IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!

Author's Note: I'm reviving this. Mostly because that other project that made me go 'ooh, shiny!' died a slow and painful death.
In other news, this chapter involves Saren going back out into the galaxy after his stay on/with Seraph. Also, Yelena visits the Citadel. Guess which two people run into each other!

Just FYI: a 'light warp missile' AKA the one with a 4.3 teraton yield is about the size of a soda can. As you may imagine, these are VERY spammable.

The Citadel (POV: Yelena Val Emerson)(She isn't military at this point in time, and got another vacation)

I arrived in Citadel space. Normally this wouldn't be terribly unusual, but I'd felt like trolling the Councilites a bit. Therefore I wasn't aboard a ship as such, rather I'd just commissioned a gynoid body fitted with a warp drive and a gravity drive with a few gees of acceleration. While normally flying all the way to the Citadel all on my own would likely lead to almost terminal boredom, I'd just taken a shortcut via the Gate network. To be even more trollish, I'd had the body designed to be as hard to tell from an organic as possible with my given performance specifications.

On the aesthetic side, my current body was 167 centimeters tall, a redhead with a long ponytail, and sported B cups. In addition I had violet eyes, and freckles. This body was also fitted with a detachable head because I'd kind of gotten used to it in virtual space, and it was a surprisingly useful ability at times.

As I dropped out of warp roughly 3 light seconds out from the Citadel, I broadcast "This is ASB citizen Yelena Val Emerson requesting to approach at warp to 1,000 km." My request was granted after a few minutes. I warped in slowly, a mere 0.1 c. I'd arranged for my warp trajectory to take me significantly off to the side of the Citadel so that they wouldn't be concerned about me ramming them. Dropping out of warp I broadcast once more "If you don't mind I'd like to come aboard. Don't worry about finding a spot for me, I'll just land on the presidium."

The response I got was "What. You know what, this is above my pay grade. Permission to come aboard granted. " With landing permissions acquired, I initiated a constant-thrust trajectory at 3.5 gees that would put me within 1 kilometer of the Citadel. This took about 5.6 minutes, during which I shamelessly flirted with the traffic controller. From what I could tell of her responses, the Asari at the other end was somewhat flustered, not at all interested, and somewhat creeped out. Excellent. As I was setting down on the Presidium, I let loose a burst of maniacal laughter over the radio bands. This only intensified as those near my lading zone looked up to see what was apparently a baseline human just float into the citadel from space.

Of the approximately 325 people who watched me arrive, 34% did their culture's version of a face-palm, 20% fell over laughing, 6% did a spit take, and 40% just stared. Without further fanfare, I set down on the deck and walked away. I still attracted stares for about two blocks, but after that the attention I was getting died down. I honesty should have expected a C-SEC biotic to land directly in front of me, and 'politely request' that I present identification, among other such things.

A few minutes later, after filling out my paperwork (they let me do it digitally, that Asari looked so jealous) and finding out just how big of a headache I'd given C-SEC (MWAHAHAHA!), I went on my merry way. Though strictly speaking this body barely had any mass intake requirements due to using Hawking Conversion for power, I had still requested a full digestive suite complete with taste buds. I'd also burned a whole 72 grams of mass on my way over for my warp drive alone. This roughly equated in organic terms to 'a bit peckish'.

Continuing to walk along the Presidium, I eventually came to one of the wards. I didn't know or care which one, But I went there anyway. After a bit of random sight-seeing via gravity drive (which attracted more stares, not that I minded), I decided to drop in on a restaurant, maybe a bar or some other place fun. Literally, that is.

Mentally identifying a number of possible candidates, I settled on one particular Nightclub known as Flux. I carefully positioned myself about 120 meters above the doorstep, and let myself drop.

Feeling the wind whipping through my hair was exhilarating. The simulated adrenaline rush this was giving me was pretty awesome as well. When I got within 30 meters of the ground I re-activated my gravity drive, And slowed to a stop just as I landed. I still touched down going pretty fast however.

