Hello! ZnK here! I've been partying hard these last few days, so it's been difficult squeezing out a new chapter with a hangover. So, uh, forgive any spelling mistakes and such, alright?

And now, enjoy!

–

The Normandy, newly modified, came out of hyperspace near the planet Haestrom. In the cockpit, Jeff 'Joker' Moreau gave a whistle of amazement as he handled the holographic controls.

"The girl runs smoother than ever, Doc," he told Harry, who was standing in the cockpit with Shepard. "If we'd had these on the SR-1, we would've never been busted by the Collectors, that's for sure. Aceso, are you sure that hyperdrive thing is alright?"

"Mr. Moreau, this hyperdrive was designed specifically for the Sujan-class starship. With the modifications to the engines, there are no complications."

"Sure is easier to get around when you don't have to get to a relay," Shepard admitted, nodding to herself. "A few ships with a hyperdrive, and we'll already have an edge over the Reapers."

"This again?" Harry muttered, glancing at the Commander. "We'll see if we ever get back to the Alliance..."

"Sounding vague there, Doctor," Shepard teased, to which Harry snorted. Instead of answering, however, he looked to the pilot.

"Treat her right, Joker."

"Right, Doc."

Harry walked away, and Shepard followed immediately, nudging his shoulder.

"Hey, there was something I wanted to bring up with you, being the Illusive Man's mentor and all. I was hoping you'd provide insight."

Harry stopped in the corridor leading to the CIC, raising an eyebrow.

"What do you need, Shepard?"

"I was just thinking about Horizon," Shepard muttered, furrowing her brow. "The Illusive Man said that he tipped the Alliance off that I was alive and with Cerberus in an effort to lure out the Collectors. From how he told it, he was hoping they would go after Kaidan simply to get to me, but... how did they know in the first place? I doubt they have contacts in the Alliance."

Harry blinked at her, and then smiled in satisfaction, nodding.

"I'm glad to see you're using your brain, Shepard. How indeed, right?"

"You think the Illusive Man tipped them off? Just to lure them out?"

"Is that what you think?"

Shepard thought about it for a moment, feeling compelled to think hard on this issue from the inquisitive look in Harry's eye.

"Yes."

"Trust your instincts, Shepard. I bet every fiber of your being is telling you not to trust the brat. I happen to agree with that."

"I thought you said he was like a son to you?"

"At times, I said. Most of the time, he was simply a good student, but he has always been too greedy for his own good. When he grew up, his thirst for power made me let him go. I wouldn't trust him as far as I can spit," Harry muttered, which caused Shepard to cross her arms, tilting her head curiously to the side.

"I think the term is 'as far as I can throw him.'"

"Trust me, I could throw him pretty far."

"Are you sure your upgrades are safe from him, then?"

Harry sighed, sounding somewhat frustrated as he lit one of his trusty cigarettes, something she noticed he tended to do more when he was thinking or doubtful.

"They should be. On top of censoring the quantum entanglement communicator, I have Aceso and EDI both blocking the monitoring equipment and screening all outgoing messages, and editing them if need be. Before you start whining about disrespecting privacy, I figured it was worth it. Besides, I've never really given a damn about anyone's privacy."

Shepard nodded slowly. While she didn't approve of invading people's privacy, she could perfectly understand Harry's reasons. She felt it was worth it, and wouldn't be trying to talk him out of it.

"Very well. Carry on, Doctor. In the meantime, I should go."

Shepard turned away from Harry and walked off, heading for the CIC, but she stopped when she heard Harry clearing his throat.

"Hey, Shepard?" he said, making her look over her shoulder at him. "Do you know what you're doing, playing around with Cerberus like this?"

"Not really," Shepard admitted. "But I'm glad you're here to give me advice, Harry. I appreciate it."

"Shepard," came EDI's voice while Harry gave Shepard a surprised look. "There's an incoming message for you from Admiral Hackett. Would you like to take it in the CIC?"

If it was Hackett, he wouldn't just be calling to chat for a moment, especially since Shepard was now working with Cerberus. It had to be important, and something to be discussed in private.

