Garrus and Liara had walked into Shepard's apartment five minutes prior and immediately noted that no one was home to welcome them. The security systems had remotely scanned their biometrics and, true to Shepard's word, invited them in. Seeing as they had no way of telling when the two would be back, they had decided to lounge around for a bit before they would start to get impatient.

Their concern turned out to be remarkably short-lived. In almost no time since their arrival, Shepard and Tali, followed by an unfamiliar third person, burst into the apartment which caused Garrus and Liara, who were sitting over by the fireplace, to sit up in alarm. Shepard was wild-eyed while Tali and Nela shifted on their feet, coming down from their adrenaline rush.

"What the hell happened to you guys?" Garrus asked as Shepard swiftly locked the door behind him.

"I had a momentary callback to my previous days," Shepard replied as he moved away from the doors. Garrus was about to ask what the hell that meant when Shepard beat him to it. "A whole gang of mercenaries jumped us during lunch, Garrus. All of them were well armed and armored."

"You mean that they were firing on you? Like, shooting at you?"

"Can you think of a better way to dispose of someone quickly and loudly? We had to shoot the floor underneath these guys so that we could escape."

"Goddess," Liara gaped. "Do you know who would do such a thing?"

"Haven't a clue," Shepard grimaced as he moved over to the long desk behind the kitchen. Curious, the others quickly followed while Shepard engaged the extranet access panel on the desk. While he was booting up a program, he momentarily looked up to see everyone circling around the table. "Oh, by the way, this is Nela'Tiloc, everyone." He gestured to the diminutive quarian, who shuffled her feet sheepishly. "She's the one who ensured that Tali and I got back here alive."

"What is it with you and quarian damsels in distress, Shepard?" Garrus asked, resulting in a light slap on the arm from Tali.

After giving the turian a slight dose of physical pain, Tali moved forward and transferred the recorded contents on her omni-tool onto the desk, projecting a series of images onto it. Tali plucked one of these images out of the air and focused it on the strange symbol of a tiger baring its fangs that was laser-engraved on the armor she scanned, as if the big feline was in the middle of a pounce.

"I got a scan off of this one during the fighting," Tali indicated. "I don't recognize the symbol on their armor, though. It's definitely not reminiscent of the major gangs out of the Terminus, that's for sure."

"That's right," Liara said as her own software finished analyzing the images. "It's definitely not the Suns, Blood Pack, or any of the Eclipse. From what my Shadow Broker resources tell me, the snarling tiger is the symbol for the private military group CAT6, a group of mercenaries for hire."

Shepard frowned at the news. "Based off Category 6, the term for Alliance soldiers that are dishonorably discharged?"

"Appears to be so," Liara nodded gravely. "It's primarily a human-centric group and, given the name, all members were dishonorably discharged from the military and others have appalling histories of steroid abuse. I see that the previous Shadow Broker frequently funded some of their endeavors, actually. However, the data in my memory banks cannot access it, like the information had been previously erased or something."

"Doesn't that strike you as odd?" Nela piped up. Everyone turned to look at her and she faltered for a second before it was clear that she was able to proceed. "I mean, the Shadow Broker has files on everyone and everything in the galaxy. A missing data set shows that the last Broker wanted to keep a secret and ensured that no one else would find it."

"You're a quick study," Liara noted. "How did you come to be acquainted with Shepard?"

"She intercepted a transmission regarding a hit on Tali and I and immediately sought us out to warn us," Shepard answered in Nela's stead. "We managed to fight off the squad that was intended for us, thanks to her."

Liara smiled but crossed her arms in a manner that was distantly cold. She turned to Nela and raised an eyebrow at her. "You seem to know an awful lot, Miss Tiloc. May I ask how you came by this information?"

"By having my tool scan and clean up stray transmissions on multiple frequencies on a radio dish that I was repairing over on Arm Five," she answered confidently. "It recorded several of them and it picked up on a few rogue words used in a transmission that set off my security mandated firewalls. I used that relay to hone in on the signal in question and listened to the critical strand that led me to act quickly. I can show you my collection process, if you would like."

Liara shook her head, caught off guard that Nela was aware that she was suspicious of the young quarian. She certainly hid a reserved exterior behind that mask, as tenacious as someone else she knew very well. "There will be no need," she assured. "I'm confident that your methods were reasonably sound."

"Which brings us to our next problem," Shepard sighed. "Trying to find the rest of these guys before they find us again."

"You really think they'll try to attack you here?" Garrus asked.

"Why not? My apartment's in every Citadel registry. Hell, if anyone wanted to kill me they'd just ask for my name on the station VI. The unfortunate truth is that this is the only place on this station that we can regroup for a moment, but we need to move fast and make the next strike before we are caught off guard again."

"And I think I have an idea of how to do that," Liara offered. "Tali, can you pull up the scans of that CAT6 solider again?"

Tali nodded and the large imaged hovered a foot above the table. Liara quickly copied the symbol and put the image into a program that begin to auto-scan, a progress bar now appearing over the picture.

"What are you doing with that?" Tali asked.

"The Citadel is networked extensively with cameras," Liara explained. "By programming every single one on the station to search for the CAT6 logo, we can be able to isolate all of their troops and figure out where they are highly concentrated. We should be able to pick up multiple hits without us having to go out and search for them with no leads. It's like looking through an extensive directory."

"Which could denote a base of sorts," Garrus whispered, his mandibles twitching in excitement. "Brilliant!"

Bits of code denoting cameras parked on all levels of the station flashed by in nanoseconds. Liara remained fixated on her omni-tool and everyone eagerly waited for the progress bar to fill. Fueled by the high-speed connection, it only took less than two minutes for the scan to run its course and Liara projected her results up on the main screen.

