PHOENIX RESURGENT

A Mass Effect Story by Vyrexuviel

Edited by Darman Sejuk

Disclaimer: The author of this story does not, in any way, profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator(s).

Sirona

Staff Sergeant Ashley Williams, recently put on extended leave to 'rest, relax, and get your head on straight, soldier', sighed and tried to do as ordered. The word had come down from On High. Admiral Hackett himself had cut her orders. That made trying to take her mind off the sights, smells, and sounds of those moments on Eden Prime an official order.

She had suppressed her own feelings on the matter since the geth attack, but... Well. Watching as each and every one of your unit was wiped out does things to a human psyche, especially when those fellow soldiers were like a second family to you. Ash had managed to keep her head together throughout the campaign against Saren, but had started to get a bit flaky during the mopping up operation, and had broke down in the middle of Shepard's funeral. She had been ordered to a treatment center to get herself evaluated, and the psych docs had diagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She clenched a fist. How the fuck was she supposed to fight an enemy she couldn't see, worse, one that was inside her own head.

Shepard had been the capstone, the linchpin that held her together. After her own unit had been wiped out, Shepard had taken her under her wing. Shepard had given her a reason to turn outward, rather than inward. A reason to fight. Not that she needed another reason to slaughter those synthetic bastards, not after watching the way they-

She had to stop thinking about it. Drinking helped, but she was under strict orders not to take alcohol, lest she wind up listed as 'unfit for duty' and discharged. She wondered how Shepard had dealt with what she had seen and done on Mindoir. She had heard tales and rumors of how bad it had gotten on the colony world, one of the first to be hit by Batarian slavers. Supposedly, Shepard had enlisted as soon as she got out of rehab, but she wasn't sure how the woman who had grown to become the Savior of the Citadel had dealt with seeing her entire family either massacred or dragged away as slaves.

Ash almost missed the chirp from her omnitool indicating an incoming message. She set her glass down (water, not vodka, as much as she wanted it), and checked her inbox. Just two messages, one saved, the order from the Admiral's office. And one unopened one. Odd. It had no 'From' tag. Ash had learned a thing or two about electronic warfare, first from Garrus, then from Tali. She booted up a customized virus-scanner the young quarian had given her as a birthday present last year, and made certain the message was clean before opening it.

The message was text-only, a bit fuzzy around the edges too. That was worrying. That particular fringe-pattern indicated it had been washed through at least one anonymizer account, so tracking it back was going to be a bitch. Then the words, hovering in soft, amber phosphorescence above her hand finally registered. The noncom's eyes widened and her hands began to shake. What the fuck!

She immediately began a backtrace, putting in a call to her contact at the clinic. She'd let Sergei have a crack at tracing it. Her hands were still shaking as she forwarded the message, contents and all, to the cybercrime officer. She had to know what this meant. If this was a joke, someone was going to be snickering until a ton of bricks landed on his head, in the form of one seriously pissed-off Marine.

She couldn't take her eyes off the message, still hovering over her left forearm. She almost spilled her drink as another wave of shuddering rippled through her. She at last shut off the message, turned off her omnitool and hurled it across the room. Rubbing her eyes in the darkened apartment, but the words would haunt her throughout the sleepless night:

"Rise from the misery that's shadowing your life;

Rise from your lethargy and face the coming strife;

Cast aside your doubt and grief that lurks within your soul;

For the Phoenix has arisen and the Shepard is her goal."

Omega

Deep, loud and distracting. That was the only thing that Miranda Lawson cared about at the moment. As she looked at the bottom of her now empty glass of some alien drink that she couldn't remember the name of at the moment, the memory of the encounter with Shepard on Freedom's Progress still haunted her. Even with her degrees on biology and biochemistry she couldn't explain what had happened to her and probably didn't want to know.

As she sat at the bar drinking her worries away, she noticed a dealer selling something that if she's hearing right over the music will "take all her worries away". She had one thought run through her mind before downing the rest of her drink, stood up unsteadily, and started for the dealer.

As she found a quiet corner to enjoy the drug that one thought kept running through her mind. As she placed the injector against her skin and injected the drug into her system her final thought was, "Please let me forget her face".