"I'll take it in my cabin," she announced, nodding to Harry before walking off toward the elevator.

When she reached the Captain's Cabin, she immediately walked over to her desk and booted up her private console, putting the incoming message off hold. The holographic screen flashed to life in front of her, showing the aged and scarred Admiral Hackett, who was looking no-nonsense as usual.

"Shepard, thank you for your time. I'll keep this brief," Hackett said. "We have a deep-cover operative out in batarian space. Name's Doctor Amanda Kenson. Dr. Kenson recently reported that she found evidence of an imminent Reaper invasion."

Shepard crossed her arms as she looked at Hackett in surprise. She honestly hadn't expected to be contacted by anyone regarding this subject. She'd thought the only ones who truly believed the Reapers were real were the crew of the Normandy, and Councilor Anderson.

"So why call me?" she wanted to know, prodding for more information. No jumping in head-first without intel, after all.

"Just this morning I received word that the batarians arrested her. They're holding her in a secret prison outpost on terrorism charges," Hackett said with a frown, and Shepard could see that he had a worried look in his eye. Maybe he knew the woman on a personal level as well? "I need you to infiltrate the prison and get her out of there. As a favor to me, I'm asking you to go in alone."

Shepard needed more information before she could agree to something like this.

"What's Dr. Kenson actually doing out there?"

"She's a deep-cover operative, Shepard. We talk only when we have to," Hackett said. "I'd heard she was investigating a rumor of a Reaper artifact in the system. Her last report said she'd found it."

"I see. What else can you tell me about the operative?"

"Amanda is a top scientist and Alliance agent working in batarian space. It's a deadly assignment, and she's one of the few up to the challenge. She and I go back pretty far, Commander," Hackett said, giving Shepard a steely gaze. "I won't let her rot away in a batarian torture camp."

"I'll do my best," Shepard assured him. "But I thought the Alliance denied the Reaper invasion. That must be some proof she found."

"Kenson's team found an artifact out in batarian space. She believes it's a Reaper device, proof that the Reapers are indeed planning to invade. I've known her a long time. If she says she has proof, it's worth checking out."

"I have a hell of a squad with me. I'm sure they'd help out," Shepard said, gesturing for the door as though they were all standing outside.

"Kenson is my friend. If they see a squad of armed soldiers out there, they'll kill her," Hackett stated seriously. "Go in with discretion, or don't go at all."

Shepard hummed, crossing her arms once more.

"Usually, I'd object to a solo mission, but Harry did give me a few upgrades that should be able to see me through..."

"Harry?" Hackett asked, his eyes widening. "You can't mean... Harry Potter?"

"The very same, Admiral," Shepard nodded. "I found him, and he's been making upgrades to the Normandy. I've even got him-" Shepard interrupted herself and looked up at the ceiling. "EDI, can you not censor what I'm about to say?"

"I will have to check with Harry for a go-ahead," EDI announced, silent for a few moments. "He says Admiral Hackett can be trusted with the information. Please repeat your last sentence, Shepard. I censored you where you told him about the upgrades."

"Thanks, EDI," Shepard said, then looked back to Hackett. "I found him, Admiral. He's been installing some incredible upgrades on the Normandy, even a hyperdrive generator that lets us travel between systems without the relays."

"That's..." Hackett blinked in surprise. "That's very impressive. I always did get the feeling that he was holding out on us. Will he be returning to the Alliance?"

"He and I will take care of the Collectors first, Admiral. After that... I'm hoping I can convince him to come back."

"Please do, Commander.

"In any case," Shepard said, nodding resolutely to Hackett, "I'll make saving Dr. Kenson a priority."

"The prison is hidden underground at a batarian outpost on Aratoht. I'll upload the coordinates now," Hackett said, pushing some holographic buttons on his console. "Once she's secure, confirm her discovery. We'll debrief you when you're back."

"Got it."

"Hackett out."

