AN: I've actually written a further 1,000 or so words, but I couldn't see a suitable place to break it off in the near future, so that's forming part of the next chapter.

El Historio: I was trying to write according to the stuff taught to me a few years ago when I still did creative writing in school, and though it works when hand written, it's less clear when typed. So I've tried implementing your tip, and I think you're right.

Chapter 2

"Commander, we're refuelled and ready to go. Just this time try not to smash up the hanger bay this time, eh?"

"Ha, sure Joker. Like you weren't a little bit envious of the whole "flying out of a cave as it fills with lava" moment. Surely that's worthy of some of the old Earth movies you watch."

"Shepard, might I remind you that the M-44 Hammerhead is cutting edge Cerberus technology, and not to be used for such "stunts" as you and Mr. Moreau seem to enjoy." At this Joker just snorted and turned back to his console.

"Just ignore it Commander, you sure you won't go down to the AI core for me and just press the off button?" Shepard sighed and shook his head at this.

"Just take us to the Hoplos system, lets see if we can't track down their lost research team. Then we'll see about getting these lunatics the Ilusive Man wants us to gather. Does he really expect me to jump at the chance to recruit a vigilante, a mad professor, an even more insane thousand year old krogan, and some sort of lunatic mass murdering biotic psychopath?"

Several hours later the sleek, dart like form of the Normandy slipped into orbit over Kopis, running silent as a precaution after detecting the wreckage of a Blue Suns frigate in a decaying orbit with the moon. It briefly dipped in its flight, releasing the Hammerhead to drift down to the planet. At 0.1g, acceleration wasn't much, but with no atmosphere there was no true terminal velocity. Miranda looked up from the sensor station,

"Shepard! There's some form of large ship down there! It's unlike anything I've seen before. The shape's all wrong. By these scans the thickness of its armour is nearer a turian main battle tank than any shuttles I know of. It's near double the size of this tank." Jacob turned in his seat at the gunnery station, looking over Miranda's shoulder.

"Is that writing on the side? Can you get a clearer picture?" Miranda fiddled with the controls for a moment before the image resolved itself to showing a large black aircraft, with a tall silver I on what appeared to be a boarding ramp. Jacob let out a long whistle at the image, "That thing's certainly military, but what idiot puts the ramp on the front? You'd be running into oncoming fire. Wait, there's writing on the side, in earth English! It just says Falcon. Maybe that's the name of it? And are those some sort of gun rigs? They're huge! And a missile launcher over the door? With some sort of multiple barrelled weapons on a turret. That seems like overkill to me!"

Shepard looked over his shoulder at them, "Well, you know what they say, there's no kill like overkill!"

"Shepard, I'm not picking up any sign of element zero in the vehicle, it must have some pretty damn powerful engines to lift it, if it's used on worlds with higher gravities." While Miranda was watching the data streaming across a console, Jacob was captivated by the imposing craft.

"Shit, Commander, land us away from that thing, its turret has started to move and track us!" As impressed as Jacob was with the weapons on it, he didn't want a demonstration just yet. As Shepard circled the dig-site and landed the three of them were afforded a strangely disturbing scene of destruction, even if it was just bits of geth. A few were chewed in half by some form of vicious saw. Many were blown apart, pairs of geth legs standing on the barren surface without any upper body. A small number seemed unharmed, but upon closer inspection they seemed to have been hit by some form of energy weapon that bypassed their shields. Like a macabre rockery several sets of geth legs were standing in a rough line, torsos bisected with such a sharp blade they provided an intricate cross-section of geth internal workings. The most impressive sight of all was a fallen colossus, which had oversized five digit hand holds dug up its neck, and the head hanging off by its last coolant cable. As they dismounted from the Hammerhead Shepard ordered it to return to the Normandy, there were no enemies left that needed the firepower of the M-44 to take down. As far as Shepard could see there were no enemies left at all.