The Zero-One-Three

Shepard sat on her couch, one hand resting on the armrest, the other raised to her cheek. From time to time, her gaze would drift to the hand-calligraphed piece of paper on the end table beside the couch. No bed in here, she didn't sleep anymore. She mused, contemplative and somewhat melancholic. She had had something like an epiphany a few hours ago. An entire lifetime had socketed home, had come into full focus, as crystal clear as her own memories, but

clearly separate. It had taken quite a bit of willpower to see the memories through to the end, and not simply try and blank them out like her human mind wanted to.

Anvektoruus of the Vejsuuran clan had been a Prothean warrior monk, of the Kuuros-Ahkt sect. Once the prothean guardians of justice, they had become an aesthetic order many millenia ago as the Empire outgrew the need for specialized hand-to-hand combat. Over time, the Kuuros-Ahkt had changed, becoming the elite warrior Path within the Imperial society, though nowhere near the rarefied heights of the Inner Court or the Imperial Throne. Anvek has been chosen

for this honor early in his life, and he had excelled in the disciplines, both mental and physical, needed to master the higher orders of his chosen Path.

Then he had done something that few Kuuros-Ahkt had done. He had taken a mate. Sekuuvnusraht of the Asvetiiris clan came to his monastery a supplicant. And stayed as the mother of his children. The pair enjoyed their lives, spent in quiet meditation or contemplation, and their three children had grown, knowing that though Father didn't show it often, he did love them deeply. Then, the raiders. Finding his wife and children among the bodies. His mind had snapped, and blood rained when he found those responsible.

Shamed by his lack of control, cast from his order and shunned by the society he had bled and suffered for, he retired to Kehk Almass, now known as Feros, to live out his life in self-imposed solitary confinement, in a time long before the spires of that world spread to cover the entire landscape. And there he had died, to be absorbed by the Thorian.

She glanced again to the paper, the stylus set beside it. She couldn't read it with certainty anymore, the language came and went with her immersion in the Prothean Cipher, but she was certain that it was written in High Prothean. 'Liara would have a field day with this,' Shepard thought, and sighed.

Just then, the door snapped open, and she lurched to her feet, but it was only Tali, dashing in and grabbing her friend's hand, "C'mon, Shepard, Garrus finally got the hologram generator set up!"

"Hologram generator! What hologram generator?" Shepard balked at the door, frowning at Tali for interrupting her.

"The one we got on the Citadel. C'mon, you always used to love movie night on the Normandy!"

Movie night. Gods, the memories that brought up. Joker had been in charge of the selection at first, until after the first disastrous choice, after which Chakwas was put in charge of gathering votes from the crew before getting the movie. It had been almost a weekly ritual, barring actual missions, for the few months they had been chasing Saren all over the frigging galaxy.

"What did Garrus scrounge up for us this time?" The last time Garrus had gotten his choice through, they had spent three hours shifting uncomfortably through a Turian movie about the Relay 314 incident.

"He, Mordin and I each got our own stuff. I think he went for some historical dramas."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Good, at least it isn't something we're likely to have a mutiny or a lynching over."

Tali giggled, "I think he did some digging through Human films."

Shepard perked up, reluctantly being drawn out of her quarters and through the Zero-One-Three's corridors. The latest iteration of the geth ship was bigger than the Zero-Eight on which it was based, having separate quarters for six guests in addition to a central briefing room / mess hall / CIC. Garrus was just putting the finishing touches on calibrating the generator on one of the walls, nodding to Shepard and Tali as the pair entered. Mordin was already at work getting some snacks served up in what could be loosely called a kitchen. The Salarian biochemist had proved to be a remarkably good cook, though Shepard was still of the opinion that he was testing out some sort of covert medical experiment.

"Ah, good, just in time." Garrus' damaged mandibles flared a bit. "Legion's got the fastest download speed I've ever run across. Probably not that surprising."

"What's on the menu this time, Garrus? Not 'Stand Your Ground' again."

His mandibles clicked once, "Not after the last time that bombed." He actually winked this time. Been spending too much time around us humans, Shepard mused.