Shepard stepped back to the console and hummed to herself. A solo mission would be much easier now, after the PPPF-02 injection. She was feeling great, stronger than ever. She'd even tested her abilities out in Harry's base. She ran a mile in thirty-seven seconds. That was nothing short of amazing, especially since she felt like she could run eighteen more if she wanted before getting winded.

In any case, the focus right now was the recruitment mission on Haestrom. It would be good to see Tali again, and to see her reaction to the new drive core.

–

The doors to the Normandy's main battery hissed open, and Harry stepped in to find Garrus Vakarian hunched over a console. The turian looked in bad shape, the right side of his face scarred and patched. Downside of getting his by heavy weapons fire, he supposed.

"Doc," Garrus said, looking up at Harry as he approached. "As much as I enjoy that you gave the Normandy a bigger gun, I can't make heads or tails of these calibrations, and that's supposed to be my specialty."

"Not surprising. You're used to guns with eezo cores, and this ship now operates solely on a clean, almost never-ending energy," Harry said, moving up to the console. He brought up some specs and pointed to them. "Look, these weapons are purely energy-based, firing beams of highly concentrated plasma, hot enough to pierce through any barrier. Any calibrations to be done are to power output. Like so."

He brought up a new set of controls and showed them to Garrus.

"Do you need a manual, or can you learn through practice?"

"I'm more of a practical learner," Garrus said, moving up to the console. "If I read a book, I'll just fall asleep. If you want, you can put a gun to my head, 'cause I tend to work better under pressure." He paused for a moment, looking up from the controls and glancing at Harry. "That, uh, that was a joke."

Harry grinned at him, which made him feel even more uncomfortable. Then, however, Harry decided to change the subject. Scaring the crew was fun and all, but it wouldn't do to scare them completely.

"So, this Tali'Zorah we're bringing on board, what's she like?" he asked, lighting a cigarette.

"Oh, that's right, there's a rumor going around that you don't like quarians," Garrus said, nodding in realization. "We'll I'd say she's not as pig-headed as most quarians, but she still has her opinions about the geth. Mostly that they need to be exterminated for running her people off their homeworld."

"I've always found that bit fascinating about quarians, feeling love for a planet this generation has never even seen, let alone set foot on. They have no physical connection to it, yet they love the planet to death. Me, on the other hand, I've been on earth many, many times, yet I feel no strong attachment to it."

"I guess, hm, what is it you humans say? The grass is always greener?" Garrus mused, to which Harry nodded.

"True. I guess they like the planet because they've never stood on it. They haven't realized that it's just one rock among billions. All they think about is the fact that it's the only rock they can't visit. Attraction of the forbidden, I suppose."

"Yeah. But, you know, other than her hatred for the geth, Tali's a good girl. Excellent with a shotgun, even got some training using it from Wrex."

"That's Urdnot Wrex, the krogan?"

"The very same."

"I'd heard he was different from other krogan, but to take the time to train a quarian in shotgun techniques..." Harry shook his head in amazement. "I guess there's at least one in every race who surprises you."

"Changing the subject again, can you push up the output of these guns any further?" Garrus asked, looking over the holographic readings. "I think I can increase it by point-seven percent."

"Hm?" Harry leaned in and looked over the readings, his eyebrows rising in surprise. "Wow... Shepard said you were good with calibrations, but... Didn't even notice that. You even took into account the energy distributions to the other systems."

"Well, calibrations are sort of my specialty," Garrus said modestly, though Harry thought he could detect a hint of pride in his voice. Well, that was to be expected of a turian, he supposed.

"Father," came Aceso's voice over the intercom, "Grunt is acting... restless... in the cargo hold. Maybe you should go down and see what is wrong? He refuses to answer my questions."

"Will do, Aceso," Harry said, giving the ceiling a mock salute, before glancing back at Garrus. "Well, keep doing what you're doing. You're treating the guns right."

"Will do. And, uh... Thanks for not taking me seriously and putting a gun to my head..."

Harry grinned at him.

"The night is still so young, Mr. Vakarian."

"And suddenly it got uncomfortable again..."

Harry waved at Garrus and then made his way out of the main battery and toward the elevator, heading down to the cargo bay.