The asari pointed at a large clump of yellow highlighted dots against a map of the Citadel itself. "Hmm, it seems that the majority of hits the cameras registered are located in a subbasement just at the bottom of Arm Two."

Garrus stepped forward, his eyes rapt on the images. "The basement of Arm Two is the Archives," he said. "That must be a mistake. Can your cameras get any images of inside the areas in question?"

Liara tapped on a few controls but to no avail. "Nothing," she scowled. "The entire area is cordoned off to me. I can access the basic processes for the camera, such as their serial numbers, but it has too much security that is preventing me to actually look through them inside the Archives themselves. Best that the cameras can do is to notify me that what we're looking for is somewhere in that basement."

"But that's impossible. The Archives can only be accessed by Council members and Spectres. A private security group like CAT6 could not gain entrance at all."

"What exactly do you know about the Archives, Garrus?" Tali asked in interest.

"I've never been there personally, but I heard that it's an enormous warehouse filled to the brim with catalogued items of importance. Beyond that, I don't know much else."

"The Broker has files related to the Archives and what they contain," Liara said. "Based on accounts from…Tela Vasir, of all people…the Archives hold a wealth of knowledge detailing significant galactic events. Records for all Citadel citizens are housed there, every single scrap of information one could ever dig up. However, the accounts indicate that a person can only change or access the records housed in the Archives that correspond to their biological marker. A handprint, to be precise. Kind of like how a bank works."

"So they have a wealth of information there and they can technically do nothing with it?" Shepard asked. "That seems like a waste of time for this group. Would there be any other reason why they would choose that location?"

"No," Liara whispered. "But it's the only lead we have. And…" she pointed to the map, where a series of dots broke off from the main clump, "…it looks like they're sending a few more goons this way. We're going to have to leave in the next ten minutes, I'd figure, if we want to avoid a fight."

"We'll avoid that fight," Shepard growled. "But we'll deliberately start another."

Without waiting for a cue from anyone else, he strode out of the room to the hallway on his left. Tali quickly chased after him and the remaining three, after realizing that they had been left behind, followed in hot pursuit.

Once they rounded the corner, Garrus let out a growl of surprise at the room that lay before them. "Spirits, Shepard…what is this?"

The room was an armory, plain and simple. Guns and knives lined the walls, a weapon modification table lay placed in the center, and pieces of armor were dispersed over the floor. Shepard just shrugged as he slid out a large drawer containing a set of grey armor after knocking aside a set of power tools. "Oh, you mean this?" he gestured around the room. "I converted the second guest room about two years back since I never really had a need for it. I just needed a place to store my stuff ever since the Normandy's primary function was delegated to more diplomatic assignments, rendering the bulk of the armaments housed on the ship to be rather useless."

As Shepard began to slide on the thick armor, Liara moved to one of the walls and plucked a Kassa Locust submachine gun from the rack. She hefted it, testing its weight before nodding in approval. "Then I guess," she shrugged as she holstered the weapon at her side, "that because you've now indirectly involved us, Shepard, you've now essentially recruited us to fight with you, right?"

"Wasn't really part of the plan," Shepard admitted as he lifted the chest piece over his head, beginning to clasp it together. "But I would appreciate a little help from you guys, especially since that you're the only backup that can be adequately gathered in short notice, seeing that Kaidan, Wrex, James, and all the rest are lightyears away, so…"

"All right, all right," Garrus interrupted as he procured a Black Widow sniper rifle. "You know that we're not going to leave you hanging, Shepard." He checked to see if the rifle carried a full load of thermal clips before he tested the sights. "Besides, it's been too long since I've been in the fight. I'm itching for some practice. Also, I see you've picked up one of my armor sets that I left behind on the Normandy. If I can just borrow that back…"

"I'm coming too," Nela offered as Garrus headed into the closet to change, stepping around the table to pick up an Avenger assault rifle. "I want to see this thing through to the end. I don't want to be left behind, knowing that I couldn't do more, that I possibly didn't change anything in the long run."

As Shepard slid his gauntlets on, he eyed the quarian, noting her poised position, her tense hands. "Have you ever fired a rifle in a combat scenario?" he asked her gently.

"Not directly," Nela sighed. "I was on my birth ship during the war to retake the homeworld but, since I wasn't an official crewmember, I couldn't get involved." Watching Shepard's face harden, she raised her volume in an attempt to penetrate his armor. "Please!" she begged. "I'm a good shot, best out of all my friends! I can't just be left behind like this, Admiral Shepard. Surely you know how I feel!"

"He does," Tali said quietly. "We both know that your willingness to help reflects well on you during your Pilgrimage. You may come, Nela, and I'll even forward a recommendation to your choice of captain when this is all over."

"Really?" the quarian squeaked. "Thank you, Admiral Zorah! You will not regret this in the slightest."

Shepard quietly blew air out of his nose in the softest form possible of a sigh but Tali still whirled around like he had cursed out loud. "What is it, John?" she asked him.

"I…I don't…" he breathed out heavily. "It's just that I don't want to put her in a dangerous position, Tali. No one is playing around here and being around me could put her in serious danger."

"Really, John?" Tali responded with amusement. "Was I any different when I pleaded to come with you to find Saren?"

"Well…no, but…"

"So how is Nela asking to assist us any more dangerous than the prospect of you going off to fight a rogue Spectre?"

"Not much, but even so-"

"John, she's coming along. She knows what she's getting into. Don't push her away from this, please."

