Disclaimer: If I owned Crysis and Mass Effect I wouldn't be writing Fanfiction now would I? (I don't own them)

Thanks to DN7 for Betaing as usual.

Shepard's PoV

It didn't take long for Shepard, followed by the rest of the squad, to be led down to the simulation room by a CryNet employee. Wraith, or rather the Director would be watching them perform in the monitoring room. The employee, who had introduced himself as James Powell, came to a stop at a large door labeled with the Greek letter, Theta.

"This is your simulation station Commander. Armory is just through these doors. Please only use those weapons as they are the training weapons for use in the simulation. We don't want to fill the room full of holes after all. Once you've chosen your weapons continue on through the door on the far side of the room which will take you into the simulation room. You can customize your simulation there or have it randomly generated."

Shepard shook his hand, "Thank you, Mr. Powell."

"No problem Ma'am. Good luck in there."

Shepard turned to her squad "Well, let's see what they have in their armory here eh?"

"I hope that they have a good sniper rifle." Garrus commented.

"I'm sure they will have something to your tastes Garrus." Tali responded.

Ashley, who had entered the armory first slowed to a stop just inside the doors before turning around with a wide smile on her face. "I think they will have something for you Garrus."

As the rest of the squad entered, Shepard let out a long whistle."Well, they certainly don't skimp on the weaponry now do they?" The armory contained various weapon racks, all containing different weapons types. On the wall that held the door they had just walked through, the right side was lined with submachine guns from top to bottom while the left side held assault rifles. The wall across from them which held the exit door was similarly stocked, the left holding heavy weapons and the right pistols. The left wall of the room held shotguns and the right stored sniper rifles.

"Damn, they really have everything here. I haven't seen a Mattock in ages. It went out of service years ago." Kaidan exclaimed looking at the assault rifle section.

"You used one of the M-96's LT?" Ashley asked curious.

"Yeah, it was the only assault rifle I ever felt comfortable with. Unfortunately they went out of service years ago and I just stuck with using heavy pistols."

"Well, I'll see if we can't get you a Mattock." Shepard told him.

"No need to Shepard. A pistol is fine for me."

"Nonsense, I'll get you a Mattock. I can't have you just go in combat against the geth with just a pistol now can I?"

"Well thanks, Commander." Kaiden replied as he grabbed the rifle and began to check it over as Shepard looked over the rest of the available assault rifles with Ashley.

"I think that I'm going to go with one of their SCAR's myself." Shepard mused as she got to the CryTech Armory section of the wall, "I hope that it is able to do its little mode switching like Wraith's."

"Normally I would agree with you Skipper and take one as well, but I think I'm going to go with one of these Grendels. It look's like it could do quite a bit of damage." Ashley said regarding a heavy assault rifle.

"Why's that?" Shepard asked looking over at her.

"Apparently it's a three round burst fire assault rifle and each shot hits about as hard as a Mattock. The recoil means that its only good in medium to close ranges, though it does have a semi-automatic fire mode for those precision shots." Ashley explained.

"Well that does sound nice. I might try one of those out later." Shepard said, grabbing a SCAR from the rack. "Hello, what have we here?" As she lifted the weapon from it's rack, a holographic screen popped up on the SCAR showing various options for customization. "Modifications eh? CryNet really thought of everything."

"They certainly did." Garrus said walking up to join Shepard, Ashley and Kaidan at the assault rifle racks.

"Garrus. Have fun looking at the sniper rifles?" Shepard asked.

"Did you know that they have an M-98 Widow and a Krysae?" He asked.

Kaidan looked up at Garrus, "I'm not familiar with a Krysae. What is it?"

"It's a turian anti-materiel rifle. It fires a dual armor-piercing and explosive round designed to penetrate the armor of vehicles and detonate inside, dealing maximum damage." Garrus explained.

"Nice. I think that that's the rifle for me, so if you'll excuse me, I need to grab that and check out their boomsticks." Ashley grabbed a Grendel from the rack and left for the sniper rifle section.

"Heh, she knows what she wants thats for sure." Wrex said coming up from behind to look at some of the heavier weapons.

"Well Wrex, I suppose you've got your shotgun then?" Garrus asked.

"Of course. They had quite a few of em there. Even had a Graal, but I'm sticking with a Claymore."

