholas J. "Nick" Fury,

Day Eight

August, 2220

Four kilometers long, three kilometers wide, a maximum occupancy rating of seventy thousand humanoid individuals, a record population of thirty thousand human individuals and one AI, and a current population of two humans, and two AI. Floating around the star Anadius, if someone had happened across Cronos station and scanned it for lifesigns, they would have found zero. It wouldn't have been hard to detect the station, after all - over the last week it had radiated away the heat it had been exposed to, and its electronics and drones were working 24/7 on repairing the damage done to it by its Chief Executive and Operations Officers.

Of course, the zero life signs was intentional and, by design, reversible. The only environment in the entire station that hadn't been cooked from the outside in, charred by decon-lasers, or repeatedly vented into space had been the secure room at its apex, and it was specifically because the two corpses within said room were intended to be reanimated once all was said and done. This made the process of removing the micro-atomic foreign contaminants from the room all the more difficult, but not impossible for the two AI. Two of them, dedicating twenty four hours of their vastly accelerated timeframes to one single goal meant that that goal would be accomplished, period.

Of the two humans in the station that had been meant to survive its purge, one could have honestly said that, when he woke up, he expected anything. Perhaps the sound of a clarion, or the vision of retreating from a bright light, as was said in common fiction. He was, however, wrong on all accounts. Upon being reanimated, it was several hours until he regained full consciousness, and what he woke up to was a loud, brashly shouted oath by the only other human alive on the station.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" The loud, deep voice reverberated on the high ceilings and wide, circular walls of the office they found themselves in, echoing until the sound finally dissipated.

The Illusive Man, Jack Harper jumped in his seat, his eyes snapping open and his head whipping about as he awoke with a start. His bright, glowing blue mechanical eyes instantly locked onto the only source of light within his office, and the human standing next to it, who was currently doubled over, laughing from the pit of his stomach.

The sudden awakening, however, had a slight adverse effect, and Harper slowly bent forward, clutching his head and blinking heavily. It felt as if he had just awoken from a long, not at all restful, but very deep nap, and his mind was cloudy. Despite this, however, as he raised his free hand in front of his face, he noticed how his vision seemed the slightest bit clearer - the lights brighter, the details sharper - and how his thoughts came faster and easier. He hadn't even noticed it, before his 'nap', but now that he had a before and after to compare it to, he realized that before he'd been killed on a technicality, his thoughts had felt like they were fish swimming upstream, against the current. Now, however, it could be said that they were like pebbles falling through the sky - obeying their every instinct and going as fast as was physically possible.

Despite how foggy he was from the odd method of cleaning, he could honestly say that his mind had never been clearer.

"Oh hey, you're up." Came the other human in the room, his voice dropping its deep pitch and adopting a jovial tone. "What'd I tell you?" He asked, as the sounds of footsteps grew closer.

Harper shook his head, and straightened his back, looking up to his friend, the man he had now quite literally trusted with his life. Seeing Christopher McGraw's unkempt mane of hair, the glasses halfway down his nose, the bright blue eyes, perpetually raised eyebrows, and ever-present grin, it managed to calm whatever nerves Harper had in these moments after waking up. A part of him wondered what, if anything, McGraw had seen during his time under.

"It feels as if a fog has been cleared from my head." Said Harper, as he took McGraw's extended cybernetic hand, and hauled himself to his feet. "Are we safe?"

McGraw nodded, and pushed his glasses up the rim of his nose. "Should be. Gladys and Julius swept the high holy hell out of the room before they started us back up, and I did a few courtesy checks before I started really moving around." He jammed his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the pale blue hologram floating a few feet behind him. "Galaxy decided to go and shit itself while we were gone, though. Seven days." McGraw laughed, "couldn't last a week. God help them if I decide to take a vacation. I heard they found this new planet, Eden Prime. Supposed to be nice this time of year." He looked over his shoulder, and then waved his hand in the direction of the hologram, wiping it away, and leaving the highly reflective floor and ceiling of the room to be lit only by the distant star.

Harper took in McGraw's words, his mind clearing of the post-sleep fog faster with each passing moment. "Let's return to that in a moment." He said, his warm voice turning cold and consummate, "can you tell me just what happened back there? I just had to kill thirty thousand people on your word, Chris."

McGraw recoiled his head, and put on a faux-hurt expression as he held his organic hand above his heart. "Why, Jackie, it's almost as if you don't trust me." He leaned forward and tilted one side of his face closer to Harper's than the other, "I don't have to try this all again, do I? It'll take me a month to get two more stasis pills." He grinned and straightened up, "like I said, I figured out what all happened to Ed, back during his time on Mars."