Shepard looked at his dear friend, watching her stand her ground, weighed down by a subject of high importance. He saw her stare straight at him, unflinching and firmly dedicated to what she knew to be right. By speaking from experience, then Shepard had to concede that Tali's point outweighed his own feeble argument.

"Very well," he granted. "But I'll remain with her at all times, okay? That means you're going to be pairing off with Liara for when we split into separate groups to cover more ground. Do you think you'll be able to handle that?"

"I'm sure I can hold off my homicidal thoughts for the time being," she replied coyly, handing Shepard the helmet that completed his armor.

The covering slid over his head and air hissed as the vacuum seals pushed any excess air out. Tiny lines for the optics glowed an electric blue and Shepard flexed the joints of the Arelius Mk. 32 Combat Armor. Still officially in the prototype stage, the Mk. 32 was gifted from the Arelius company to Shepard as a token of his efforts during the war. Plus, it also gave the company some good PR as well. Shepard found it to be bulkier than his old N7 armor but the restrictive movement came with the benefit of more powerful shields, added protection, and embedded electrodes on the gauntlet that emitted a paralyzing voltage on whoever they touched. That was an option usually meant for police use, but Arelius threw it in anyway, wanting make sure that the Savior of the Galaxy was properly equipped to tackle any foe.

It would've been nice if he had this armor while facing the Reapers, but that point had been moot for a long time now.

Shepard tested the electrodes and watched as blue electricity crackled around his gauntlets. Switching them off, he glanced at his squad, and saw that all of them were fully prepared for what they were about to face. They held their weapons, checked their shields, and steeled their gazes for they had accepted that they were about to plunge once more into the abyss.

With the helmet on his face, Shepard looked more imposing as the war hero straightened within the armor's hard embrace. It had been a long time since he was preparing to go back into combat, but it wasn't his safety he was worried about, it was the safety of everyone else.

He did not want anyone, especially Tali, to wind up getting hurt today. He had sacrificed enough in order to prevent her to be exposed to this life again. If she got even a scratch on her, he would-

"Weapons check," Shepard barked, the helmet giving his voice an eerie grittiness as he swallowed his dark thoughts. "Make sure your slides are stocked with clips. Load up on ammo if you haven't already. Remember to watch your shield levels at all times."

Everyone quickly glanced at their supplies and looked up at the same time to indicate their readiness. Shepard felt no pride from this, though. He only felt tired. Tired that the violence had come back to him, that he couldn't escape it.

This had to be the last time. It just had to be.

Shepard grabbed a Mattock rifle from the weapons rack and did the same checks before stowing it onto his back. "Okay," he nodded. "Let's head out, people!"

It took two skycars to transport the five of them to the Archives entrance. No resistance from any more mercenaries was encountered along the way but everyone knew that they were not going to be out of the woods for very long. They had to pass through multiple security checks and laser scans as they proceeded to their destination, which were bypassed easily due to Shepard's Spectre status encompassing everyone in the group. Once the final scan was completed, a large hangar door unlocked, and with a wailing of klaxons, creaked open to allow the skycars passage.

The five of them quickly unloaded themselves on the landing pad and moved to the lone door in the corner. The entrance to the Archives was nothing special, just a nondescript door the same size as any, standard to accommodate any species on the Citadel. Based on Garrus' and Liara's rumors, Shepard had been expecting a rather more theatrical sort of threshold that they would have to cross.

Maybe he just got carried away with his imagination.

Tali elbowed him in the side as he approached, pointing towards a small biometric scanner to the immediate right of the door, housed within the wall. Shepard nodded and unlatched his glove from his gauntlet, sliding it off his hand so that he could place his bare palm over the scanner.

There was a burst of heat, nothing unbearable, and a flash of red light came from the scanner as his prints were digitally lifted. In an instant, they were compared against the prints the database already had on file and, sensing a match, unlocked the door and opened for them.

All of them stepped through before the door could close on them and they breathed out at the sight overhead. It looked like the most complex warehouse any of them had ever seen. The sheer amount of container tubes racked along the walls and the rails allowing for fast transport crisscrossed the rafters above them. The dark lighting only allowed the few glittering diodes to sparkle like jewels and the data consoles that were spaced out intermittently emitted a warm glow, inviting others to bask in knowledge.

"Keelah," Tali gasped.

"It's enormous," Liara said in a daze. "More information than I could ever have dreamed…"

"We'll have no time to savor it, though," Shepard gritted, his mind already back to work. "Now we're definitely going to have to cover more ground, considering the size of this place. Tali, Liara, you guys take the higher catwalk. Nela and I will take the lower. Garrus, you find a nest and provide overwatch for us, okay?"

"Got it, boss," Garrus said as he slung his rifle over his back and headed for a ladder so that he could clamber up it.

Tali and Liara glanced at each other with momentary worry before the quarian turned back to face Shepard. "Okay, John," she said, her voice supported by something other than fear.

"Good," he breathed. "Move out."

The paths set in place were relatively easy to follow. The catwalks provided no alternative routes and the aisles that had been piled with crates were easily passed simply by walking on top of the container tubes. All they had to do was watch their footing and make sure they didn't slip off to fall several stories to their death.

Shepard ducked underneath a railing, waiting for Nela to join him on the next catwalk. So far, they had not encountered any enemies in this place, which was odd seeing as the majority of Liara's scan indicated that this was the correct place where they'd find the people who had tried to kill him. Unless the Archives were simply more gigantic than he could fathom, then that could mean that they could be searching this place for quite a while.