"Anything else interesting?" Shepard inquired.

"Well they had their own shotguns there as well. One of them was a full-auto shotgun. Not bad, not bad at all."

"Hmm. I'll have a look at those then. I'll probably stick with a Marshall though. I've been using that ever since I bought it and its pretty damn good." Shepard said, holstering her SCAR, having decided to mess with its mods later.

"Doing alright Tali?" She asked as she joined Tali at the shotgun racks.

"Oh, yes. I'm trying to decide which shotgun I should take."

Shepard looked over at her, "Do you have any preferences?"

"Well the Jackal would be perfect for clearing out a large number of clumped up Geth with it's high fire rate while the Marshall would be perfect for taking out the heavier geth units with its high damage."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at Tali's choice of adversaries. "You could take a Leopard you know. It looks like it would be fairly good in all situations."

"Well yes, but I think I might need the dedication from either the Marshall or the Jackal instead of the lack of dedication from the Leopard."

"Well, I honestly think that the Leopard would be perfect for you Tali. Why don't you take that and if you don't like it you can switch later." Shepard suggested.

"I suppose I could do that. Yes, that sounds good. I wonder how the entire facility works. It would be so interesting to see."

Shepard smiled at Tali's excitement "Well, we will be taking part in a simulation soon. You can see for yourself."

"True, but its not the same as seeing the inner workings."

"I'll take your word for it Tali. Do you have a pistol picked out?" Shepard asked pulling out a Marshall and attached it to her lower back.

Tali shook her head "Not yet. I decided to pick out my shotgun first."

Shepard patted her on the shoulder "Well then, let's go and join Liara." She said, guiding the quarian towards the pistol racks.

Liara turned towards them as they arrived, "Hello Shepard."

"Hey Liara, picking out a pistol?"

The asari nodded "Yes. But I don't really need that many weapons because I can just use my biotics."

"That is true, but I'd still suggest you take a Pistol and a SMG just in case. You never want to be without a backup weapon." Shepard advised.

"Yes, I already chose a SMG." She showed Shepard the SMG she had taken, "A Feline I believe. It looks to be a good weapon."

Shepard examined it before returning it, "It sure does. That's a good SMG there. I think that I'm going to go without an SMG." She said, pausing as she noticed a pistol in the rack, "However I will be taking this monster." She grabbed a heavy pistol from the rack examining it with glee. "A revolver? Six heat sinks. All revolving? One shot per heat sink? Massive damage? I think I'm in love. Its official, CryNet makes the best weapons as far as I'm concerned." She announced loudly.

"The CTA-14 Majestic. I thought you might like that pistol. Would you also consider saying that again so I can use it in our next advertising campaign? Having humanities first Spectre endorsing our weapons would be an excellent opportunity." The directors voice sounded over the speakers. "You'd be compensated naturally. Maybe you would like some weapons from our armory? Get your own Majestic?"

"While that is extremely tempting, it will have to wait until later. For now, I am so going to enjoy using this monster."

"Well, I'll make sure there are some targets to use it against. Just a reminder though, remember to set your GHOST armor to training and sync it with our training VI CABAL."

'VI?' Shepard thought 'Didn't Wraith say CABAL was an AI?' out loud however Shepard gave no reaction to her internal dilemma.

"Also, remember that your first few simulations will be just to get you used to the GHOST armor. It is unlike anything you have ever used before, and you need proper training before we let you loose in the simulator."

Shepard spent a bit more time modifying her chosen weapons and making sure that the GHOST armor was in training mode and synced to CABAL. When she had finished modding her Marshall with a medium barrel, high caliber rounds and a high capacity heat sink along with slapping a high velocity mod into her Majestic she joined the rest of the squad at the door leading on to the simulation room. After exchanging weapon choices, the squad walked through the door to find a large room, devoid of any terrain, with various training equipment.

Before anyone could do anything more but look, a rather excited voice sounded over the comm, "Ah, Commander Shepard! My name is Nathan Gould. So nice to- well not really meet you per say, but I will be your trainer for today, going to get you up to speed on all the suits functions."

Almost immediately after an older, more regal voice cut in "What my colleague is trying to say, is that GHOST armor is very advanced and we are here to make sure you can use it to its fullest potential. But I haven't introduced myself. Bill Walker."

