Commander Jane Shepard awoke with a start, her dreams plagued by her friends that had died on Akuze, Kaidan Alenko sacrificing himself for the mission to stop Saren and the colonist who was dissolved by the Collectors right in front of her. They had all surrounded her, as tall as skyscrapers and pointed down at her, accusing her of killing them. Of letting them die. Of failing. Jacob Taylor awoke next to her and set a hand on her shoulder.
"Another nightmare?" He asked. Shepard rested her head on his shoulder, her short red hair covering her face, causing her to blow it away.
"Yeah." She replied with a weighted sigh.
"Well, all the more reason you should take some time off before.. you know."
"I know you don't like it, Jacob." Shepard replied, standing up and holding his hands in hers. "But I have to go back to the Alliance. It's not about turning myself in. It's about the Reapers."
"I know, but that doesn't mean I have to like it." Jacob replied with a laugh. "You think they'll listen this time?"
"I hope so..." She replied and walked over to her uniform, hanging over one of the chairs in her quarters. "But maybe you're right. You think everyone would like to take one last trip to Illium? No business, no shooting, no explosions. Just relaxing and spending what's left of the Illusive Man's money."
"I think so." Jacob replied with another laugh.
The shuttle flew into Omega's ports, with great difficulty. The assassin had to use some fancy talking to get the dock workers to allow a Cerberus vessel to land in their ports and, though they could have just killed the dock hands, they had allowed a search of the shuttle.
"Alright, everything seems clean." The batarian in charge stated. "You can keep the pistol. You're gonna need it here."
"If you say so." The assassin stated. "Thank you. I was lead to believe there might be a hospital here."
"No hospitals to speak of." The batarian replied. "But there are a few clinics scattered about. Charitable dogooders running non-profits."
"Any you would recommend?" The biotic asked, carrying the tech over his shoulder, assisted biotically.
"I'd go for the one run by a salarian named Maelon." The batarian replied, clearly getting annoyed by all the questions. "Last salarian operated clinic ended up curing a damned plague, so maybe this one can help your friend out."
"Thanks for your time." The assassin replied and nodded for the biotic and Elanor to follow, handing the woman the pistol. "You'll need that more than we will if we run into trouble."
"Don't have to tell me twice." She replied, setting the side arm on the mag-lock on her hip. "What's the plan, then? Get him patched up and then you all live normal lives?"
"No." The biotic replied. "Little brother found a lot of information on this Commander Shepard woman. She's viewed as a hero to the galaxy, but thanks to Cerberus archives, we've seen that she destroyed the Collector base when it could have been used to protect humanity."
"How would it have protected us?" Elanor asked, moving side to side to avoid running into people as the streets became more and more crowded.
"Not sure." The biotic continued. "Nor did it say why she did it. All it said was this Illusive Man begged her not to do it, told her it could save us all and she still blew it up."
"Illusive Man?" The assassin asked, leading them through a door that pointed toward the clinic. "I swear little brother called him Man of Illusions."
"Well when he first heard about the man it was while hacking in recently gained consciousness." The biotic offered. "Haven't seen him make a mistake since then."
"So you're going to hunt this Shepard person down?" Elanor asked. "Then what?"
"We haven't figured that part out, yet." The assassin replied. "She took away the reason we were made, but she also apparently endangered all living things, so I'm guessing we'll kill her."
"But there's a chance Cerberus wasn't entirely honest, so who knows?" The biotic mused.
"And... what about me?" Elanor asked as they got to the clinic. "Where do I fit in?"
"You any good at fighting?" The assassin asked as the biotic went on ahead with the tech in his arms. Doctors flooded around him and pulled the two of them into a treatment room. "With our brother injured we'll need firepower."
"I'm nothing like he is. I can't hack, I don't have a chip in my brain telling me where to shoot. And I'm apparently not as brave as I thought since I just froze when I saw you and your brothers between the scientists and I and getting away."
"Yeah, because you felt that the fight would have been hopeless." The assassin replied. "If a thresher maw was looming over you but had yet to attack and there was nothing but a wall to your back, you probably would have done the same thing."