I attracted yet more stares as I entered the building containing Flux, probably due to how I arrived. Flying around the inside of the place at about mach 0.3 (I was significantly above head height, so a collision was incredibly unlikely) was fun. It also attracted plenty of extra attention, especially given that I was using my hologram projectors to whip up a pair of angel wings.

after a few minutes of flying around, I eventually managed to find Flux, and hovered inside. I had by this point dismissed the wings. Without doing overly much in the way of compensating, I lazily hovered over to the bar, and simply lay down in midair, before ordering a drink.

It was at this point that I noticed I was floating next to where a Turian was sitting. Unlike most of the people in Flux, he wasn't paying me any particular extra attention. I pondered why this might be before asking "Hey, you aren't staring like anyone else, any particular reason?"

In response I received "I spent 6 years on Seraph. I'm desensitized to this particular brand of weirdness. Quite bluntly, I kind of wish I'd been allowed to keep some of my more radical augmentations when I returned to Council space. I miss flying like that, even if the grav-nodes did feel weird when they were active."

I pitied him somewhat. My drink arrived, and I downed the Salarian-originated cocktail extremely quickly, before ordering some Horosk as a chaser. The Bartender looked at me like I was insane. I just explained it with "I got my digestive system overhauled so I can have Dextro stuff too." She shrugged, muttered something along the lines of 'your funeral', and poured the drink. After downing it, I hovered upstairs to try my had at a game of Quasar.

I was sorely disappointed to learn that the game didn't involve chucking matter into a miniature black hole to send a ludicrously powerful beam of energy shooting off in some random direction. That's exactly what a Quasar was! You just couldn't have a game named Quasar with no actual Quasars! That defeated the whole purpose of naming the game that if you were just going to betray the name like that!

Grumbling, I played a couple rounds. Through careful calculation I managed to profit off my gambling by exactly 3 credits. It was while taking a peek at how the code of the machine worked that I noticed that some of my credits weren't going where they were supposed to. I resolved to figure out who was behind it later, though I still traced the signal to an establishment named the Emporium.

At this point, I was about ready to pack it in for the night. True, this body didn't exactly need sleep, but that was the only way to access the shared VR realm known to most of the ASB as the Dream. For a bit of extra messing with people, I decided to leave my head on the bedside table (with its own pillow) instead of keeping it on.

The Citadel (POV: Saren)

Ultimately, I had lied to Yelena. I was currently in a far more combat-specialized body, making allowances for needing to appear to be an organic. Beneath the skin I had flight systems an order of magnitude more powerful than hers and a rather terrifying weapon. Namely, I was equipped with millions of microscopic Warp Missiles, not much larger than an organic cell. Each one had a yield equivalent to 13.5 kilograms of TNT, and I could fire up to 200 per second from launchers near my eyes, which were disguised as tear ducts. On the defensive side I had 1.5 centimeters of Nanocarbide Composite Armor in addition to a prototype system to neutralize mass effect fields and swat incoming warp missiles. As an emergency backup, I had a plasma pistol mounted in each forearm, not that I was likely to find a valid target. I wasn't planning on using these anywhere near the Citadel, but I wasn't planning on staying here for long anyway.

My destination was Omega, one of the more horrible places in the known galaxy. When I got there, I would do my level best to make people's lives there better. I was actually remote-controlling this body at present, operating it from Seraph via WormComm. This meant that if the body got offed, I would still be alive.

Without further adieu, I went to sleep. In the morning, I showered and got dressed, preparing to go eat breakfast. It was at this point that Yelena walked by, head tucked under her arm. I wasn't quite sure why she was doing that, but the point was moot as she put her head back on as she walked by anyway. Groaning, I filled up my mass tanks on atmospheric gasses, before heading towards the tip of the Zakera Ward to catch my flight to Omega.