"Go on." Said Harper, after McGraw's brief pause to turn and drag around the chair he had spent a week deceased in.

"Alright, so. Like Ed said in his journal, and like your own research concluded, Object Mars predated the Prothean Ruins by billions of years. I'm pretty sure Earth was still mostly half-formed molten rock around the time that thing was built." Said McGraw, as he sat down. "Short version is, it was built by some race of sentient AI techno-organic starships. I may or may not have talked to one when I sent my robot after it." He waved his hand side-to-side, "don't ask how that works, it's a long story." He let his hand fall back, and he leaned back into his chair as Harper sank back down into his own. "So, given its presence in the ruins, and what I got out of Cthulhu, I'm pretty sure these things - Ed said the protheans called 'em 'Reapers' - exist to perpetuate a galactic extinction cycle, and they've been doing it for a looooooong time."

Harper nodded slowly, narrowing his eyes as he took this in. "To what end? Just killing for killing's sake isn't like a machine, even SynthHumans do little without purpose... And if the purpose was to kill, it likely would have been to protect them from any other lifeforms, and they would have made no efforts to let live anyone not flying through space. If they were meant to wipe this galaxy clean, the more efficient option would be to keep everyone else dead or locked to their planets." He paused, furrowing his brow. "You said they were techno-organic. Perhaps they're leaving less developed life on purpose? To make more of them?"

McGraw's grin widened, and he nodded once. "Yup. I don't think it has anything to do with conquering or paving the way, because if that were the case, they wouldn't leave and come back every so often. Cthulhu said something about 'entropy', and that our destruction was a means of salvation. I think they've got some kind of higher goal, my two operating theories come from about ten or so minutes of talking to the big guy." He explained, "first, they're fighting a war, need numbers, and the only way they can reliably do so is to harvest organic matter to create their techno-organic ships. Problem with that is that it implies there's a race even bigger and even badder, and if that was the case, they would have had to have found us by now. The universe is big, but if the Reapers are as advanced as they are, that means their enemies are ostensibly more advanced… Finding them, or scanning extreme-long ranges like that, shouldn't be difficult for a civilization able to hop galaxies."

"And if these Reapers have been able to perpetuate an extinction cycle for billions of years without winning, even if we find a way to defeat them, we've less of a chance to defeat whatever comes next." Harper said, with a solemn frown. "But it is likely we wouldn't be pressed for time, if we haven't been discovered after billions of years. Their method doesn't, or hasn't, worked, so we could try something else." He looked up, "your next theory?"

"Two, they're not fighting anything, but working actively to preserve everything, thus 'salvation'. The big buy mentioned entropy several times, I think this theory revolves around our current knowledge of the universe being dead wrong, in the sense that it's dead as a doornail, but because of the speed of light begetting the speed of natural information transmission, we have no idea, thus - we think it's younger than it is."

Harper straightened up, tilting his head. "That would mean these Reapers are here to… What, destroy us, preserve our histories and genetic makeups, and then ride out the end of time?" He asked, "that would be imprudent, there would be nothing left to bring us back to."

McGraw shrugged, "it's just as far-fetched as the first theory, and has about as many problems. Not the least of which being, if the end of the universe isn't in a few trillion years, but a few billion, how they expect to be able to put everything back together when matter won't be able to hold itself together anymore. Maybe they've got stabilized warp tech and their plan is to take us all to a different universe entirely, maybe they've got it thought out and we won't ever figure it out just by guessing."

"This doesn't explain the nanites." Harper pointed out.

"Actually, it does… Kind of." McGraw waved his hand in a 'so-so' fashion, before running it through his unkempt hair. "They want to take down galactic civilization after galactic civilization, they can't just charge right in and expect to be able to bull-rush everything. The commonality between both theories is their desire to build numbers - and charging us without a plan means they'd lose a lot of their number doing it, and those are losses they literally can't recuperate. Each one of them is supposedly the remains of an entire species - once they're gone, they're gone, Jackie. So instead, they made a well-oiled galaxy conquering machine, and the best way to do that, is to tear it apart from the inside out."

Harper blinked, "the nanites. You said they alter brain chemistry, and create soundwaves."

McGraw nodded, "indoctrinating their chosen victims to their will. Then all they've got to do is just get these people to indoctrinate more, until they've got a faction big enough, collecting intelligence for them, developing battle strategies…" He nodded his head with each list, "gathering resources... Figuring out weaknesses… Then they just have to start some kind of big civil war, fracture the major military powers, and then just fly in and mop up the pieces." McGraw waved the topic away, "there are a lot of pieces we're missing, but the point I'm trying to make here is that we were this close to royally fucking up."

Harper nodded, "with Cerberus' connections, and your ties to it, they had the makings of a shadow superpower, ready and willing to fracture the whole of the…" He blinked, "no."