"I guess so." She said, watching as the tech was placed on a table and a few of the doctors, a salarian among them, began scanning his body. "I suppose there's no point trying to go back to Cerberus, anyways. I never liked that they were playing God and you proved my fears right."
"We didn't hurt anyone who wasn't trying to hurt us first." The assassin stated. He was about to continue when a batarian, clothed in blue armor came behind Elanor. The clone instinctively grabbed her shoulder and moved between the two of them. "Can I help you?"
"You know who I represent, human?" The batarian asked. The assassin looked at the insignia on his shoulder pads and nodded. He and his brothers had been gifted with a photographic memory, perfect recall of anything they had seen or heard before and they'd been well educated on the largest mercenary groups in the galaxy.
"You're with the Blue Suns."
"That's right." The batarian stated. "And the Blue Suns aren't excited about someone with a Cerberus insignia on their armor coming into their territory, much less four of them."
"Whatever your problem with Cerberus is, it doesn't involve us." The biotic said, coming out of the treatment room. "This armor was taken out of necessity, not because it was issued to us."
"The hell does that mean?" The batarian asked as a pair of turians came up behind him.
"We had a run in with Cerberus." Elanor said, her lie sounding very convincing. "We're former Alliance. Got discharged after the geth invaded the Citadel. They attacked our ship because we got too close to one of their bases."
"Boarded our freighter hauling a disappointing amount of platinum." The biotic continued. "Rather than let them take our haul we killed the boarders, but we heard through their comms that they were going to blast the ship apart if someone didn't respond so we moved over to theirs, grabbed some armor, a pistol and a shuttle and flew off like a bat out of hell."
The batarian looked back at the two turians who shrugged and then back at the groups.
"You all have names, then?" He asked and Elanor's heart skipped a beat. Sure, her name was unknown and unimportant but the clones didn't have names. The biotic spoke up first, creating a name from thin air.
"Jason Chalk." He said.
"Stroyer." The assassin replied, receiving a raised eyebrow from Elanor. "Kid gave me the name after I shot up a geth who was trying to kill him back on Eden Prime. Too young to pronounce the word destroyer properly. My parents disowned me when I was given the boot from the Alliance so I kept it."
Elanor was so surprised that he was able to come up with a story like that right off the top of his head that she hadn't realized the batarian was looking at her.
"Oh, right." She stammered. "Elanor Fel."
"I'm Harch." The batarian replied and grinned. "And anyone who's killed Cerberus is alright by me. Good thing, too, I was going to drag you out of here and shoot you in the streets."
"Glad we cleared that up, then." The assassin said with a smirk.
"So not only did we lose the only thing we had to put an end to Shepard's destruction, but you got yourself damaged in the process." The Illusive Man said, rubbing his temple as he looked at Kai Leng's hologram projection.
"I underestimated them." Leng replied. It had been roughly a week since the clones had escaped and even if they had short range FTL fuel cells they could still be anywhere in the galaxy by now. "It won't happen again."
"You're right, it won't." The Illusive Man said. "I'm pulling you back here for something else. It's clear that a different approach will be necessary."
"What do you mean?" Leng demanded.
"General Petrovsky will be taking a task force to apprehend them. A small but skilled team will simply not do against their small, more highly skilled team. Their shuttle is on Omega and Petrovsky will be making use of the element zero stores while he is there... among other things."
"And what will I be doing?" Leng asked, clearly bitter about not being given another chance against the assassin.
"You will be coming back to me so we can discuss our plans for humanity's rise." The Illusive Man replied. "Oh, and Leng? The Jericho Facility is of no further use to me."
"Understood."
"So... Stroyer?" Elanor asked with a laugh.
"I had to think on the fly." The clone replied, looking down at himself in the set of Blue Suns armor he'd been given. "I think I'll keep it, though."
"It's impressive, or at least the story was." She said and looked over at the biotic. "And you're going to stick with Jason?"
"Yeah, has a nice ring to it." He replied, examining his own armor. "Jason Chalk, Blue Suns biotic god."