Shepard moved past a large holographic display in the next room, which ignited when he tripped the motion sensors. Shepard whirled in the direction of the movement, lowering his rifle when he saw that a hologram depicting the asari discovering the Citadel began to play. A distant narration accompanied the images that were projected, summarizing the key events that led to the rise of the asari as arguably the most dominant species in the galaxy at the time.

As if on cue, several more holograms began to pop up around the tiny room, each detailing highly significant events that Shepard had not examined in broader detail before. The Krogan Rebellions, their subsequent culling, the Morning War, and even the Reapers were all theatrically announced, the same narrator sounding jumbled as the multiple instances of her voice created a smooth cacophony around the two of them.

Seeing as the room was clear and that to linger any longer would result in more time wasted, Shepard hurried out the next door, motioning for Nela to follow closely.

"Shepard," Garrus whispered in his ear.

"Go ahead, Garrus."

"I'm seeing two guys wearing the same armor that you scanned at the restaurant. They're about fifty meters from your position and they're heavily armed."

"I don't think they're here for a social call. Do you have good shots?"

"Yep. You want me to take them?"

"Do it."

Five seconds later, two zips, muffled by Garrus' silenced rifle, sang out and two thuds echoed from behind a stack of containers. Shepard listened intently after that to see if the slight ruckus had caused an alarm to be raised.

"Good shots," Garrus crowed. "They're not getting up from that."

"Nice work," Shepard said. "Keep an eye out. We're moving in."

He edged around the corner, making sure that Nela was right on his back. He tenderly walked forward, beginning to see the faint outline of two pairs of legs lying on the ground. Rifle trained parallel to the ground regardless, Shepard walked forward only to confirm for himself that the two troopers that Garrus had spotted were definitely not going to make it. Their lack of heads and the dispersal of the pulpy residue thoroughly corroborated the turian's statement. Nela did not wince but averted her gaze so that she wouldn't look upon the grisly sight for any longer than necessary.

Shepard was about to walk up to the next door when it suddenly opened without his input. In a flash, multiple soldiers entered and opened fire on the pair standing out in the open.

Suppressed by several layers of walls, the fighting that had erupted in the upper level of the Archives never made it out past the floor that Tali and Liara were on. After encountering no one for fifteen minutes, they had wandered without warning into a whole cluster of the same black troopers who were milling about in the next room. Looking just as surprised as the two standing in the back, everyone surged to bring their weapons up as the gunshots began in earnest.

One of the troopers was shunted back by a biotic burst from Liara, who finished him off with a double tap to the head from her submachine gun. Tali engaged her combat drone and took off the leg of another enemy who had gotten too close to their cover with her shotgun.

"John, do you read?" Tali yelled into her comm. "We've encountered heavy resistance, please acknowledge!"

There was nothing but static on the line and Tali had no time to dwell on it at the moment. Hoping that Shepard was occupied at the moment to warrant his loss of communications, Tali knew that she could simply not focus clearly if she was concentrating on two things at once.

Shouts of panic from the troopers raced at them and gunshots chipped away at the crates that Tali and Liara had hunkered behind. The crackle of zaps the combat drone was giving the troopers was almost predictable in that it produced the exact same reaction from every single foe Tali faced.

They always went for the drone first.

Switching to her pistol, Tali leaned out of her cover and loosed three shots at the soldiers that had their backs to them while they rounded on her drone. The first shot deflected off of a commando's shields, causing him to stagger forward. The next one caught him in the small of his back with not enough time for the man to react, or for his shields to recharge. Bone popped and blood exploded as the heavy round tore through the man's intestines and out his front. He barely had time to catch his falling guts before he died.

The third round Tali fired had been straight and true. It rocketed through the helmet of a soldier, popping the top of his skull off in a display not unlike the pyrotechnics that Shepard called "fireworks."

While the rest of the troopers now firmly focused their attention on Tali, Liara took advantage of the opportunity to surge out of cover while glowing with biotic energy and unleashed it all in a powerful shockwave. Men bounced off the hard walls like rag dolls, many of them perishing from broken necks. The ones who were still alive were too stunned to react accordingly, allowing for Liara and Tali to quickly dispose of them with single shots to the head. Their bloody work finished for now, the two of them hugged the wall as they refilled their guns with more thermal clips.

"Not much different than all those Cerberus goons we've taken out in the past, huh?" Liara quipped as she checked the status of her submachine gun.

"Frankly, it's almost disappointing," Tali admitted as she waited for all of her tech processes to recharge. "We've done the same thing over and over again and we're not even getting a good challenge out of it."

The two moved to the door that the group of mercenaries had been guarding. They circled in their positions, scanning up high to check if there were any more foes that they had initially missed.

"Did you get through to Shepard?" Liara asked.

"I don't know. I've received no response, which could mean a few things. One is that he's tied down with enemies like we just were, another is that we're being jammed, or that he's…"

"Well," Liara snorted, "he's certainly not dead. A human like that is not going to get taken down so easily by a few makeshift terrorists. I'm sure he's fine."

"Yeah," Tali muttered distantly. "He should be."

Entering into the next area, Tali and Liara lightly stepped over a crack between a cargo tube and the unloading station. They were about to make the swift transition on the other side when, all of a sudden, a force field flared up on both sides, effectively trapping them in the tube.

"Hey!" Tali shouted as she beat her fists on the impenetrable snare.

"What's going on?" Liara asked before she fell over on her side, Tali doing the same, as the tube began to accelerate. Their momentum carried them down to the ground and there they stayed while they were whisked off to an unknown part of the station. The tube seemed to be steadily picking up speed, causing the bone-crushing force to press Liara and Tali down as they raced through the Archives.

Heart in their throats, all they could do was hold on.