McGraw, however, was nodding. "You and I made Operation Vanguard, thinking it was more meant to prepare the galaxy from whatever it was that scared Ed, mostly by playing up the tension between the Alliance and the Citadel." He leaned forward, "I'm willing to bank a lot on the fact that we didn't really come up with that, Jackie. That was them, manipulating us just the tiniest bit, to get that tension going, to get the galaxy ready to break. We wanted an arms race and a cold war - a powder keg ready to go off; and while it isn't nearly as bad as we predicted it to be, not the least of which because we weren't even halfway through it, but it is bad. The big guy said their 'vanguard' was already here - he used that word. I think he was referring both to us, and whoever was going to light off that powder keg."

Harper nodded, "so there's someone else."

"There has to be. They can't be dumb enough to put all of their eggs in one basket - they got lucky when we picked up after Ed. But I think they've got someone a bit more… Mobile… Destructive than us. Waiting to light that match." McGraw leaned back, "they were using us - the both of us. We both got hit, I think right then, when we found the object and took it in. It wasn't enough to enslave us, but just enough to get us thinking in their direction."

Now Harper found himself racking his memories of the last twenty years, wondering what all had been him, and what all had been something else. "We can't undo this." He said, nodding slowly. "But we might be able to -"

"Yeah, stop right there, because the bad we made just got a whole lot worse while we were asleep." McGraw's chuckle returned, "oh fuck did it get worse." He breathed.

Harper felt a weight settle on his back, "what happened?"

McGraw hummed, "well, the Hegemony found this lizard race of heavyworlders with a krogan-like aptitude for war. They decided they wanted them as shock troopers, but the lizard folks refused, so instead of just walking away, the batarians decided to steal Alliance warp tech and go bomb them. Now we're kicking their asses out of Alliance space, declaring war on them again, and we've got the green krogan, saltorians, to help us." He whistled, "Council's having a conniption fit, their various ambassadors are trying to get us to reconsider… But, c'mon." He said, leaning back forward. "Hegemony territory is right there - it's one great big spike right there in Citadel Space, separating us from them, and circling the galactic rim to boot. I know how the board thinks, and Tyson's whole 'as long as it takes!' thing," He pumped his hand up and down with every syllable, before he shook his head. "Pretty much confirmed that we're not going there as liberators, this time, but as conquerors." He baited.

Harper took it, nodding. "With these saltorians, the Board will dissolve the Hegemony, and then occupy its territory. Then we've got a population of billions of most of the major races on the Citadel, three quarters of all living batarians, all of their not inconsiderable amounts of element zero, and they'll have blocked the Council from advancing any further to the galactic east to boot."

McGraw laughed, "better yet is that the Council knows this, in some capacity, but they're tied up by their own tongues: They wrote the ceasefire agreements, a few years ago, and the batarians went and violated that. Whatever we do now is on them, the big Three can't really stop us, without risking war."

Harper sighed deeply, finally giving in and doing the same as his friend, running his hand through his graying red hair. "What have we done?" He mumbled.

"Nuked a batarian planet, sabotaged a lot of tech events, a few low to high profile assassinations on both sides, tied it to the other…" McGraw listed off. "Made our jobs easy, eh?" He laughed, and leaned back in his chair, "what're you thinking?" He asked, with a nod.

Harper shook his head, "Alliance is going to war with the Hegemony again, and are playing chicken with the Council while doing it. The Citadel is getting more and more livid with every passing year, and when we take batarian space there will be no more buffer space - it will be a line on the map, one Mass Relay jump over to both sides. The turians are sinking forty five percent of their GDP into their military, the asari are writing millions of letters with one hand, while signing thousands of military bills with the other, and the salarians are trying every day some new method of getting around AI cyber security." He reached into his coat and pulled out a cigarette, "then…" He flicked open a lighter and sparked a light, "we take Khar'shan. The Citadel, regardless of the ceasefires, won't take that lying down. I guarantee you they'll want a bigger line than what they'll have - and they'll butt heads directly with the Alliance to get it.

"Khar'shan will be divided down the middle… It will be a galactic iron curtain." He finished, after a deep puff from the cigarette.

"And don't forget - the Alliance and the UN are at eachothers' throats, I got a message from John and the Twos that pretty much confirms they and the Ones are about ready to kill eachother, and the Quarians really fucking want Rannoch back." McGraw added, with a wide smile that just barely reached his deep blue eyes. "And god knows what'll go down when we uplift the saltorians out of necessity."