"Pleased to meet you." Shepard responded.

Ashley took the time to ask a question, "Do we really need trainers just to figure out how to use the armor?"

"I can understand your confusion, but you fail to realize, that even right now your armor is not running at full power. It's merely providing enough power so that you don't crumple under its weight. When we unlock its true potential, well... That will require some adjustment." Walker answered.

"Yes, you see when it's fully powered up the muscle fiber will be augmenting your strength by about 200%. While it feels like you are wearing heavy armor right now, when unlocked it will be like you are wearing nothing at all. Your most basic moves can and will throw you off completely. Not to mention there are many other features that you are not yet aware of." Gould continued.

Shepard nodded, "So if for instance we throw a punch with the armor fully powered we might unbalance ourselves due to its strength?"

"Exactly. You could even tear ligaments, separate various joints, or even completely shatter your own bones if you don't adapt to the rapid increase in reaction and strength granted by the armor. Now usually our Inquisitor trainees spend a whole week on learning the ins and outs of their own armor, but since we are rather short on time we should probably get you guys powered up if that's alright with you?" Gould asked.

Glancing back at her squad Shepard shrugged and nodded, "I'd say we're ready to go."

"Right then. Let's get you juiced up." Walker said and within a few moments the GHOST armor powered up and engaged its HUD. With her HUD engaged Shepard was able to access an incredible amount information in moments. The shield and armor integrity levels of the entire squad was displayed on the bottom of her visor, along with their currently drawn weapons. In the bottom left corner is a small map, that at the moment only displayed the locations of the rest of her squad in relation to herself. In the bottom right corner of her visor was a heat gauge, showing her that her weapon was in fact, cold. Not only had her HUD engaged, but Shepard, and judging by the surprised noises, the rest of her squad noticed an immediate change in how their armor felt. Whereas before the armor behaved more like heavy armor, now it was as light as a feather and barely noticeable.

"Excellent, I am reading green on all of your systems." Gould told them "Take a few steps, get a feel for it."

Taking a step forward, Shepard was surprised by how effortless it was to walk around, indeed feeling as if she were wearing light clothing instead of several hundred pounds of armor. Throwing a test punch she was surprised by how fast her hand flew through the air. It was then that she realized that her arm was almost fully extended and her fist was still flying through the air. When her arm was fully extended the force of the punch threw her forward, straining her shoulder and causing her to stumble in an attempt to not fall over.

Gould chuckled, "As you can see, it requires a bit of time to get used to the suits strength and reaction enhancements."

"You can say that again." Shepard grumbled, rolling her arm around to get rid of the minor pain. "Can we get some punching bags or something in here?"

"Certainly." Walker stated and suddenly multiple punching bags and even some human shaped targets appeared in front of them.

"I'm not sure I'm even in a simulation." Garrus grumbled as he tentatively poked a punching bag, causing it swing slightly.

Shepard chuckled. "Same. It looks so real."

Taking up a position in front of a punching bag, Shepard threw a couple punches, each time causing the bag to swing wildly. After a few hits, Shepard was able to get a better handle on her punches, no longer over extending and loosing her balance after each one.

"I must say Commander, I am impressed. Not many get used to the armor that quickly." Gould commented. "Interesting, why don't you try out some punches on those human targets over there, see how hard you are hitting them and try to onlyknock them out."

After punching a couple of the targets , which went flying off of their feet the first few times until Shepard was able to reign in her strength to only knock them out which the simulation showed by greying them out. By that time everyone else had gotten used to the strength somewhat and they moved on to the mobility aspect of the armor. Gould and Walker gave them various tasks to do, ranging from jumping up onto a small crate (which was rather difficult at first as everyone was jumping over it) to jumping up onto a two meter high crate. With that done, they were told how to engage the suits overdrive mode, which would allow them to sprint at some very fast speeds for around minute. In between exercises, Gould explained how Inquisitors would go through much more thorough training by doing mundane things like jumping rope, playing hopscotch, or even juggling eggs.

After practicing a couple of combat rolls and maneuvers, Gould and Walker had them run an obstacle course, using the GHOST armor to the best of their abilities. Shepard was able to ace the course which impressed Gould to no end "I am very impressed now Commander. I don't think anyone has mastered the use of the GHOST armor that quickly."