"Nah, I raided ancient earth classics, pre-hologram stuff. I haven't actually watched them, but I saw the... trailers, I think you call them? Anyway, I got a trilogy of movies picked out, and I think Tali got two more. We can make a full night of it."

"Three movies? Five? That's not a night, that's a full day of it, Garrus." Shepard smirked, "At two to three hours per, five movies is anywhere from ten to fifteen hours."

Garrus' mandibles drooped slightly, "...Right, I hadn't thought of that..."

Tali gave a soft giggle, "It's a good thing it's morning, then."

Shepard realized when she'd been had. "Oh all right. I hope you've got enough grub going to keep us for a while, Mordin. This is going to take a while."

The Salarian's lopsided head bobbed energetically (how else?). "Sufficient nutrients prepared. Had to acquire special produce on the Citadel. Dextro-amino fruit smoothies available, mechanics of ingestion would preclude solid foods of large diameter." He nodded respectfully to Tali, who shrugged and squirmed a bit.

"As long as it isn't Loorva, I should be ok." Mordin nodded, turning back to his chemistry set / kitchen.

Garrus just shook his head, and chuckled quietly. "Well, Shepard, want to get started?"

Later, Onboard the Zero-One-Three

"I still don't understand why we had to watch that trilogy back to back, Garrus..." Tali huddled on the end of the couch Shepard had shoved into the middle of the room, so all three old friends could watch the movies.

Mordin sat to one side, still replaying selected scenes from the Michael Bay 'Transformers' trilogy, "Fascinating, knew human culture diverse, did not realize extent of imagination. Concept intriguing, but can see reasons for negative quarian reaction."

Garrus chuckled softly, "I wanted to get you out of that loop, Tali. I know you've been dithering inside over the fact that the geth seem to be friendly now. It's doing bad things to your mind, and you know how you can get when you can't figure out a problem. Maybe the geth really are being truthful about not wanting to fight anymore."

Tali shrugged, still with her arms folded and as far away from the Turian as she could get. Shepard couldn't quite suppress her grin at the sulky Quarian's attitude. "So, what's the last one?"

Garrus' mandibles flared and Tali squirmed, "I'm not sure how you'll like this one, Shepard, but..." The quarian tapped her omnitool, and the fanfare preceded the credits.

Shepard's eyebrow rose at the title. "Citadel"? This had better not be what I think it is...

Still later, Onboard the Zero-One-Three

"I do NOT shake my ass like that!"

Tali and Garrus were both grinning wickedly, the quarian giggling uncontrollably at Shepard's reaction, and Garrus' mandibles spread so wide he was in danger of injuring himself.

"For crying out loud, I'm not that much of a showoff!... Am I?" Garrus couldn't hold it in anymore, and burst out laughing, Tali slowly sliding sideways until she was resting against Shepard's side, giggling so hard she was almost wheezing.

"Alright, alright, laugh it up you two. I'll get my revenge later." Shepard reached out and, with pinpoint precision, started to tickle the young quarian just above her waist. The resultant squeal and breathless giggling provoked still more laughter from the Turian, and the two girls started wrestling as he quickly made room. Mordin, of course, took copious notes, and the two males exchanged commentary on the conflict between the two girls, which had spread to

cover the entire couch. Shepard proved unexpectedly ticklish just at the small of her back, laughing and giggling herself when Tali's nimble fingers tickled there, and the tickle fight went on until the commander flumped off the couch.

"Ugh. I yield, you win, Tali. ACK!" Shepard arched as Tali, now sitting prim and proper on the couch, landed both feet on the commander's back, making Shepard writhe and giggle breathlessly.

"Ha! got you right where I want you, you uncultured wretch!"

"Quititquitit, Taliiiiii!"

The laughter went on far into the night.

AN: Just a fun piece before the storm. Things are going to get serious again for Korlus, though, so hold onto your seats. Honestly, though, I'm finding my muse harder and harder to locate, but I'll do my damnedest to get this thing finished. It just may take a few years. *Sigh.* And while I forgot to mention it at the time, Darman Sejuk was mostly responsible for the scenes with the council in the last chapter. ^^ I found myself mentally unable to get into the mindset of the council, unable to think along those lines, and he delivered when and where I needed it. Kudos, Darman, and thank you.