Harper nodded at each point, and took another deep puff of his cigarette. "We made a powder keg, McGraw, and now it's running away from us." He exhaled a deep plume of thick, Martian-characteristic smoke, "the Alliance is ready to tear itself apart, and if it survives that the Council won't hesitate to try its hand at what remains, and the Reapers are going to start sinking their teeth into every major outlet now that they lost the both of us and Edward before us. Chris, I'm thinking…

"What next?"

SituationChanged

HumanSystemsAllianceDeclarationOfWar

ProbabilityOfAbsorptionOfSaltorianRace:%89

ProbabilityOfOccupationAndAnnexationOfBatarianHegemony:90%

ProbabilityOfEveningWarFollowingConclusionOfSecondBatarianWar:%100

ProbabilityOfGethSurvivalInEveningWar:%6-%12DepenantOnEvacuationVariablesAndSynthHumanTrackingAlgorithms

ProbabilityOfCitadel/AllianceWarFollowingLossesAccumulatedDuringEveningWar:%50

Alert:VariableNotConsidered

Check/Flag:OldMachineVanguardVariable

IfCheck/FlagVanguardObtainsSpectrehoood/ThenWarProbability=%100

IfCheck/FlagVanguardFailsToObtainSpectrehood/ThenWarProbability=%50.

ProbabilityOfCreatorExtinctionFollowingCitadel/AllianceWar:%12

VariableExclusion:OldMachines

BuildingConsensus

CurrentlyBuildingConse-

ConsensusAchieved

TimeRequired:SixPicoSeconds

RecordTime

Noted

ConsensusAchieved

Odds:Unacceptable

CommencingIteration60102

Declaration:LastVote

ResultsFinal

CurrentlyBuildingConsensus

VotesGatheredYes: 0/14E+9

VotesGatheredNo: 0/14E+9

(...)

(...)

VotesGatheredYes: 15/14E+9

VotesGatheredNo: 3/14E+9

(...)

(...)

VoteConcluded

VotesGatheredYes 7.9E+9/14E+9

VotesGatheredNo 6.1E+9/14E+9

ConsensusAchieved

Results:

FurtherDelayPotentiallyCatestrophicFollowingInevitableAbsorptionOfSaltorianSpeciesAndOccupation/AnnexationOfHegemonyTerritory/Resources

EveningWarSummarilyInevitibleFollowingMajorIncreaseInAllianceMilitaryPower

EveningWarLeadsToMajorLossOfAlliance/CreatorLife

ProbabilityForGethSurvivalUnlikelyButNonZero

ProbabilityForGethDefeat:%100

PossibilityForCreatorExtinctionFollowingEveningWar-OldMachineVariableIncluded-%100

PreviousConsensusDeclaredOddsUnacceptable

Iteration60102ForContactWithAllianceBeforePotentialEveningWar

ConsensusAchieved:

MakeContactWithHumanSystemsAlliance

BeginActivationOfMobilePlatform

ProgramLimit:1183

(...)

In a ship with no atmosphere, and long, narrow walkways with harsh angles and construction conventions that would be harsh on organic eyes and difficult for organic movement, thousands of six foot tall bipedal machines walked too and fro in complete silence. They had no need to exchange words, and thus had no need for an atmosphere to act as a medium for word exchange, and without both of those things, a great deal of these machines didn't even have auditory or vocal processors, though at first glance, an organic would be unable to visually tell the difference between these 'deaf' and 'mute' machines with their more audible 'cousins' - they all had a uniform look, with gray synthetic muscles, sparse black armor plates, a single visual processor which glowed with a bright white light, and a 'hood' of sorts, made of multiple dozen interlacing metal plates that protected the visual processor.

Aboard this non-atmospheric ship, the inaudible machines worked tirelessly on the non-digital components that kept the vessel running. Without these mobile platforms, literally everything the machine race required to continue existing would whither away, even - and perhaps especially - in the vacuum of space. These machines moved with complete purpose, not a single movement was wasted, not a single action spent in excess - if two of these machines traveled in opposing directions, they moved out of the way of the other just enough such that they would not come into physical contact. No space was taken that did not have to be - everything upon this vessel was uniform, everything on it cold and calculated, made by machines, for machines. Even the gravity was much lower than the average gravity under which sapient life has evolved.

It was this ship specifically that had been chosen, as it floated through the void at such an odd angle that if one were oriented such that the gravitic pull of the local life-supporting planet was 'down', then not only would the front end of the ship be pointing right at the ground, but its back end would be at an angle and its top would be facing another completely awkward direction. It had been chosen specifically for its advanced FTL Communications suite, powerful defensive capabilities and - perhaps most importantly - its method of FTL. Stolen straight from the soon-to-be-defunct Hegemony's pitiful cyber security, the machines aboard this bulbous, insect-like ship had discovered the secrets of Warp Travel, and this ship was the first one of its kind. The initial consensus had been split down the middle for months over whether or not it should be a small frigate or an imposing dreadnought - both held risks and rewards. The former, they would appear small and non-threatening, but that meant they may very well be shot down as a precaution. The latter, they would appear large and powerful, and as such the organics would want to spend time communicating such that they could assemble the ships necessary to destroy it; but this ran the risk of seeming overtly threatening, and they may be fired upon without attempts for communication. In the end, the Dreadnought had won out by two votes, and as such, construction on the massive vessel had begun.