Garrus breathed slowly as he shifted the rifle in his position. Lying prone between a rack of cargo tubes, the turian was confident that he was practically invisible to the naked eye, something that is critical for a sniper to accomplish.

Sniping is a job that consists mostly of waiting and to pull off such a job, one has to be incredibly on the patient side. Garrus, right now, was halfway into his comfort zone, only being held back as he knew in the back of his mind, that the stakes this time heavily involved his friends. A mistake on his part could result in disastrous consequences.

Which is why when the next grouping of mercenaries showed up, he made sure to shoot the one bringing up the rear first, downing him with a single shot to the head.

Comically, the rest of the troopers were not paying attention to the direction where the wound was inflicted and proceeded to march back the way they came, their weapons drawn. Almost temped to laugh, Garrus squeezed the trigger to the Black Widow and watched as the new rear guard dropped, also from a head wound.

The remaining two guys now were stuck between two of their dead colleagues. The edged back and forth, unsure of what to do when Garrus' next shot pierced one of their chests. However, that bullet had enough momentum to burst through the man's central cavity and slice through the next one's heart. Surrounded by chunks of their own organs, the two collapsed, bringing a lull over the battlefield once again.

"Shepard," Garrus spoke into the comm. "Have encountered and neutralized enemy resistance. Have you identified the objective?"

There was no answer. Garrus tapped his earpiece but knew it was a lost cause when it came to technology. All he could hear at the moment was static and he knew absolutely jack when it came to telegraphy to make sense of the current situation. Mentally stuck in his position, he scowled and shouldered the rifle once again, waiting for the next patrol to chance upon their dead buddies so that he could dispatch them in the same fashion.

Garrus figured that half an hour would be ample time before he would start to get worried.

A grenade from Shepard effectively downed half the attacking force that spilled from the far side. Limbs flew up in the air as men were blown in half, only remaining alive for a few more seconds thanks to the adrenaline overload in their brains. Nela admirably covered a few of the stragglers with her rifle, keeping it under tight control while the recoil made the gun bounce in her hands.

With their combined level of fire, the mercenaries never stood a chance. Even though their enemies deployed snipers and riot units, they ultimately wilted under the volley of bullets that the two of them provided. One such soldier caught so much of the fire that he seemed to fly apart in a cloud of blood, splattering his cohort with gore. The red-painted solider merely stared at the spot his partner had just occupied seconds before Shepard stepped out and shot him in the neck.

A guttural roar sounded and a final enemy raced from a maze of databanks with a knife in hand. He was too close for Shepard to get off a shot with his rifle, so he dropped it and sidestepped the soldier's wild slash. When the man wheeled to a stop, Shepard caught up with him and grabbed his wrist, the one that held the knife.

He twisted in place and was rewarded with a sickening crack as the man's arm broke. The soldier stared at his maimed limb for a split second and began to shriek in pain soon after. His fingers automatically opened, dropping the knife, but Shepard caught it with his other hand in mid-flight. With a savage surge upward, he thrust the knife through the unarmored chin, sending the blade up into the man's brain. Like a puppet with its strings cut, the mercenary fell.

That was the last of the enemies in the area, allowing the two a moment to breathe. Shepard glanced at Nela, half-expecting her to falter at any moment, but the quarian showed no signs of stopping. Rather, she was getting more and more determined the farther they traveled into this place. There was definitely the spark of a soldier in her and Shepard mused at what else the woman could do while under pressure. She was certainly performing up to and in some cases, even exceeding expectations.

He glanced down at his comm and keyed it but only received static. There were no acknowledgement lights from Tali or anyone else. Frustrated, he rebooted his software only to find that the same problem was plaguing him, but he couldn't do a thing about it at the moment. All he could do was press forward and hope for that light at the end of the tunnel to come about soon.

The next area was just as darkly lit as the last one. Perhaps the Council did not have the budget for proper lighting in this place. Seeing as the war had taken its financial toll on just about everything, this was a possibility that Shepard had to see as being pretty legitimate. He made a note to ask about that later.

The room was separated by a container track, which was unoccupied at the moment. Glancing both ways so that he would be able to see an incoming tube belting in his direction, he hopped over the gap after he determined it was safe. Nela mimicked his movements and also landed gracefully on the other side, bending her knees to take the shock.

Shepard glanced at the hallway beyond, noting a few adjacent rooms parked on the side. "This passage splits off into multiple parts," he noted out loud. "We're going to have to check every single room just to be safe, Nela."

"Can I rest first?" Nela panted. "I've never done this sort of thing before, Admiral. I'm tired."

Shepard's face softened and he lifted his rifle to cover the hallway while he backed up towards the quarian. "Okay, but make it fast. We don't have a lot of time."

"Oh, I know," Nela sighed. "It will be quick. She did tell me that you were more gullible than you let on."

Shepard was in the process of turning around to ask what the hell that meant and who the hell "she" was when electricity zapped through his body, making his skin burn and causing his breath to flow erratically. His hairs stood on end and his nerves twitched helplessly, finally ceasing when the lightning finished circulating throughout him. Exhausted and in pain, his knees buckled and he crashed to the ground, causing the vacuum seals of his helmet to become dislodged and it flew off his head. The bare skin of his face fell heavily onto the metal floor, resulting in his cheek becoming slashed on a hard edge.

A whoosh of air blew at him and a screeching sound assaulted his ears. It sounded like brakes being applied on a train, actually. He tried to focus his blurry eyes to find that the cargo track was no longer unoccupied in front of him. A container tube now sat positioned at the dock, a force field shimming around it.