They advanced to the excavation in a wide wedge formation, 5 metres spacing between each of them. Jacob had his shotgun at the ready, covering the left side of the wedge. Shepard was at the head with his sub-machine gun HUD displaying incendiary ammo readied. Miranda covered right, her heavy pistol tracking from side to side searching for a target. Thankfully the Falcon was landed below a ridge, presumably out of line of fire from whatever geth forces there were. As they entered the tunnel and the false atmosphere they came across the bodies of several Blue Suns mercs, however the weapons damage was characteristic of geth pulse rifles, not the owners of the mysterious gunship. As they advanced deeper into the moon they heard a loud discussion being carried out in very strangely accented English.

"So these are the Men of Iron? And they started the Age of Strife? They're pathetic." This voice was a mocking tone, in an accent not dissimilar to the accent of earth central Asians. It also seemed oddly distorted, similarly to quarian speech through their helmets.

"Their weapons are unlike anything I've seen before, even those of xenos. They pack a respectable punch." This voice was measured and calm, with an accent like that of the lower Mediterranean people. As Shepard crept forwards, raising his fist to halt his companions, he was able to see the speakers. There were three armoured giants, the one who had just spoken had a high neck guard on his armour, most of the armour black except for the right shoulder guard, which was a dark metallic blue, almost black, with an animals head on. The most alarming thing about this individual though was above the armour, his bald head with his pitch black skin in combination with his glowing red eyes, like embers on a dark night.

"Heh, I can see the scars they dug into your armour. You must be getting slow Sergeant." The voice was at once powerful but also cheerful. The accent Germanic. This speaker wore similar armour, but with a blue pointed helmet on, a large fan of armour behind his helmet, also blue, and the lower leg guards were continued up to cover the knees. His right shoulder guard bore a shield with lightning bolt design. By process of elimination the last one must have been the one to speak first. His armour was lacking the high collar of the first giant, with a bright red shoulder guard, on which was a white skull with a black I, very similar to the one seen on the landing craft outside He wore a snub-nosed black helmet with glowing green eyes..

As Shepard watched the three giants banter back and forth, he failed to notice the shorter man appearing out of the shadows next to him. This man wore a form-fitting undersuit, with plates of ceramic armour attached, not that different from Shepard's own N7 armour, except for the golden I emblazoned on the chest piece. His weapons were strange and arcane. A pair of gauntlets with armoured cables connecting them to a small backpack, and a large block on the back of each hand. The tips of four blades could be seen protruding from slots in the blocks, and there was a long tube attached to the upper surface of the blocks. The strange man silently leant over Shepard's shoulder, near his ear, and said,

"Don't just stand there dithering, come and join us." This man had an altogether strange accent. A meshing of Native American and upper class British. As the words left his mouth what looked like a small child flew over the heads of the armoured giants, giggling and singing about how their guests had arrived. Faster than Shepard would have believed possible with their armour, two of the giants turned and raised their weapons at him, seemingly chambering rounds by operating bolts. The red shouldered one a large rifle with scope attached, the red-eyed one raised a weapon similar to the large rifle, but with a second barrel that seemed to have a small flame burning below it. The one with the blue hood and helmet turned, removed his helmet and smiled, revealing a perfectly normal, if rather large, head. What was unnerving about this one though was the way his eyes flared blue and the hood construction crackled with sparks.

Shepard looked rather shocked, then threw his SMG to the floor and raised his hands. At the sound of the clattering of bolts Jacob and Miranda ran around the corner, weapons raised. They stopped as they saw Shepard at gunpoint, and aimed their guns at the least armoured target, the man with the golden I emblem. This strange man just seemed amused by the situation.

"It seems we have something of a standoff. What a pity I dislike standoffs." As he finished speaking the smiling giant's eyes glowed brighter again and he moved so fast that the next thing Jacob and Miranda knew they were disarmed and hanging from the giant's hands by their collars. A faint blue mist hung in the air where he had moved so fast, writhing and turning as it dissipated. The small flying child flew down from the cave roof and giggled as it fluttered around the two as they struggled against their captor. The strange man seemed to maintain a straight face, but his eyes betrayed his amusement. When next he spoke he was clearly enjoying himself,

"Now, now, we can't have you blundering around waving those things about. You might hurt yourselves. I think we might have got off on the wrong foot, how about you? Release them please Deiad." The blue hooded one grinned at his captors, lowered them to the ground and bowed before them. The inquisitor nodded to himself and turned to address the newcomers, pleased to see they seemed fully human.