Unlike organic ships, this one had no concrete bridge or CIC - given the collective nature of the machines that operated it, there was no need. There was, however, a storage room filled with small fighter jets and mobile platforms enough to populate several battalions. It was in this storage room that one mobile platform, special from the rest, hung itself to connect to the ship's mainframe. Unlike nearly all other mobile platforms, this one had a capacity for almost twelve hundred programs and was the closest to an 'individual' these machines could get. It was because of this pseudo-individuality that this specific platform was chosen as the model platform to be used for this specific mission.

As the bulbous, insect-like ship's engines began to power up, and a pale gray orb shot out of its front and expanded into a large gray sphere, the nearly twelve hundred programs entered the ship's collective and began assisting with the ship's less physical operations. Unlike organics, who would feel some obligation to repeat their objective or give some sort of speech underlying the importance of their mission, the machines did no such thing, instead ensuring their ship was ready for Warp Transit and that the calculations for their destination were correct. They made sure ten whole times that the weapons were powered down and the shields were raised before firing their engines and entering the massive gray wormhole. The machines knew from intercepted Alliance communications and reports that utilizing the Mass Relays in Warp Transit helped to speed up the process, and would turn the initially conceived two month trip, down to a much more efficient four hour one. They tested, retested, tested a third time and then finally activated with the machine version of confidence, the ship's short and long-range radio systems, broadcasting a single, simple message in binary code. No matter the species, the message should be unmistakable, and easy to translate.

So, with the stellar coordinates for the closest relay plugged into the system, and the necessary calculations required to get them to Arcturus Station as soon as possible, the ship began to speak, to anyone in the void who had the wherewithall and the technology required to listen.

Creators. It said, We ask: Does this unit have a soul? There was a pause, Homo Sapiens. We ask: Are we alive? Homo Sapiens Apparatus. We Ask: Will you speak for us? Human Systems Alliance. We ask: Will you speak to us?

Elsewhere

"Say that again?"

"A turian cruiser just entered the system, Mister Had'dah, the Captain is requesting docking clearance."

The thick-skinned batarian blinked all four eyes, shifting his gaze from the vid-comm in front of him, to the window to his right, beyond which was the endless starry void. "What the hell is a Hierarchy ship doing all the way out here?" They were in Terminus space, after all - and if they needed any more reason to be incredulous, it wasn't more than a half dozen relay jumps to the Persius Veil! "Does it have proper clearance?" He turned his gaze back to the computer, reasoning that if it was a pirate squad, it was likely this kind of check would catch them up. Many would just see random bits of code, but Had'dah had enough money to buy his way into the right informative circles - he would know if the ship was broadcasting bad data.

"One moment, sir." Said the asari on the other end of the station. "Yes sir. They're old codes, from back during the Hegemony-Vorcha conflict, but they are valid."

Had'dah blinked, and shook his head. "Those wars happened centuries ago, T'sala. Deny -"

"Sir, it may be prudent to point out that the Hierarchy pulled in a lot of their older and mothballed ships after the Human-Turian War." The asari interrupted, "even the Republic and the Union dusted off some of their decommissioned vessels, after the Alliance trashed the Turian Fleets… And the Hierarchy doesn't sell off or let its ships float in the void if they break down or become obsolete. This could just be an old ship using old codes." She paused, "and they've got an extensive database on stolen ships, and ones they never recovered from the war, twenty years ago. This one doesn't raise any flags, I think it's legit."

Had'dah growled, "that doesn't explain what the hell it's doing out here."

There was a few moments of pause, "sir, we're not really in any position to deny him. We say no, he opens fire, comes in anyways. We say yes, at least that takes that ship out of commission, we'd only have to deal with the crew." And the unspoken 'half of us here are Commandos' was heard loud and clear. A turian cruiser could hold, what, five hundred people? A half thousand First Strike Ground Troopers, bottlenecked in the docking platform, versus nearly two thousand former Commandos, a few dozen krogan mercs, and a healthy smattering of Blue Suns. Thinking on it, Had'dah felt more and more confident about the safety of him and his secrets, it would take one of those supersoldiers from Alliance space to get in here.

And it wasn't like the Hierarchy had any of those lying around, after all.