And, behind the field, a panicked Liara stared helplessly and a horrified Tali screamed at him, begging for him to get up.

"John! Nela, what are you doing?!"

Closing her omni-tool as Shepard lay on the ground, stunned, Nela simply backed away. "My job," she replied firmly. The timid edge that had been in the quarian's voice the whole time was now gone, replaced by a grim finality. "Surely all of you must have thought that this had been going a little too easily, didn't you?"

"Might've crossed my mind," Shepard grimaced as he gingerly dabbed at his cut cheek. His rifle had fallen a few feet away but Nela was standing between him and the weapon, preventing him from grabbing it. "Why do this, Nela? Who are you working for?"

"It's not my place to question orders, but I'll let them tell you in person," Nela said as she stepped aside, allowing a shadow from the hallway to make their presence known. Behind the shadow were the forms of several CAT6 troopers who milled about in a semi-circle formation, surrounding the small dock on all sides, their weapons trained right on Shepard.

But while the troopers remained stationed in place, the shadow continued to move forward. The figure was tall, taller than Shepard by a head. The angular armor that they wore reminded him of a futuristic insect but the coat that they chose to drape around it gave them a villainous quality. The most striking aspect about this person was the silver mask, one that Shepard had never seen before, but as he watched the bottom half split open to form a pair of mandibles and saw each of the four red optics glowing in his direction, there really was no more cause for Shepard to idly speculate. Its purpose was all too familiar.

"No…" Tali said weakly as she came to the same conclusion. She slowly slid to her knees, her hands scraping at the force field as the voice that had haunted her for years took on a tangible form again, constricting her. "No…"

"It's you," Shepard sighed, his armor still smoking from Nela's tech blast. "I thought you would have had the good sense to stay dead back on Anhur."

"And potentially miss out on all the fun?" Grevel laughed, the mask making her voice sound as deep and sinister as the last time they had met. "No, Shepard. I've had the cruel fortune to survive so much that your little stunt with the cable never had a chance at killing me. I suppose that I'm just too stubborn to die outright."

She looked up from the dazed human to glance at her captives encased in the container tube. "And here we have the newest incarnation of the Shadow Broker," she announced loudly as she walked up to Liara. "Quite more diminutive than I expected…and nowhere near as great as your predecessor, unfortunately."

Liara scowled but said nothing, causing Grevel to laugh. "Ah, Liara T'Soni, you're only mad because you never saw me coming. How ironic, to have all of the information in the galaxy at your fingertips yet you couldn't fathom or discover who was behind all this in the first place." She leaned forward, making the asari back away from the field. "Which happened to be a factor that the Broker took care of years ago. Thanks to him, I never existed seven years ago. He deleted my files so that I was off the grid, invisible. I had finally lived up to my namesake, so it seemed."

Now the mandibles parted in a smile as Grevel walked over to Tali, who quickly backed away from the hideous mask. "Oh come now, Tali'Zorah," Grevel chuckled while Shepard continued to groan behind her. "There's no need for fear. What could you possibly reveal to me now that I have no knowledge of after our extended session all those years ago?" She leaned in closer so that she could fixate the quarian with her demonic gaze. "For some reason, I find myself feeling glad to see you again, Tali'Zorah. You might be the first to move on from our little one-on-one that I can recall. Usually the ones stuck in a room with me don't make it out all right. You're certainly doing better for yourself, now that you've finally gotten the human into bed with you, it seems."

Tali was too frightened to come up with a retort, which made Grevel snort in her little victory. Straightening back up, she adjusted her coat as her mandibles clicked in thought. "Now then, Shepard, we all know the reason for why I'm-"

Her sentence was rudely interrupted because Shepard had sprung off the ground and slugged Grevel hard in the face with a right hook. The CAT6 soldiers surrounding them jumped in shock and readied their weapons but Nela waved a hand, ordering to put the guns down. They hesitantly complied as the tiny quarian crossed her arms and smirked from the sidelines.

The punch, despite the power thrown from Shepard, did not seem to have an effect on Grevel because she simply turned her head in surprise, blinked once, and thrust her head forward in a savage headbutt. Cracking his skull against the maimed turian's helmet, Shepard flew back and hit the edge of a console, shattering the screen and causing a set of components to spill of the desk. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead and Shepard saw stars.

"Clever, you taking the initiative," Grevel growled as she grabbed Shepard's collar. With a roar, she effortlessly tossed Shepard to the ground, making him bounce in his heavy armor. "But it won't be enough to save you this time."

When Grevel stepped into Shepard's reach, he didn't move to hit her again. Rather, he slid his combat knife out of his sheath and swung it downward for it to impact directly on Grevel's thigh. But, to his surprise, the knife bounced right off with a scraping noise, not even penetrating the cloth covering that lay draped over the turian's bowed legs. No blood glistened off the legs, not even showing a hint that he had stabbed anything at all.

Shepard looked up at Grevel in shock and she shrugged at his confusion. She then quickly raised her foot and kicked Shepard hard in the chin, laying him flat on his back.

"Prosthetics, Shepard," Grevel grinned, not even worked up to a pant yet. "A direct result of you tying that tow cable about me. Although, if it weren't for your actions earlier, that would have been a wound that definitely would have killed me."

"My…what?" Shepard said around a mouthful of blood.

Grevel, with a slender finger, pointed at a spot on her covered neck. The way she indicated it and the motions she made quickly raised the memory back up for Shepard. "The thorn, remember?" Grevel said. "You stabbed me in the neck with a red nashi thorn just before you sent me over that cliff. The nashi toxin has properties of hallucinogens and paralysis, but it also has a quality that I doubt you were aware of."