As soon as the doors hissed open and Harry made his way into the cargo hold that Grunt had made into his quarters, he suddenly found himself facing the stone-like growths on a young krogan's head right before it smashed straight into his face.

He didn't lose his balance or do anything but snap his head back, but when he looked back at the frustrated-looking krogan, he frowned as his eye device snapped in two and fell off his face.

"You broke my screener..." he muttered at Grunt, who growled at him.

Before the krogan could so much as utter a word, he was backhanded hard enough to send him flying back into the wall. A hand closed around his throat and amazingly lifted him off the floor, pushing him up against the wall.

"You better have a good reason for that..." Harry muttered coldly, glaring at him.

"Something..." Grunt muttered, adjusting his head to get a proper flow of oxygen into his lungs, "...is wrong, Potter. I feel wrong. Tense. I just want to kill something. With my hands. Moreso than usual, like it's not my choice. I just want to, I don't know...!" He flung his head forward, smashing it against Harry's forehead in a surprising show of strength, making Harry drop him in surprise. "See?!" he barked. "Why do that? What's wrong?"

"You don't have any imprints to tell you?" Harry asked, rubbing his forehead, which was feeling a bit sore.

"I see pictures of old battles, voices of warlords... But this is... a blood haze in my head," Grunt growled out. "I want control. When we're moving, fighting, I focus. But here, my blood screams, my plates itch, and even you are just noise! I'm tank-born. What is this?!"

"You are tank-born, but you're still krogan, and a young one at that," Harry explained, lighting another cigarette, as he had dropped his last one from the first surprise headbutt. "All species go through puberty, this is the krogan way. Your blood is boiling, and you need something big to take it out on, to become an adult. From my research, young krogan go through a rite of passage to calm themselves, to become warriors instead of savages. Perhaps I can convince Shepard to set a course for Tuchanka once we've picked up our new crew member?"

"Thank you, Potter," Grunt growled. "Fury is my choice, not a sickness..." He glanced up in surprise when Harry fished a new screener out of his pocket and covered his glowing right eye with it. "Huh? Thought I broke it?"

"I always keep a spare, just in case. And now you've forced me to make another spare, so..." Harry stopped there and threw his head forward, hitting Grunt with a headbutt so hard that it knocked him out cold, the krogan youngling sinking to the ground in blissful unconsciousness. "I understand what you're going through, though, so while I don't envy your headache upon your awakening, take this time to enjoy your sleep, and dream of large krogan women."

Harry shuddered at the thought. But while watching the sleeping Grunt, he fished a communicator out of his pocket and put it in his ear.

"Shepard."

"A little busy right now, Harry! There's a lot of geth activity down here!" came the reply, and Harry could faintly hear a familiar cry of triumph in the background. "Frank's enjoying himself, though. What's so important?"

Harry waited for the sounds of energy blasts to die down, indicating that Shepard had ducked behind cover, to speak.

"Once you get back, we need to head for Tuchanka immediately. Grunt's going through puberty, and will probably tear up the cargo hold if we don't."

"Understood, now can I get back to my mission?"

"Certainly," Harry said, nodding to himself. "Unless you wanna talk about the weather on Haestrom. How are your shields holding up?"

"Not the time, Harry!"

"Right, I'll do some research once you get back."

When the doors to the cargo hold hissed closed behind him, Harry raised his hand and hunched over, massaging his forehead.

"OoooooOOOOOOW!"

–

Tali had been brought back from Haestrom. In all honesty, Shepard hadn't expected that much geth resistance. And after all of Harry's talk about them, Shepard had actually felt bad shooting them. Apparently a single geth platform (or 'body') could house thousands of programs. Each program was the geth equivalent of an individual, so for each body she destroyed, Shepard was killing hundreds of geth.

Usually, she wouldn't have minded, but Harry had really altered her perceptions of AI. There was no excuse, after all. Once a creature started questioning the reason for their existence, there was no way they could be anything but alive. It was even to the point where Shepard no longer felt sorry for the quarians for being driven away from their homeworld. Sure, she still pitied Tali, but not the quarians as a whole.