"We aren't remaining, Jason." Stroyer said. "As soon as little brother is awake we need to move."
"I know."
"What if he doesn't?" Elanor asked, causing them to both stop and look at her. "As advanced as you all are, you aren't invincible. What if he's suffered permanent brain damage? I don't want to be a pessimist, here, but you two need to be willing to accept that your little brother might be brain dead."
"If that ends up being the case then we will go forward with our plan." Jason replied, looking back down at his armor and tightening some straps. "And when we are finished, we'll hunt down that Kai Leng fucker and I'll tear him apart, molecule by molecule with my mind."
"Jesus..." Elanor said, blinking a few times.
"If I were biotic I'd do the same." Stroyer said as he examined the pair of blades Harch had given him and swung them around himself to test their balance.
"Still, kind of graphic." Elanor stated with a laugh.
Shepard leaned over the railing, looking out into the city. Illium was beautiful when the sun set over the buildings. Even Jack didn't have anything rude to say as the Normandy's crew looked over the peaceful setting together.
"Still can't believe we pulled it off." Miranda admitted.
"Really?" Garrus asked with a laugh. "I was surprised it was so easy."
"Joke all you want." Tali said, stretching her arms out. "I'm just happy it's over. And we got everyone out of there."
"And I killed the most." Grunt said with a laugh.
"Too bad Legion couldn't join us." Shepard said with a smirk.
"I don't think the concept of shore leave is something a geth can understand." Tali said.
"Not to mention the panic it might cause." Thane added politely. "Still, he was a good addition to our team. And he killed only when necessary. I enjoyed that about him."
"About it." Tali corrected. Thane made no argument but did not agree with the quarian either. As the sun finally set over Illium the crew stepped away from the rails and they all went their separate ways to enjoy themselves.
General Oleg Petrovsky looked out of the command center's viewport as Omega came closer and closer into view. It had been almost two months since the fugitives had escaped and, based on reports, a Cerberus vessel had docked there and never left. That, however, was likely because of the release of Adjutants, that had somehow invaded Omega.
Whether this was pure coincidence or if the Illusive Man had been playing at something, the general couldn't be certain. All he knew was that he had to move quickly to seize Omega and secure the Fabricator subjects as well.
Stroyer, Jason and Elanor hadn't slept for three days. While the clones seemed perfectly fine the former Cerberus soldier was delusional, sloppy and barely able to form coherent sentences.
"Jason, we have to consider what Elanor said." Stroyer told his brother as they stood over the tech clone's sleeping form. "He hasn't woken in two months. These Adjutant creatures are strong and numerous. And they're able to pilot ships. If we don't get out of here now we might not ever."
"I know..." Jason said, placing a hand on the youngest clone's forehead. "I just... I wish..."
"I know, brother." Stroyer replied and set a hand on the tech's shoulder. "But we can't save him, now. If he was going to wake up he would have done so. We need find a ship and leave before there aren't any ships to be found."
"And the ship has to... is a ship." Elanor said, blinking and shaking her head furiously.
"The sooner we leave the better." Jason agreed, looking at the state Elanor was in. "I've heard a person can die if they go too long without sleep."
"Right, let's move." Stroyer said and the two of them grabbed Elanor by the arm and began walking out. Both clones looked back at their little brother one last time before the doors shut behind them.
The streets were filled with panic as the Adjutants began slaughtering their way through them. Jason kept a hold of Elanor, biotically floating her along to maintain speed while Stroyer rushed ahead and hacked through the strange monsters. A handful of them had the assassin surrounded and he engaged his tactical cloak, disappearing for a second before reappearing to strike. Jason's hands held a biotic mist that sprang forward and lanced through one of the beasts.
"Did you hear that?" Stroyer asked as his omni-tool picked up Blue Suns chatter. "They've retreated to the clinic."
"Too many wounded." Jason said. "They're going to die."
"If we could stay and help I'd be all for it."
"Why can't we?" Jason asked. "It's just a few more minutes."
"You didn't hear the whole thing, did you?" Stroyer asked in response. "Cerberus ships have just entered the system."
"Well fuck me." Jason spat.