She stood over the human, rigid, as she watched him look at her in interest. "The toxin contains a chemical called tranexamic acid. It is an antifibrinolytic that is used in several medicines today, mostly for the purposes of blood clotting." Shepard's eyes widened in horror as Grevel laughed. "Your actions, despite them trying to result in my death, slowed my heart rate and inadvertently prevented me from bleeding out, which gave me enough time to recover from my injuries. So, in a way, I feel indebted to you for not killing me when you had the chance."

The mandibles retreated back into the mask, making her gaze hard as diamond. "That doesn't mean that I'm going to thank you," she said coldly.

Shepard saw Tali's panicked look through the force field and he felt his heart start to rise in fear. Clutching the knife tightly, he leaped to his feet once more and advanced on the turian, his arms out in front.

Grevel, in amusement, did not draw a weapon. Rather, she stood her ground, watching Shepard advance cautiously. "Come on, Shepard," she taunted. "Show me what the Savior of the Galaxy can do. Show me that you can give me the fight of your fucking life!"

Shepard stutter-stepped for a fleeting moment, time slowing down as he panted, before he lunged with the knife, scything it in an arc that meant to slash at Grevel's neck. He felt every bruise on his body, every strained muscle, but he made it his mission to fight through all that. As tall as she was, Grevel ducked the blow almost lazily and planted a fist hard on Shepard's side. The armor dented slightly and Shepard grunted but did not fall, instead choosing to rush the turian head-on in a brazen charge.

Positioning her body to the side, Grevel took all three hundred fifty pounds of the fully armored human in the charge, grasping her hands around the knife as he struggled to stick her with it. With a wrench, she twisted Shepard's wrist at a painful angle, causing him to drop it. Grevel kicked the knife away.

With a spark of light, Shepard broke free of Grevel's hold and engaged the electrodes on his gauntlets, watching them flare up with electricity. The bolts were reflected upon the diodes in Grevel's helmet, watching impassively as they danced before her eyes. Clenching his fists, Shepard yelled as he started swinging wildly, his form becoming sloppier and sloppier the more he continued. Grevel dodged each punch, staying well away from the electrified gauntlets. Shepard was slowly tiring as he proceeded to launch blow after blow and he was scared. He continued to fight with all of his strength, knowing that he had to end this battle before things got any worse. He couldn't let Grevel leave this room alive!

Grevel had no such worries. For her, all she had to do was wait until Shepard used up all his energy.

She stepped to the side after a wild swing from Shepard forced her to move to the left. Shepard had no control over the momentum in his blow and he couldn't stop his fist from plowing into a solid beam in the middle of the room. He roared from the pain on his knuckles and Grevel seized the moment that his lapse provided.

Grasping her powerful hands upon Shepard's wrists, she squeezed hard until she could feel the metal start to bend. The locks morphed out of place and she ripped the armor, gauntlets and gloves both, off of Shepard and threw them to the side in a crumpled heap. Frantically, Shepard started to pummel Grevel with his bare fists but her dulled nerve endings plus the lack of power that his unarmored blows provided were akin to shooting a rifle at a heavy cruiser in an attempt to slow it down. She just stood and took the punches, the hits only registering as dull vibrations.

Shepard winced as his knuckles were torn open from the sharp edges on Grevel's armor. His hands were slick with blood and every blow felt like he was punching fire. But he couldn't stop here, he had to kill this bastard right here! He had to kill Grevel now, before she could hurt more people. Before she could hurt Tali.

Calling on all of his strength, Shepard willed his fist to move as fast as it was physically possible. He envisioned a blur, streaking through the air to land upon Grevel's helmet and knock it off, along with that smug smile that she was no doubt exhibiting right now. All he needed to do was hold out. He had to!

But Grevel, operating on fresher reflexes, calmly raised her hand and caught the blow out of the air before it even had a chance to land. Her powerful muscles stopped the punch clean in its tracks, her strength still immense after all these years. With a dry snort, she squeezed Shepard's clenched fist hard. A popping noise sounded as Shepard's finger bones shattered and he fell to his knees in an effort to escape the blinding pain.

Liara and Tali beat on the field powerlessly, delegated to being simple bystanders. Tali felt like every blow on Shepard was being done unto her tenfold. Her chest heart, her breathing rasped, and she felt faint.

Grevel used her powerful leg to kick Shepard onto his back, knocking the wind out of him. He drew his maimed hand to his chest as he wheezed, his other gravitating to his stomach.

"Pathetic, Shepard," Grevel shook her head. "I had been expecting a decent effort from you, but after three years of a sedentary lifestyle, I guess I was overestimating your capabilities quite a bit. Still, it's a disappointment."

Quickly raising her foot back up, Grevel brutally slammed it down while Shepard rolled on the floor. The heel of her boot impacted precisely on Shepard's kneecap, and there was a horrific SNAP! as Shepard's leg bent backwards, a spurt of blood bursting out as a shard of bone poked its way through his skin and bodysuit. Tali and Shepard screamed at the same time, him from the pain, and her from the shock.

"That doesn't nearly make us even," Grevel growled as Shepard became delirious from the agony, his head lolling from side to side as his broken leg felt like it had been doused in acid. She motioned to the soldiers and two of them came forward to take him away, letting his feet drag on the floor as they carried him out.

"JOHN!" Tali shrieked, shaking with a coursing fear. "JOOOOHN!"

Shepard raised his head weakly, sweat pouring down his face. "Ta…li…" he croaked out weakly before a door shut behind him, cutting him off for good.