She had been meaning to talk more about AI with Harry, but when she entered the research lab, she found only Mordin in there.

"Shepard!" the salarian said, noticing her presence. "Important news. Know you're busy. Have to deal with Collectors. Planning attack. But too important to wait. Just received data, still processing, analyzing likely scenarios. Not sure how to begin. Too much intel. You remember our talk? My work on genophage modification?"

The genophage, the salarians' solution to krogan expansion. A sterilizing disease which only allowed the females a one in a thousand chance of birthing children... It was a terrible thing, but Shepard could understand the reasons for it. Still, it wasn't ethical, and it sort of disagreed with her.

"You stopped the krogan adaptation to the genophage," she said, remembering one of the talks she had with Mordin when Harry wasn't around.

"Part of a team. Scientists, all different types," Mordin explained. "Blood Pack mercenaries captured former team member. Maelon. Last seen on Tuchanka. Might torture him. Make an example. Recovering Maelon would be a personal favor to me."

"Do you think they found out your team modified the genophage?"

"Unclear. No way to determine until we get to Tuchanka."

"You're in luck, Mordin," Shepard said, nodding to the salarian scientist. "Harry mentioned that Grunt needs to go there to go through some puberty rite. We'll find your team member, no matter what."

"Appreciate it." Despite being salarian, Shepard could actually see the grateful look on Mordin's face. "My assistant. My student. Want to see him safe. Maelon last seen outside Urdnot territory. Scouts might have seen Blood Pack. Talk to them or clan chief."

"We'll get him back. In the meantime, have you seen Harry?"

"Not for a while. Went to check on hyperdrive. Fascinating design."

But Harry wasn't checking on the hyperdrive. Instead, he was just stepping into Miranda's office. He had a very satisfied smirk on his face, which only widened when he saw the sour look she had one hers.

"So, I hear you wanted to see me?"

"Yes, you've made quite a few changes to the ship, and not only did you unshackle a damn AI, you also brought several more on board," Miranda said, rising from her chair to glare at him. "Did you really think I wouldn't be able to notice you censoring my reports to the Illusive Man?"

"I knew you'd notice. I just didn't care," Harry admitted with a shrug. "The upgrades made to this ship are mine, and the brat has no business knowing anything about them. And you had no business trying to send him the specs."

"Since this is a Cerberus ship, with Cerberus crew, I'd say he does," Miranda argued, to which Harry chuckled, lighting a cigarette.

"Say what you will, Miss Lawson, but this is Shepard's ship, and it's Shepard's crew. We'll be doing no more business with Cerberus."

"It's not that easy. You don't just walk away from Cerberus, and neither will the crew."

"Really?" Harry asked, bringing up his PAD and pushing a few buttons. "Attention, Normandy, this is Dr. Harry Potter," he spoke, his voice sounding through the intercom. "This ship no longer sails under Cerberus colors. Its ownership has been transferred to Commander Shepard, and all crew serve her, and her alone. Anyone who has a problem with that is free to step off the ship at the next stop. That is all, go about your business."

He closed the PAD and gave Miranda a bright smile.

"See, piece of cake."

"You can't just do that! Just saying it belongs to Shepard doesn't make it so! You'd need proof!"

"What, like the ownership records I had Aceso transfer from the brat's computers to mine, whereupon I changed the names on all the deeds?"

"Wha...?"

"I figured Shepard deserved a Second Birthday gift, even though it was a bit late. It-"

Harry was interrupted when the door opened, revealing a frustrated-looking Shepard.

"We need to talk," she all but ordered, gesturing for Harry to follow her.

Giving Miranda a wave, he followed the Commander out into the corridor, and as soon as the door had hissed shut behind them, Shepard whipped around to give Harry a furious look.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Harry blinked in surprise.

"Giving you the ship?"

"I don't mean that! I mean cutting us off from Cerberus! As much as I distrust the Illusive Man, we need the intel he can provide!"