"What about the Nanosuit?" Shepard asked him.

"Well, that one is harder to tell, because while operative Wraith did master the nanosuit very quickly, it was the Nanosuit 1 and he had used the prototype before. But then again, the Nanosuit is harder to master as the GHOST armor is basically a simplified version of the Nanosuit."

When their two trainers had decided they were done with the mobility aspect they went on to the combat aspects of the armor, ranging from accuracy to various abilities. These ranged from the VI link between the squad to various abilities taught to the individual squad mates themselves. In order to learn these abilities the squad was separated and was assigned their own trainer. Shepard was assigned to an asari by the name of Lufirr Ekeassy who began to show her some new biotic abilities.

"What I'm going to show you next is a little ability we call 'biotic charge'. This is a brand new ability that Alpha Tech and Sciences will be releasing with their next biotic amp within a year. It is very handy at closing the distance between you and your target very quickly, however can put you in the middle of hostiles as well so watch yourself. Alternately if you get skilled enough with it you can use it to rapidly move around the battlefield or retreat from a bad situation."

Shepard was impressed. "Sounds interesting. How do you do it?"

"Excited huh?" Lufirr laughed. "Don't worry, so was I when I first learned it. Here's what you have to do. . ."

It didn't take long for Shepard to be charging across the simulation room in a blur of biotic energy, slamming aside dummies in her reckless dashes across the room.

Lufirr was very impressed by her fast learning however cautioned her saying "Now while using 'biotic charge' in the simulator works pretty much the same as it does outside of the simulator, we are unable to accurately fake fatigue from biotics. You will no doubt find that charging around like that will be very draining and I definitely suggest you don't rely on it too much or you won't be able to continue your missions due to fatigue."

"Thanks for the tip."

After getting used to the increased power from her biotic abilities, putting her on par with the Alliance biotic adepts in terms of power, Shepard was rejoined by the rest of her squad who had learned various new things as well. Ashley had been shown how to increase her reaction time and overclock her kinetic barriers for a short period of time to give her an edge in weapons combat. Kaidan had been shown some new tech and biotic abilities as well as how to throw them with both arms. Garrus had been shown how to steady his sniping arm and get important information on his target, allowing for increased sniping capability. Wrex had mainly learned how to get the most out of his krogan armor and how to permanently increase his kinetic barrier power at the cost of rerouting power from his nanoweave, taking away some of his mobility. Liara had been shown an entirely new arsenal of biotic abilities, ranging from deploying a large biotic sphere to protect allies to a heavy shockwave ability able to knock swaths of enemies off their feet. Finally Tali quickly learned how to use the VI to be better at hacking and learned how to drain a targets energy reserves to restore her own shields. Shepard had no doubt that Tali would come up with some more abilities to use as soon as she could.

"Well, I suppose you are ready for some action." Gould told them "CABAL, run training simulation delta-nine."

Immediately the simulator changed from its bleak training room to a massive outdoor area. The squad was standing on a path leading through a large forest. Even as the squad got used to their new surroundings Gould gave them their objective "Alright Commander. This is an easy one. Find and eliminate all enemy targets. Mission begins now."

Shepard immediately slipped into her commander role, "No time for sight seeing guys. Engage VI link."

"Tactical VI online. Linking with squad. . . Link complete. Displaying tactical data now."

The VI's voice sounded as her HUD popped in. The VI sounded more human than SECOND, Wraith's nanosuit VI/AI, yet it was still distinctly synthetic.

When her HUD had finished initializing, Shepard immediately started ordering her squad around. The GHOST armor VI made this incredibly easy to do, she merely had to give a verbal order and the VI would instantly recognize what she said and what she meant, sending the orders to the squad's HUDs. This allowed her to quickly and efficiently order her squad forward, in a leapfrog style. Finally after a few minutes without seeing any hostiles Shepard noticed movement. Even while snapping her SCAR up to her shoulder the VI warned them of the approaching pirate hostiles along with marking hostile targets with a red triangle over their heads.

"Take them out!" She shouted beginning to belt out various orders that the VI also sent to their HUD's. "Garrus! Get into an overwatch position. Kaidan and Wrex, suppressing fire! Keep their heads down! Tali and Liara, hit them from the side. Ashley with me."

