Please review. I was very disappointed with the number of views and reviews for "Fugitive" given the proportionate popularity of "Mass Effect: Rebirth". Oh well. Still I'm hoping this does better. Please review if you can because that's the main reason I keep doing this-if there are no reviews I interpret it to mean that in some way the content was flawed and I have no idea why.

Shepard nodded at Cynthia as she walked into the hanger. "Oh come on now, a year without contact and I get a nod?" Cynthia wrapped her arms around her brother and Shepard slowly acquisced. "I missed you Cynthia."

"I missed you too John."

After a few moments they disengaged, and Shepard averted his eyes, "So uh... You're captain of the Normandy now, huh?"

"Officially, but now that you're reinstated, Anderson wants you to take over."

"And you're... okay with that?"

"Taking a background role to making all the races in the galaxy unite? They hate each other Shepard. I think I'll be okay not having to do that."

A faint grin crossed his face, "You sure? Sounds like fun."

"I think I'll pass."

James stormed up to Shepard angrily, "What the hell is going on? Why are we leaving Earth?"

Shepard sighed, "You want to go back. Great."

"We can't just abandon-"

Shepard cut his statement short with a vicious glare, "You want to die, go throw yourself out the airlock. I have no patience for those too stupid to see the bigger picture. If you're going to be an irritating death seeker then I have no use for you."

Vega staggered backwards as if he had been struck, "I... Alright. I get your point. I'll stay."

Shepard shrugged and returned his focus to Cynthia, "What's the next move?"

"I... Jesus John, what was that?"

Shepard rolled his eyes, "It's not my job to ensure the safety of every idiot death seeker I happen across. If he wants to die he can do it on his time."

Before she could formulate a response, Joker cut her off, "There's a transmission from Admiral Hackett coming to you in the war room."

Shepard turned to Cynthia, "We have a war room now?"

Shepard, Ashley, Cynthia and James all sat silently in the shuttle. Vega broke the silence, "So... How-"

Shepard shot Vega a look, "Respect the silence."

Shepard tensed up and checked his armor specs again. Instead of the geth-made armor he usually used, he had to resort to the standard-issue N7 armor.

Thankfully the shuttle finally landed, the door opened, and the quartet piled out. Vega nodded, "Thanks Esteban."

Cynthia awkwardly cleared her throat, "You guys excited to see Liara again?"

Shepard nodded and Ashley just muttered, "Yeah."

The Lieutenant-Commander pulled out her sniper rifle as they approached the entrance to the Mars Archives. She barely had it out before Cynthia exclaimed, "Jesus, they're executing them!"

Ashley aimed at the head of a Cerberus trooper, not even managing to fire off a shot before she noticed her Commander trudging forward.

"Put your hands in the air!" All of the Cerberus troopers aimed their rifles at the approaching soldier. Shepard stopped walking and just stared at the squad.

"Surrender!"

"I formally accept your surrender. Line up for beheadings."

One of the troopers balked at the statement, "Holy shit... holy shit... that's..."

"Yup. Commander Shepard. And you're the dead people I've heard so much about."

The Normandy squad stood in the elevator to the Mars Achive interior, silently waiting. Shepard nonchalantly wiped some blood off his helmet. As the chamber decompressed they all wordlessly removed their helmets. Ashley began to speak, "Shepard-"

Cynthia interrupted her, "Respect the silence."

Ashley abided by this rule for a mere few seconds before continuing, "Shepard I need an answer."

Shepard grimaced, Cynthia facepalmed, and James just backed away to the corner of the elevator.

"I don't hold what I saw against you, I know you didn't have a choice, but you have to seriously consider if you still have control over yourself. I've missed you, but if you're-"

"IF I"M WHAT!? Indoctrinated? Controlled by a chip in my brain? Some kind of manchurian agent who will kill you all when someone says a code word? I. Don't. Know. What I do know is that Anderson and Hackett assigned me to the Normandy because they think I'm the only one who can rally the galaxy to save Earth. So that's what I'm going to do. If you honestly have lost all faith in me, by all means put two in the back of my head. But until then I am in command and I am capable to lead. Does that answer your god damn question?"

