Chapter 8

One of John's most favoured form of reentry was not through means that normal beings would use. No, John's most favoured form of reentry was by way of orbital drop and in his opinion, he didn't have nearly as many excuses to use it as he would like. That was why he tended to be fairly happy whenever he managed to find an excuse to use it.

It was also why John utterly loathed the normal docking procedures that races insisted on having, as the comparison John couldn't help but make made him irritable. He went through them anyway, as it wouldn't do to call extra attentions to himself at the time. Then again, his mere presence would garner the attentions of everything he passed, including the nanites and Keepers that worked throughout the Citadel.

The Keepers were an interesting race, as they were once a free race of cyborgs. They had been fully biological at a time, but then they amplified their own bodies enough at one point that their entire race could be considered cyborgs. Then, the Harvest came, and the Keepers were subjected to indoctrination, and they now serve their various tasks in maintaining the Citadels in the Galaxy.

John's Avatar sighed, and John took in every minor detail that was different from what he remembered of the Citadel of his original Sector. Eventually, John decided that it was time for him to contact the Council, and tell them what was going to happen whether they liked it or not.

John decided to go for a more stealthy approach to getting to where he wanted to go. Without much fanfare - seeing as there was no possible way for the races on the Citadel to detect him - John managed to reach the Counsellor's chambers. He was only mildly surprised to see a session taking place, and after hacking further into the Council's tech, John had determined what was going on.

There were the three councillors residing, and then there was representation from the human species as well. That, however, was unimportant. The star of the even went to the man represented in a hologram named Saren. Saren was a Council Specter, and this was his trial to determine whether or not he was a traitor to the Council Races. He was, from what John had found.

Interestingly enough, he was also fairly close to another of his ships; John doubted that he would need it, though. John had just then come up with a plan that he hoped would prove enjoyable. When he deemed everything ready, John acted.

Through his various experimentations with Em, John had found out why it would be useful to go through the effort to turn the normally gaseous or liquid Em into part liquid crystal and crystal. It was one of the easiest ways to open and maintain a portal between two very distant points in space or - John was sure of but unwilling to test - time.

Before that helpful part of knowledge came into play, John had first de-cloaked his Avatar so as to be seen in the visible spectrum. One of John's allies in Starfleet had once commented on the fact that john only had one colour in his armoured form, and to answer that John had set out to add some colour in his armours. After-all, it wouldn't do to be confused for a Collector of this Sector, nor any other dark coloured chitinous-ed creature.

Not that that mattered at the moment because as it was, John had chosen to have his based off of what John had once seen in media: Slenderman.

With an impeccable suit, stark white skin, no face, and very tall, John struck a very intimidating image. He towered over the holographic image he appeared in front of, and his appearance had silenced any conversation that had been going on. Apparently, one of the councillors had quick reflexes, and security had burst into the room before anyone had said a word in surprise. That wasn't to say that no-one had exclamations of surprise.

Some of those exclamations came in the form of a gun pulled out and pointed at him, or in the case of some of the biotics, a readied position. Mindful of the various offensive measures pointed in his direction, but also aware of the fact that it wouldn't do much or anything substantial to him, John continued on with his plan to mess with people.

Using some rather nasty tricks he picked up from the Silent Assassins combined with the stabilisation and tunnelling effect from crystal and liquid crystal Em, John had reached through the hologram to reach Saren and pull him through so that he was in the room with everyone else. He wasn't done there, though.

Within the Hologram, John had created an exact replica of one of the Angels. After all, he could do with one of his allies. Since whatever takes the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel, the image that John made in the hologram became an Angel. It helped that John had added plenty enough power into the image so that the holographic Silent Assassin became a stone statue of an Angel.

He had started up a telepathic conversation with his newly-created/revived ally and were discussing how it could be that a Weeping Angel was able to be made in this universe, but not transferred - in the physical sense - to the Sector. John was good at multitasking, though, so as he was having an in-depth intellectual telepathic conversation with his ally he was also taking care of the rather angry and confused Spectre he pulled through a hologram. Then again, the Angel that was made by way of replicating the image was more like an Avatar was to John, to the Angels

All of this was not done silently, however. There were gunshots from the various security agents or the occasional biotic effect from a biotic.

What was interesting to note was the fact that the guns did next to nothing to John's Avatar, and the various biotic offensive effects only momentarily distorted the flesh of the active Avatar. The reason why the arm's damage was negligible was that the guns would take a small shaving off of an ammunition block, and fire it at a fraction of the speed of light. This accounted for a lot of force, as speed accounted for twice the potency of the mass, and it would easily take any normal person out. Since John took his life force or survivability from the mass of his own biology and not of functioning organs, John would just allow the metal shavings to pass through him and not absorb the force that would otherwise in any way injure him. It was also for this reason that John was able to withstand any biotic effects.