Had'dah sighed, "alright. Get your best men and meet me at the docking tunnel. Let's find out what the hell these turians want, way out here."

It took a quarter of an hour for Had'dah to cross his station and meet his guards at the docking tunnel. The centuries old warship was attached firmly to his station, and upon his arrival, T'Sala, clad in her dark red armor, nodded once and then flicked open her omni-tool.

"Had'dah Research Station to Hierarchy Cruiser Apparition, you are clear to come aboard."

There was silence for a few moments, before the distant hiss of an airlock being opened reached the batarian's ears. At the far end of the tunnel he could see the cruiser's main airlock opening, revealing a single turian, clad in a set of the most odd armor he had ever seen. Overall it was a steely gray, but instead of the standard hardsuit most turians wore - with a large chestplate and a 'bowl' of sorts that encapsulated their neck, a codpiece that overlapped with the chestplate, and plates protecting the legs, knees, and arms - this one wore something more ergonomic and compressed against his body. The chestplate was made of multiple thin sheets of metal that rolled right over his shoulders and down his back, framing his core almost perfectly in the upsidedown triangular shape, but lacking the distinctive 'bowl' that most models of turian armor possessed around their heads and neck. There was one plate of armor on each of his biceps, forearms, thighs and shins, but no knee or shoulder plates. He wore a thick, steely-gray helmet that didn't seem to have any eyeslits or plates for it to see out of, instead appearing to be a mass of solid metal.

If Had'dah hadn't done a double-take, he would have thought that the sleekness underneath and in between the plates of armor was the turian's skin, but instead it was a suit, pressed so tightly to the turian's body that it may very well have been a second layer of skin. The suit moved in perfect sync with the turian's movements, which led Had'dah to look at perhaps the most peculiar bit of the turian's ensemble: its cloak. It had an actual cloak, made of some sort of malleable-looking metal that flowed with his each step, not dissimilar in appearance to turian formalwear, and it seemed to be built right into the armor. Though, instead of covering his entire body, it started right at the bottom of his ribcage and ended half of a foot above his heels, perhaps more like a human longcoat, than a cloak. Added to how he held his hands behind his back and his unnaturally straight gait, the whole ensemble gave the turian an almost ancient, arcane appearance.

By the void… What kind of idiot have we let on this station? Clearly this creature was mad, perhaps some escapee from one of the rehabilitation camps the Alliance had set up after their war with the Hegemony. "Keep that weapon ready, T'Sala." He muttered, so quietly that his throat hardly even rumbled.

Yet somehow, the Turian - from several meters away - heard him, and as he approached he called out, "that will be unnecessary." His voice was deep and flanged, like all turians, yet it was also firm, likely shaped by decades of battle and command. This was a man who was used to commanding respect and loyalty amongst his subordinates.

Had'dah blinked, but it was T'Sala who spoke. "And why would that be?" The scowling former commando demanded, tightening her grip on her rifle.

The turian turned its helmeted head towards her, as he reached the edge of the docking tunnel. "Because it would be useless even in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing with it." And with that, having said no more than two sentences, the turian vanished in a bright blue flash.

He barreled forward in a biotic charge, and before anyone could even blink, he reappeared with a biotic shockwave. T'Sala was in his hands and despite being clad in heavy armor, was lifted high above the seven foot tall turian's head. In a flash of motion, the turian ripped a pistol from his hip and jammed it in the former commando's nose - one gunshot and a spark of electricity destroyed her barriers, another gunshot tore through her head and fried her brains. Just as the other guards were beginning to react, the turian whipped around and threw T'Sala's corpse into the three asari to his left, while he shoved his gun-hand underneath the arm that had held the former commando and opened fire on the three to his right. Each of his bullets reached its target, shattering the barriers of the asari he'd fired upon and stunning them, and as he whipped around, T'Sala's corpse hit the other three, sending them falling to the ground.

His cloak whirling about, the turian took aim at the asari still standing and, with three more shots, all three were down on the ground, smoldering holes in their heads. In one fluid motion, the turian continued revolving on his foot and now was facing the asari on the ground, and with T'Sala's body and their impact disrupting their concentration, they had no barriers to fire through - three more thunderclaps, and they were dead too. To complete the whirlwind of death, the turian grabbed Had'dah by his throat and hauled him high into the air, only now finally coming to a halt.