Ashley cringed and backed off, they were all clearly unnerved by the outburst. Mercifully, the elevator stopped and they began to proceed-only getting a few feet before they heard movement in the vents.

Shepard whipped out his rifle and aimed it at the vent.

The vent cover in the ceiling burst open and Liara fell out, carefully levitating to the ground. She promptly launched a singularity at the vent, her reasoning becoming clear as two Cerberus troopers helplessly drifted out, unable to right themselves. The singularity collapsed and they both crashed to the ground. Liara drew her pistol, putting two pullets in each of their heads. "Shepard, Cynthia, Ashley, it's good to see you all. And I don't believe we've met." Liara extended her gloved hand to James.

James grinned, "Vega. James Vega."

Cynthia had a bemused look, "Don't, James. Just don't."

"I can't say hello?"

"You know what you did."

He shrugged and backed away.

Shepard stared at Liara for a moment before the behemoth spread his arms invitingly. She smiled warmly and returned the favor, "I'm so happy you're alright."

"Yeah I know. If I had died I would be real sad."

She lightly punched him in the chest, "You know what I mean."

"I do. Speaking of being alright, what's going on? Why aren't you on Hagalaz?"

"Cerberus."

"Oh... Is Feron-"

"No-no, Feron is fine. We loaded up a shuttle, evacuated the station and rammed the base into the Cerberus ships. Couldn't exactly hide that thing from the Illusive Man forever."

James and Ashley were obviously bewildered. Shepard, upon seeing this, glanced at Liara questioningly. She simply nodded and he explained, "Liara is the Shadow Broker."

James raised his eyebrow and nodded. Ashley, on the other hand began to stammer and grow frustrated, "When were you going to tell me this? Liara you-"

Liara's eyes narrowed and she walked up to Ashley, "You didn't stay in touch." The familiar smile replaced that, "I missed you." They hugged, Ashley somewhat awkwardly accepting the concept.

James grinned, "Cynthia, want to get in on this?"

They all shot him a glare. Cynthia rolled her eyes and sighed, "You know, if we're doing secrets I think I should tell you two" she nodded to James and Ashley, "I'm Shepard's clone, not his sister."

Again, James showed mild shock before shoving it down. And again, Ashley barely repressed her blatant annoyance that she had been so far out of the loop.

A door opened on the platform above the room and all five of the Normandy crew turned to look. Shepard sighed, "That's terrorist organizations for you, always ruining reminiscing with old friends." He biotically smashed into the group and began wailing on the leader, taking a brief moment to wrestle a shield away from one of them.

Cynthia and Liara used their biotics to elevate themselves up while the other two provided suppressing fire. When at last the Cerberus personnel lay dead, Shepard jumped back down, "James I need you back at the shuttle."

"I-what!?"

"We have a few hours tops until that storm hits, we might have to make an emergency extraction and in that scenario we'll need covering fire. Cortez can't exactly do that and fly the shuttle. That's an order."

Begrudgingly, James put his helmet on and rushed back to the elevator. Liara looked at him as he left, "I think I found something while I was here. It's a Prothean device-schematics for one anyway-that supposedly might be able to destroy the Reapers. A little bit of desperation mixed with sorting through all the raw data in these archives finally yielded something."

Shepard nodded, "Tell us about it as we go."

Liara finally finished, "I was in the process of decoding the plans when the Reapers hit. We just have to get to the right wing-it's across the tram line." She sat down at the tram console, trying to override the system to get them transport to the other side of the archives."

Ashley Cynthia had been examining the soldiers for any information they could provide about Cerberus. Apparently the former had found something, "Shepard I-I... Get over here. Now." He walked towards her position, barely a few yards away, seeing a Cerberus trooper unmasked. It was gruesome, the cybernetic modifications painfully obvious from-"Do I look like that? No wonder she doesn't trust me."