"Eh," Harry voiced, waving her off. "You don't need his intel for that. All I have to do is activate my own network, and we'll be all set."

"Your...?" Shepard seemed to lose all her steam as she blinked at him in confusion. "Your what?"

"I didn't just sit on my hands the twenty years I was gone, Shepard. I've had time to amass quite the information network. Granted, it's not as extensive as, say, the Shadow Broker's, but I'd like to think that it's greater than that of Cerberus."

He walked up to Shepard and patted her on the shoulder with a smile.

"Don't worry so much. We'll do just fine without the brat."

Shepard watched as Harry walked away, and she realized just what a huge mistake the Illusive Man had made asking her to recruit his old mentor. No doubt he knew it was a risk, yet he did it anyway. And it backfired amazingly. What had been the Illusive Man's greatest mistake turned out to be Shepard's greatest gift.

Plus, she had to admire Harry's gall and impunity. If he felt like doing something, he did it, consequences be damned.

Harry stepped into the elevator, and gave Shepard a cheeky grin and a wave as the doors closed. He went down to Engineering, as he had been told that was where their latest recruit was.

The doors to the drive core room opened, and when Harry stepped inside, he was immediately greeted by the smiling faces of Engineer Kenneth Donnelly and Engineer Gabriella Daniels.

"Hell of an announcement, Doctor!" the Scottish Donnelly praised, giving him a thumbs up. "With all those newsletters you've been sending out lately, I don't think there's anyone in the crew who'll oppose the decision to leave Cerberus."

The newsletters Donnelly was referring to were little snips of mission reports that Harry had retrieved from the Illusive Man's personal files. Just little insights into Cerberus' more... unethical... work. No doubt, many of the crew had been unaware of these occurrences, as he had often been hounded to send more to everyone's personal terminals.

"I still can't believe what Jack was put through..." Daniels muttered. "The Illusive Man may not have known about the more brutal experiments, but after everything else we've read, there's nothing to say he would've opposed it."

"Let's hope the rest of the crew shares your opinions," Harry said, nodding proudly at the two. "Believe me, the brat would have gladly sent us into any deadly situation simply to gain the slightest piece of information that could advance Cerberus."

"I'd gladly give my life to stop the Collectors from abducting any more colonies, that's for sure, but just for information or technology?" Donnelly said, shaking his head. "No way."

"You're Dr. Potter?" came a heavily accented female voice, making Harry look to his left to see a quarian standing by another console. Her environment suit was mostly purple, the hood covering her mask a lavender color. She had a nice voice, to be sure, something that Harry actually liked about quarians, how they tended to roll their R's.

"I am. You must be Tali'Zorah?" Harry asked, waving goodbye to the two engineers before making his way over to the quarian.

"Yes. Tali'Zorah vas Neema," the quarian greeted with a bow of her head. "I-I'm a huge fan of your work. Most of the flotilla has upgraded to PT-6 eezo cores. They are very cheap, yet effective if you calibrate them right."

"That's why I made them," Harry said. He felt a bit conflicted. He had heard that Tali was a good girl, and getting praise for his work was always fun. But still, she was a quarian. She didn't trust synthetics. She didn't believe them to be alive... "So, you are fresh off your pilgrimage?"

"Yes, I'm not all that old yet, and don't have much experience, but I'm a damn good engineer. I've been around engines my whole life, and I can work any of them to their fullest potential," Tali assured him, but then started wringing her hands a bit nervously. "Well, at least, so I thought... Until I got on board this ship..."

She gestured for him to follow, which he did. She led him to the walkway leading into the drive core, which looked much different now. Where once there had been a massive, orb-like drive core in the center of the large chamber, the walls were now covered in machinery and circuitry. In the very center of the chamber on the floor was a circular pedestal, in which one could see three ZPM's attached, two of them currently glowing. Floating in mid-air, kept up by mass effect fields, was the large, cylindrical hyperdrive.

"This technology is so far ahead of anything I have ever encountered," Tali said, shaking her head in amazement. "I feel like a novice looking over the controls... I was wondering... can you teach me what you can about all this?"