The entire squad sprung into action, Wrex began laying down a hail of fire from his CTA-40 mod 0 LMG. Garrus used the time to snipe a single target before getting in cover a ways back where he could effectively take out the pirates. Tali and Liara joined up and began flanking to the right keeping low and behind cover to keep the pirates from noticing them. Kaidan had immediately begun throwing down a barrage of biotic throws and pulls from both of his hands. This allowed him to force the pirates to stay out of sight behind cover or be thrown out into the open to be taken out by the rest of the squad.

Charging out of cover, Shepard circled around to the left so that they could surround the pirates and quickly wipe them out. Once in position, Shepard and Ashley paused for a second while Shepard coordinated with Tali and Liara on the other side of the enemy position.

"Tali, Liara. Are you in position?"

"We're here Shepard. Waiting on your signal." Tali responded.

"Alright, this is what I want you to do. Tali, Kaidan, on my signal take down their shields. Liara once their shields are down I want you to lay down a singularity. I'll then warp the singularity, the resulting explosion should disorient them. Wrex and I will charge into the middle of them, so watch your fire. Kaidan, Liara, I want you to then start pulling them out into the open to allow Ash and Garrus to take them out without worrying about us. Tali, continue hitting them with tech attacks, but make sure you don't hit us. Got that everyone?"

While she had been voicing her orders the VI had been sending said orders to the squad and when they all voiced their acknowledgment Shepard's HUD indicated that they had received and acknowledged by marking them with a green checkmark. When the entire squad had acknowledged, Shepard leaned out of her cover and said "Execute."

Immediately a large shower of sparks jumped from target to target, taking down their shields instantly. Not two seconds later a large singularity appeared in the middle of the bunched up humans, dragging the now shieldless pirates out of cover. Glowing blue, Shepard launched a high powered warp straight into the singularity. When the two conflicting biotics hit, they detonated in a spectacular explosion sending all the pirates flying. Not giving her biotics a chance to die down, Shepard concentrated for a second before releasing a shout as she propelled herself towards a human that was still alive. Slamming into him just as he was getting up she sent him flying into a tree headfirst with a sickening crunch. A similar crunch signaled Wrex's arrival followed by a roar as he slammed a turian aside, using his Claymore as a club. Shepard quickly drew her Majestic and fired it at a human pirate. The high powered round tore through the unshielded pirate's head.

Three biotic orbs hit three different pirates dragging them both up and away from Shepard and Wrex where they were gunned down by Garrus and Ashley. A flash of white signaled Tali flash freezing a single merc who immediately shattered as someone fired a single shot into the brittle body. Spinning around Shepard gave a nanoweave enhanced kick to the head of an asari snapping her head back and causing her to cartwheel through the air before landing on a turian who was knocked down and had his head smashed in by Wrex's foot. Rolling to the side Shepard fired another shot from her Majestic that ripped a humans arm clean off. Finishing him off with a punch to the face she wreathed herself in biotics to deflect a burst from a turian who was instantly pulled up by Kaidan and sent flying by a throw from Liara. Spinning around Shepard looked for a new target only to see that all the pirates were already dead.

"Most impressive Commander." The Director said as the simulation faded away. "Most impressive indeed. I see that Operative Wraith was not lying when he talked about your prowess. Now let's up the stakes a bit and see how you will fare against Inquisitor team 545."

A/N: Well that's done. We get to see the Simulator in action and Shepard seems to like the Majestic. For those of you that have that DLC in ME3, think Executioner with 6 shots.

We also see NE's Nathan gould.

Next chapter we see a faceoff between Shepard's squad and 545.

Finally anyone else play the Crysis 3 beta? I personally am LOVING it. I have yet to get tired at it and I'm actually fairly good at it which is surprising. Hunter mode is great, really tense. I have a feeling that we will be seeing some of that in a CNTAP simulations later down the road. . .

Anyway there will be one more chapter on the Prism after which we will get back to ME events.

As always, constructive criticism is welcomed. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me in a review or PM and I'll try to answer em!

Anyway I'm excited for Crysis 3. As it is I'll be seeing you in two weeks on the 16th the week before Crysis 3 comes out!

~LEGION