"Ash this is... Cerberus is under complete control of the Reapers. They're all indoctrinated and modified."

Ashley grimly stared at him, "Shepard, for all I know this is what they did to you. I'm sorry for what happened on Horizon. I was unfair. But you can't just brush aside the fact that after everything that happened to you... I'm concerned, okay?"

Shepard nodded, "Ash I understand but I'm not anything like them." Internally he added, "Not yet anyway."

Liara called out, "I can't override it!"

Shepard nodded and took his helmet off, replacing it with the Cerberus trooper's helmet on the floor. He cleared his throat and spoke in his deepest voice, "We need a tram over here. The intruders are dealt with."

A few moments of unnerving silence and then, "And Shepard?"

Shepard paused for a moment to think. They probably wouldn't believe that Shepard had just been put down by a pack of Cerberus men just because they were using Reaper weapons. Then again, they were indoctrinated and using Reaper weapons, "We activated the sterilization protocol. He's dead."

"Jesus, that easy? Can't believe they couldn't think of something simple like that for the Normandy."

"Yeah. We need to get out of this section before the storm comes down, send over the tram."

"Understood."

He replaced the Cerberus helmet with his own, seeing the visibly disturbed expressions of his entire squad. "Too convincing? I knew I should stop smoking, makes me sound like a Reaper. Get into positions."

Shepard, his team in tow, walked up to the Prothean artifact in the center of the Mars Archive. Suddenly a hologram appeared. The rest of his team-on edge and conditioned to despise it, aimed their weaponry at the hologram the moment it said, "Hello Shepard."

Shepard just continued to stare at the artifact, trying to ignore the throbbing pain it brought on in his head. Prothean artifacts had a tendency to do that since the beacon on Eden Prime. "Timmy, ol' buddy. Good to see you again. When are you gonna stop hiding behind holograms?"

"The last time I considered leaving my station was when we had you captured, and if I had done that then... well let's just say our sources in the Alliance showed that the wake you left wasn't pretty."

"Yeah, real sorry about that. Next time I won't leave a trace. Next team I'll be sure to detonate the station."

The Illusive Man's face was deadpan as always as he slowly took a drag on his cigar.

"So Tim, why exactly are you fighting us on this? Can't exactly claim to have humanity's best interests at heart if you're robbing the Mars Archives while Earth burns. We could destroy the Reapers together. Give me your resources and they would be a faded memory before you die of lung cancer."

The Illusive Man seemed to seriously consider this for a moment before responding, "You would do better than most, but no. Besides, I don't want to destroy the Reapers. I want to control them."

Shepard finally whirled around to face his nemesis, "You idiot. You think humanity is the best but I do have to give Saren the point here-he was able to figure out he was being indoctrinated, even if he didn't realize it had fully happened until it was too late."

"I am not indoctrinated Shepard. Far to the contrary, the Reapers will soon be under my control and-"

Shepard's eyes widened. "You're distracting me. From what?"

Ashley called out, "Shepard! It's Eva Core! She's escaping!"

Shepard's eyes widened and he began a full-out sprint after the woman he could barely see escaping as she ran out the exit of the chamber. He began to biotically fling himself from room to room as he chased her. "She's impossibly fast-this doesn't make sense..." He chased her up a ladder, barely grabbing her ankle only to earn a kick to his helmet. She didn't even have any armor on and they were heading outside! Granted, Miranda had a rebreather instead of a helmet most of the time, but still.

They finally reached a part of the archive exposed to the air, dashing through the pillars and cabling keeping it together. She ran up the final ladder to the surface of the facility, Shepard on her heels. He managed to gain on her, from a dozen yards to maybe five feet. He took a deep breath and charged into her, biotics aiding his velocity as he pinned her to the ground.