"I think I should introduce myself, I am Inquisitor Tigurius Clavero, servant of the Ordo Xenos. This is my cherub," he indicated the small child as it flew over to him. Much to the surprise of Shepard's team, the cherub was the one to continue the introductions, fluttering over to each person as it introduced them in a childlike voice.

"This is Deiad Raziel," Here it flew to the giant who was now putting back on his beaked blue helmet. "This is Sergeant Barkiel Uller," This time flying over to the red-eyed one, who nodded in greeting to the humans. "And this is Amareo Aurio the disdainful." As it said this it fluttered to the one with the red shoulder guard, who grunted and swatted at the cherub. "Now, please, tell us your names!" Shepard was rather taken aback by the sudden friendliness of the "inquisitor", especially considering he had been at gunpoint moments ago.

"Oh, well… I'm Commander Shepard and these are operatives Taylor and Lawson." All of a sudden Joker came through over the radio,

"Commander, you need to hear this!"

Shepard reached to his earpiece, "I'm here Joker, we've just met the owners of that gunship."

"Yeah, well that's not the only thing they own it seems! A massive ship's just come out from behind the gas giant; EDI thinks it was close enough to the atmosphere to avoid her detection. It's bigger than any council dreadnought. And the shields on this thing! We can't get a reading through them, they're not like any kinetic barriers I've ever seen."

"Easy there Joker, they're friendly," Shepard glanced to the Inquisitor, "I hope."

The inquisitor shrugged at this, "If you are we are. We just don't like weapons pointed at us." As he finished he gave a short glare to the operatives. "I noticed your shuttle left you behind, we can return you to your ship if you like."

Shepard frowned, "It's a nice offer but I don't think your shuttle will fit in our hanger bay."

The inquisitor just laughed, "Do come and visit, we have something we'd like your help with."

Shepard didn't think he had much choice, looking at the weaponry arrayed against him. He nodded and the group started to head for the surface. As they neared the edge of the false atmosphere Shepard replaced his helmet, the operatives raised and sealed their hoods against the cold of space, checking the seals on their masks. The red eyed giant removed a large black helmet from his belt at attached it to his armour with a hiss of pressurised air. The inquisitor took a helmet with a long neck guard and attached breather mask from his backpack, checking the air hose was in place down his back before sealing himself in. The cherub ignited some sort of field around itself, that shimmered in the vacuum of the surface.

As they left the cave a geth hunter uncloaked in front of them, and as Shepard and his team raised their weapons the inquisitor shouted "Mine!" and ran forwards, long claws sliding from his gauntlets, crackling with contained lightning. The inquisitor rolled to the side as a shotgun blast clipped his shoulder. He righted himself and uppercut his claws on his left hand up, under where the ribcage on a living being would be, then there was a slight cracking noise and the afterimages of a line of red light danced on Shepard's vision, piercing the Geth and losing focus as it travelled far above the ground. The inquisitor kicked the geth off his claws, raised his arm, pointed at its flashlight head as it fell to the ground and fired again, this beam of light passing through the geth to leave a small dot of glass on the ground some distance away. Shepard was rather impressed with the weaponry, especially the directed energy weapon. He opened up his omnitool and sent the footage from his helmet-cam to EDI and Joker. EDI so she could try and discern where their technology came from, and Joker because it had enough finesse involved for Joker to be suitably impressed.

"A bit showy don't you think?" Raziel sounded a bit put out.

"What after you climbed that large walker and beheaded it?" While the inquisitor was speaking the cherub was fluttering from side to side, sticking its tongue out at the librarian. Sergeant Uller sighed and shook his head. The walk back to the Falcon was relatively uneventful. The Imperials striding ahead in silence, Shepard's team hanging back, unsure how to respond to their new found companions, and slightly unnerved by the cherub fluttering along behind them. Shepard contacted the Normandy, telling them that his team would be travelling to their companion's ship for now.

What's this? Shepard and the cerberus operative taken hostage in all but name? *que dramatic music* Or perhaps not.