Biotics, in the noun form, were beings able to use Element Zero - Eezo for short - to manipulate gravity fields. Eezo was, in fact, a primitive - or rather specified - form of Em, but that was beside the point. Biotics in the verb form, however, were the feats that biotics were able to pull off from manipulating those gravity fields. For example, someone might be able to increase or decrease the local gravity in a specific area, or to warp the gravity fields on a specific surface so that there were conflicting forces and it would be torn apart. The last one was the most popular form of biotic used, but it was useless against John.

It was understandable considering that when part of John's Avatar was torn, it was immediately repaired. So, really it was like shooting water for the biotics, and as for the guns, it was like shooting a cloud in comparison. Eventually, a cease-fire was called, and the hail of bullets stopped in fear of hitting the esteemed Specter supposedly held hostage by John. Well, that was the reason for most of the non-humans to stop shooting. The humans stopped their fire because it was obviously not working.

John forced the Turian named Saren onto the ground, to which the avian humanoid grunted by the force he was forced onto the ground with. As John held the Specter down securely, tendrils sprouted from his back and started to check the legally lawless man for weapons. It wouldn't do for him to attempt an escape. Finally satisfied that he collected everything, John had morphed his biomass into that of cuffs. They were old school, but they worked. It was only then that John started to speak, completely cutting off whatever it was the people around him were saying, "Saren Arterius, you are under arrest for murder, conspiracy to commit galactic wide genocide, aiding and abetting a galactic terrorist organisation, and worst of all tampering with a stellar outpost. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and WILL be used against you in your upcoming trial. You have the right to an attorney; if you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you. Seeing as your assets are now frozen, I suggest you take that route. If you choose not to have an attorney present or choose to represent yourself, that is your prerogative.

"Now get up, or I will drag you up." To make his visage even more monstrous and creepy looking, John had stuck with the Slender theme, and had shaped his mouth as such; his mouth was jagged with his throat having holes in them, and tendrils flickering about lazily.

As per John's prediction, the man had protested, "You can't do this! I'm a Council Specter! Do you know who I am?!" On and on the man's protests went in this stream, all the while John didn't care. He hoisted the avian man up and made him stand. More for dramatic effect than anything else, John had then said, "Link established, sending prisoner one million two-hundred thirty-three in three, two, one, prisoner sent." John waited for a moment after the rogue spectre disappeared, then, "Prisoner received."

"What just happened?" John recognised the speaker as (for the time being) Captain Anderson, and it was whispered to his subordinate, someone he recognised as Humanity's Ambassador, Udina. Everyone was standing dumbly staring at John, not knowing what to do.

So, John decided to relieve them of the burden of answering that question, "What just happened, Captain Anderson of the Human Navy, is that I have taken one Saren Arterius into my custody for various crimes against my - and subsequently yours, even if you don't realise it - species.

"It was determined that your courts were too corrupt to charge the Turian properly, let alone make a proper investigation, and so we have stepped in to investigate. Upon further investigation, it was determined that Mr. Arterius might not be mentally culpable, and so we will treat him if that is the case."

"This is unacceptable! The council have laws, and as someone belonging to a citadel species, Specter Saren is protected by these laws! You have no right to infringe on Citadel business, whatever you think you are." The protest came from the Turian Councillor, to which John was not surprised in the least.

Before either the Turian - to which John did not bother with placing a name to the face - continued or John to speak, the Asari Councillor spoke, "I believe what my college meant to ask was: Why not leave the matter in the councillor's jurisdiction, after all, this is a Council matter."

John favoured the mono-gender with a smile, then even going so far as to morph his facial features into that of a smooth visage again, before he had spoken, "Firstly and simply put, you do not have the technology to reverse the indoctrination that my species has detected. Then there is the issue of showing that you are rather corrupt when it comes to Spectres. Thirdly, my government is charging Mr. Arterus for crimes against Sapient Life itself, not just Council Races. Lastly, it was decided that it was apparent that this Galaxy had forgotten who truly owned it. This very station is proof enough of that.

"It's understandable, considering that the deal was made long before the oldest race amongst yourselves had even gazed upon the stars in wonder. We understand that other races do not tend to have such long memories as Blacklight. I have chosen to overlook your act of hostility earlier for these reasons, as well.

"It was also decided to remind the occupants of this galaxy who the Creators are. For this reason, we will be remilitarizing this small county of space, as well as absorbing your governments into ours until such a time as it is considered reformed.

"Does all of that answer your questions, Asari Councillor?"

*LB*

A/N: It occurs to me that John is a very deus ex machina type of character. I probably won't be changing this, as in practicality John really doesn't have any serious adversaries that I can come up with. I feel like if John were to ever go along in a different manner than DeM, it would be more like a game to John than anything else, solely for his amusement. If John got tired of the game, then he would just fall back into a deus ex machina role to end it quickly.