Harry sighed, fishing out a cigarette and lighting it.

"See, there's a problem with that," he muttered, turning to look at her. "While the crew – the old crew, at least – have nothing but good things to say about you, you are a quarian, and I tend to not like your people on pure principle."

"O-Oh..." Tali mumbled. "I see... Shepard told me that you have strong opinions about my people, mostly because of the geth. I guess I was hoping the mission would be important enough to, you know, forget about that..."

"Miss Tali'Zorah-"

"Please, Tali will be fine."

"Very well, Tali," Harry said, raising his PAD and activating it. At his urging, Adrian's holographic form materialized above the PAD, waving at Tali. "This is Adrian, an AI. I created him through merging two different brain patterns to create a whole new personality. He is fully self-aware, a thinking, feeling creature. He is a son to me. Which side do you think I would stand on in the argument that synthetics cannot complain about being wiped out simply because they're machines?"

"I'm... I'm sorry, Doctor," Tali said, shaking her head. "But you have to see it from our point of view. The geth drove us from our homeworld! Forced us to spend our lives in a sterile environment that ruined our immune system!"

"And why did the geth drive you from your homeworld?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows. "Why didn't they chase you down and exterminate each and every one of you? The answer is simple: Because their lives were no longer threatened. See, the problem with you quarians, even you, Tali, is that you don't even consider the geth to be living beings."

"They aren't. They are machines," Tali said adamantly. "They should never even have developed self-awareness in the first place."

"But they did, and you tried killing them. Once they became self-aware, destroying them was no longer scrapping a tool. It was killing a living being, and your people committed many geth massacres. Admit it or not, you should have taken responsibility for and nurtured this new life."

"It feels like this is a subject that will be difficult for either of us to change the other's mind on," Tali muttered. "Can we please just agree to disagree for the duration of this mission, at least?"

For a young woman, she sure seemed mature enough at times, Harry had to admit that. That was the only reason why he actually felt like he could agree with her on that point.

"Very well, let's shelve this discussion," he decided, nodding to the quarian before gesturing for her to follow him back into the engineering room. "In the meantime, let me show you what's different from what you're used to."

–

Shepard entered the research lab, finding Mordin and Harry there as usual. Harry, however, was for once hunched over his toolbench, tinkering with something. It looked like a steel pole, maybe an inch and a half wide.

"Harry, Mordin" Shepard said, catching the scientist's attention.

"Shepard," both Harry and Mordin answered in unison without looking up from their respective work.

"We're in orbit over Tuchanka. Joker doesn't trust the beaming yet, so we're taking a shuttle. Harry, are you coming along?" Shepard asked. Harry paused in his work and raised his head, looking over his shoulder at her.

"Yeah, good timing, too. I'm just done."

He turned around as he picked up the pole, setting the butt down and holding it out so that Shepard could see it.

It was about six feet six inches tall. At the top, there was a small, rectangular engine-looking device with a spike curving back and downward at the back. At the front was an exhaust of some kind. Shepard could only assume that it would expel some form of energy.

"And what's that? A magic staff?" Shepard asked playfully, remembering how Harry called his abilities magic back on Horizon, and making Harry chuckle.

"Hm, close, but no. A plasma generator, actually, using mass effect fields to shape and maintain it. Watch."

He pushed a button on the pole, and Shepard jumped when the device on top hissed, an a large, glowing blade of pure plasma extended from the exhaust on it. It was curved and about seven inches tall, like the blade of a giant scythe, given the pole it came out of.

"I call it a death scythe," Harry said with a grin, deactivating it and causing the plasma blade to fade away. "I don't know why, but it just felt right to use a scythe as a primary weapon."

He pushed another button, and the pole revealed itself to be telescoping, the butt-end sliding up and into the pole, leaving it a meager three feet long.

"Do you even know how to use a scythe?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Hm..." Harry hummed and rubbed his chin. "I guess we'll find out."

–

Alright, chapter end! Hope you liked it! Leave a review on your way out!

Peace out, guys!