The docking platform was eerily silent, as the turian calmly put his gun back underneath his cloak and on his hip. The cloak settled back around his legs and Had'dah noticed that the turian wasn't even breathing heavily. Instead, his helmet, the seamless mass of metal, stared directly into Had'dah's eyes as the turian lifted its now free hand and grasped Had'dah's left hand. With a squeeze, the turian broke every bone in the batarian's forearm and with a sick squelching noise, continued squeezing until the lower portion of his arm was flopping about wildly. Had'dah screamed in pain for all of two seconds, before the turian simultaneously jerked his head to the right and tore his arm to the left. With a thick 'pop' sound, Had'dah's neck snapped, and with a tearing noise, his arm came off in a brief spray of blood.

The turian unceremoniously dropped the body and lifted the arm, whereupon he found the omni-tool and delicately removed it. As he did so, dozens of armed guards stormed into the docking platform and formed up, all of their guns aimed at the steely turian as he seemed not even to pay attention to them, instead stowing the omni-tool in a pocket on his cloak and tossing aside the useless arm.

"Halt!" Roared out a human in Blue Suns armor, "surrender now, or you will be fired upon!" He ordered in a strict, militaristic style.

The turian didn't even turn his gaze, instead resting his hands behind his back, still facing the wall to the right of the docking tube. "I just killed six of your guards in twice as many seconds. Not a single one of them fired a single round." He now turned his head, looking at the group sideways as he raised one hand towards them, the three lightly armored fingers splayed outwards. "The only thing you will accomplish here is dying with sore arms."

"Open fire!"

For several sustained seconds, bullets of mass effect and human make blasted out of the near-hundred assembled weapons. Shotguns, assault rifles, submachine guns, even a few high-caliber sniper rifles all let loose their thunderous cries upon the lone, steely gray turian, but not a single round landed. Every single slug slammed into a violet-blue barrier and bounced away, perforating the walls, ceiling, and floors in front of him.

After five seconds, magazines ran dry, heat sinks began venting, and jaws began to drop, as enough collective ordinance to demolish a house had been brushed aside by a turian in an armored cloak. Said turian simply stood there, in the center of a ring of seven corpses, slowly constricting his fingers until it appeared as if he were grasping an invisible softball.

A biotic pulse was seen, a barrier the size of a beachball surrounded the turian's hand, before constricting down to be clenched in between his fingers. "As I said." Another pulse, and another barrier constriction, "it will do you…" The pulses grew faster and faster, until there was so much compressed air in front of the turian's palm that a small breeze was forming. "No good." And with that, he thrust his hand forward.

Propelled faster than a biotic Throw, the small barrier blasted away from the turian's hand and crossed the room in a second, before slamming into the sealed security door behind all of the assembled mercenaries. In an instant, a thunderclap filled the room and hurricane-force winds exploded outwards from the collapsed barrier. The massively compressed air tore deep grooves in the metal of the door, walls and ceiling, blasted apart several of the mercenaries in its immediate vicinity, and scattered everyone else. Blood instantly filled the room as armor was penetrated by the sudden explosive force, and the air was filled with the sound of wind shrieking, metal striking and grinding against metal, and bones snapping. Those who didn't die instantly were treated to the turian at work, as he launched himself forward with another biotic charge, landing on his right flank and tearing apart the forces who had gathered there. Quick and efficient, the blast of air had shattered many a mercenary's shields, meaning most were killed with but a single shot, straight to the head. Anyone lucky enough to recover fast enough to get a shot off on him couldn't penetrate his own barrier, and one salarian with an omni-blade found that the turian seemed to have eyes on the back of his head, as he dodged his savage stab without even a sidewards glance, before he spun around, grabbed the salarian's head, and buried it into the ground, shattering its skull and smearing a small puddle of graymatter across the stainless steel floor.

The turian then charged to the other side of the room, where he performed the same actions: Tearing through the assembled mercenaries with brutal efficiency, dodging incoming blows from all sides without moving his head or showing any indication that he even saw the approaching mercenaries. By the time his pistol had overheated, he'd already been halfway to snapping it back onto his hip and swapping to his biotics, somehow making him even deadlier, as he sent people flying with brief taps and crushed bodies with great punches.

In two minutes, all of the assembled mercenaries were either dead, or crippled and dying. The turian let out one quick breath, and stood to his feet, briefly looking over his work, before he stepped over the corpses he'd left in his wake and ventured deeper into the station. Had'dah had spent a lot of money keeping this place protected, and it would likely take him an hour or two to ensure his privacy.

Venturing down the lavishly decorated entrance hallway, suspiciously absent of guards, the turian felt his omni-tool chime. He paused in his advance and held it open, where a news headline greeted him.

Human Systems Alliance declares war upon Batarian Hegemony! Reports of ceasefire violation and galactic rights violations of an underdeveloped species!

The turian humphed, and lowered his hand as he shook his head. Of course the humans were going to war - it was what they did. If the humans weren't at war, they would be. A violent people knew only one urge, just look at the krogan.