With a strength uncharacteristic of humans she turned and delivered a kick to his chest, his velocity serving only as a measurement of how forcefully she kicked into him. "Okay she's not human. Can't be alien-not with that convincing a disguise. That just leaves-AI!"

They finally reached a landing platform, a shuttle waiting for her. Shepard grabbed his rifle and began firing on the shuttle, forcing it to take off. As he checked besides him he noticed the rest of his team had fallen behind a bit. No matter. Just him and what was hopefully an AI because otherwise he had no damn idea.

Eva turned on him and began firing a pistol, advancing. Wasting no time, Shepard charged her, sidestepping at the last moment to hit her in the side of the head with a shot. Her shields were down that time and she was still standing, a mere dent on the side of her head being the only indicator that she had suffered any kind of injury.

She grabbed his pistol and yanked it towards her, preparing a swift punch to crack his face plating. Instead he dove behind her and activated his omni-tool, stabbing through her chest. She grabbed his arm to keep him still and smashed her elbow on his forearm. He could feel the blow through his armor, an inch or two thinner and he would have a broken arm. Finally Liara, Ashley and Cynthia arrived, all firing on Core as she and Shepard dueled. The Cerberus shuttle came back, swerving parallel to the roof and opening its hatch.

Eva swept Shepard's legs with one of her own and began a sprint off the edge of the platform to an open shuttle.

The door closed as Shepard fired on her. He stared desperately for a second before opening his comms channels, "She's getting away with the data! James, Cortez, Joker I don't give a shit-take her out!"

As the Cerberus shuttle began to ascend a response came from James, "I got this." The Normandy's shuttle smashed into the escaping Cerberus one, sending it spiraling towards the roof. The squad scattered to avoid being hit, Shepard running as he prepared to biotically charge away from the oncoming wreck. A cerulean aura overtook him and he began to move forward.

It was too late. The shuttle smashed on top of him, exploding upon impact in a fiery display.

James landed his own shuttle on the roof delicately as the female trio remaining surveyed the crash apprenhensively before Cynthia voiced their concerns, "Oh...shit."

As if she had been requested, Eva appeared once more, her 'skin' seared off, revealing a metallic body covered in ashes and burns. The squad opened fire on the AI, but Ashley, as the one closest to the wreck, was subject to the punishment as Core grabbed her by the neck and dragged her over to the wrecked shuttle. Ashley could vaguely hear the android ask, "Permission to terminate." before her head smashed into the side of the shuttle repeatedly. Darkness overtook her, but the last thing she saw was Shepard's face.

Literally. The shuttle lifted abruptly as another scarred and burnt body appeared-that of their commander. Eva dropped Ashley and began to charge the resurfacing enemy. Apparently he had the same idea, as the few feet between them was closed practically instantly. She coiled back her arm to try and punch through his faceplate once again, but to no avail. He launched a biotic blast at her, only enough to knock her on the ground but it was enough. Instantaneously he was atop her, smashing into her with armored fists. After a few seconds 'it' began to stop moving as the light in its eyes faded away.

Shepard's fists slammed into it one last time before he fell off her and sprawled out on the floor. Liara and Cynthia inspected him and Ashley respectively as James exited the shuttle, horrified to see the scene before him. He rushed to effortlessly pick up Ashley while Liara and Cynthia focused on their fallen commander.

His flesh was seared, armor fused into the skin at portions. The entirety of his body was black, save for exposed bone. Shallow breaths emanated from his lungs, broken every few seconds by pained coughing. His eyes darted about a few times before they closed.

A raspy whisper escaped scorched lips, "Tali..."

So yeah. Shepard gets pretty much humiliated and brutalized in my stories. Not altogether sure why. I mean I did the Cerberus thing because I wanted him to be more zealously anti-Cerberus and have biotics, but I promise this is the end of the major traumas-physically at least. Just kidding, I have a grand master plan! Like I said, the timeline and course of events changes in my version so don't be confused about that. Next chapter will exemplify that.