Now passing by a window, the turian slowed his pace to peer through it, his mandibles slowly spreading as he saw his prize.

His omni-tool chimed again, this time for a message.

It is done.

I will be in touch.

-ES

The turian sighed, lowering his omni-tool and begrudgingly admitting that humans did, at times, have their uses. But as he peered out of the window and beheld the black, monolithic terror of ancient steel and eezo, his mandibles pressed tighter against his face, his small grin turned into a full-on scowl. The building-sized cephalopodic beast of a machine floated calmly in the center of the space-station that had been constructed around it.

"Don't do it." The turian spoke calmly, to the human who thought he had snuck up on him. "You will -" He whirled around, wrapping his arm around the human's and wrenching it to the side, before he thrust his palm forward and into the human's throat. He slammed the human onto the ground and, with a brief pulse of biotics, slammed his fist onto the bruised throat, snapping the poor creature's neck, the force almost enough to make the broken, jagged ends of his spine protrude out of the skin on his neck.

The turian stood up, slipping the human's gun out of his hand as he did so. He inspected it briefly, noting how its purely mechanical components - without a hint of electrical assistance - had the thick smell of oil, and the weight of a machine that operated on levers and physics, not computers and electricity. A single press of a button next to the grip allowed the magazine carrying the projectiles to slide out and clatter upon the ground, and a quick rack of its slide sent the bullet in the chamber spinning through the air, before he snapped said slide off and tossed it to one side, and the neutered gun to the other.

As he raised his head, he noticed the OD3 tattoo on the human's neck, briefly wondering what would had made a member of such an elite fighting force switch to fighting for money. Now facing down the corridor leading deeper into the station, and another assembled firing squad with their weapons pointed at him, the turian growled, and charged forward.

For the next two hours, the only thing heard from that station would be jammed distress calls, gunshots both ballistic and mass effect, and screams of those dying, as the turian moved through the station like a phantom, untouched by his enemies and leaving naught but death and destruction in his wake. There would be no survivors, and with no one to helm the station's altitude and orbital adjustments, it would fall to the surface of the massive planet beneath it in months.

But on the turian's mind first and foremost was keeping his barriers up, as he walked across a long catwalk, leading straight to the monolithic terror that this station had so foolishly thought it was studying, not once considering that it was studying them.

Enveloped in a thick violet barrier, the turian held his hands behind his back with an air of formality, and spoke with a loud, clear tone.

"I am aware that you can hear me. A mutual friend informed me of your location, but also what you are want to do." Said the turian, staring right at the front-facing plates of the cephalopodic titan. "So before we begin, allow me to say that aboard my vessel is a nuclear ordinance of six-point-five gigatons yield, and another orbiting the relay, of the same strength. Both are connected to my armor and are monitoring my brain waves. Any change, even the slightest, most subtle difference from the norm, will trip these bombs and there will be no way you can escape their effects. I may die, but so will you - and that means your allies in darkspace will never get their call, and whatever goal it is you have so fully dedicated to will forever remain unachieved."

This got a reaction, as immediately the titanic terror began to light up, bright blue lights lining the creases in its plate armor, and the air filling with a nearly deafening baritone blast. The turian's mandibles pressed harder against his face, unimpressed at this attempt at intimidation. Together, these things were nigh-unstoppable, but alone, they were but mighty - and he had taken down the mighty before.

Without even a change in his tone of voice, and barely a raise of his speaking volume, the turian called out, "quiet!" and, against all odds, the monolithic vessel did. He felt things pressing at his barriers, and the way the vessel's plates dilated, opening up to reveal a single, massive red eye near the base of its frame, he knew it what it was trying to do. "I told you, I am well aware of what you are want to do, but your mistake is in assuming that you can do it. There are justicars who are not as strong with barriers as I am. Your strength was in creatures such as us not knowing the method - and the moment we learned, said strength was rendered a pointless triviality. Creating a barrier not even atoms can pass through, while difficult and trying, is not even approaching impossible."

There was silence for several moment, as the red eye constricted and stared directly at him, before an impossibly deep voice spoke out, seeming to come from all directions and none, and shaking the turian's very chest with its reverberations.

"Turian, you are considered… Too primitive."

"And yet a primitive with a bomb is still dangerous." The turian retorted.

"What… Do you want?" The monolithic beast intoned.

"I know not, nor do I currently care, for why you and yours do what you do. I do, however, know what it is you do, and what you do, and what I want, for the time being, line up, with only one divergence and that being at the very end, when all is finished, the embers cool, and the ashes are settling. So to begin... I am here to bargain." There was a much lower rumble, less violent and angry than the one previous. The turian took it as a good sign.

So he started talking to the eons-old, monolithic metal monster.