"NO!" Tali yelled as she punched the force field. "NO! NO! NO!" She flung herself at the barrier, beating on it helplessly. "You bastard! You bosh'tet! You hurt John, you piece of-"

"I crippled him is what I did, Tali'Zorah," Grevel said lightly as she adjusted her coat, Nela shuffling forward after all the soldiers had left. "I haven't killed him outright. Not yet at least. Still, I'd imagine that this situation is somewhat familiar, you and Shepard being shuttled off after damage has been inflicted on the other. It gives off a strong sense of déjà vu. The only difference this time is that your involvement ends right here." She shunted a thumb behind her. "Your human is the one I want, not you."

"Why?" Tali moaned. "Why do this to us…to me?"

"Simply to tie up loose ends. I wasn't about to forgive and forget the man who so thoroughly humiliated me by leaving me for dead. Forgiveness, Tali'Zorah, is not one of my strong suits. However, I was convinced by my employer that you two had a bigger part to play in the grand scheme of things and summarily convinced me to hang back until the Reaper threat had vanished. Even so, it was challenging to coordinate this aspect of my plan with your separate schedules. It took years of waiting to ensure that you two would fatefully meet on this station again, and in doing so, I led you here, to this place."

"You mean use Nela?" Tali asked before she rounded on the other quarian, hoping that her eyes blazed a hole through the other woman's visor, causing her to succumb to an illness and die on the spot. "You…traitor!" she hissed. "You're a disgrace to your fleet, your family, your entire birth ship! You bosh'tet!"

"That may be true," Nela shrugged, "if I actually had a fleet, a family, or a birth ship that even knew of my existence."

Nonplussed, Tali and Liara glanced at the other while Grevel laughed. "Nela…is different. She's the entire reason why we're here, Tali'Zorah. The Archives provided the perfect venue for our private meeting. Isolated camera systems, few guards, just a big empty void for us to reside in. And Nela's the one who got us access to the Archives in the first place."

"How?" Liara spoke for the first time. "The…the Archives can only be accessed by Council members and Spectres. There's simply no way that a quarian like Nela could possibly access the most secure location on the Citadel!"

"You have a good point. But are you familiar with Article 5, Section 8, Clause 2 of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Charter?" The asari was silent, so Grevel continued. "In that specified paragraph, it details that Spectres can designate one person to be their recipient of their belongings in case they die out in the field. This person can also be specified to have access to Spectre privileges even when the Spectre in question is still perfectly alive and well. Admiral Jonathan Shepard, as he signed it, selected this response some time ago and indicated his recipient clearly in the document that he presented to the Council. All on public record, of course."

Grevel now pointed at Tali, who unconsciously gestured to herself. "You were the one he selected," Grevel said.

"M-Me?" Tali gasped in astonishment.

"Naturally, and this was quite a blessing for me given the circumstances. You see, to access the Archives, you need to provide a handprint. This is required of all species, with the exception of one: quarians. As they cannot remove a portion of their suit without risking themselves to deadly diseases, the security procedures were amended to only require blood samples from quarians instead of handprints. It was deemed that it would be less intrusive and risky that way." Grevel casually turned her head to and fro between the asari and quarian, noting each and every reaction they betrayed.

"But…" Liara mused. "That still doesn't make any sense. How would you be able to get a sample of Tali's blood in the first place?"

"That's right," Tali added, scouring her mind for any possibilities. "I'm…I'm not registered in any hospitals on the Citadel and you couldn't have stolen any samples from the Fleet…"

"But I did take a blood sample from you back on Anhur, remember?" Grevel smiled, her mandibles clacking in glee. "Of course, your mind was rambling at the moment so I can understand your temporary amnesia of the situation. But, you should note, that that blood sample was used for something else, something the Broker began without my knowledge after Anhur. In short, he presented me with Nela, and now we find ourselves here."

"What does Nela have to do with this anyway?" Tali inquired, watching the other quarian slowly step up to Grevel's side.

"You see, Nela isn't this quarian's real name," Grevel nodded in her direction. "It was an in-joke that I used, knowing that none of you would catch it. Nela'Tiloc is an anagram, a temporary name that I had her use to gain your trust. Apparently the ploy worked to perfection, judging by your presence before me."

"An anagram? An anagram of what?"

Grevel tipped her head up in mock thought. "Well, it comprises two words, actually. You have a T, an A, an L, and an I embedded in there. I'd wager that it would be a simple task to decipher what the other five could spell out."

That caused Liara's head to jolt upward as she realized, as did Tali, what those little letters meant to them. "Oh…goddess…" Liara gasped.

"K-Keelah…no…" Tali stammered as she glanced at Nela with horror.

The quarian not named Nela touched a control at the base of her helmet. The little light at her vocabulator flashed red for a split second before it cooled to the deep violet again.

"You really shouldn't be too trusting, Tali'Zorah," the quarian spoke, but her voice had changed dramatically. Instead of the higher pitch that had initially been associated with her, it had now dropped slightly, but enough to indicate that there was a change at all. The voice bounced off of Tali in shock as she heard her own voice utter those words, but it was not her mouth from which they came.

The grey draped clone of Tali laughed at their astonishment, her head tilting up while Grevel also chuckled. "Now you know why I no longer have any use for you, Tali'Zorah, when you've been in the palm of my hand for years!"

Tali's words came out in an unintelligible squeak, which provided a final source of amusement for Grevel as she moved to the controls for the container tube. "Unfortunately, since you were unable to be deprived of weapons before you were trapped inside the tube, I'm afraid that I'll be at a disadvantage if I lower the field to kill the both of you. However, these things are impenetrable to gunfire, biotics, and tech assaults so I'd think that you're going to have a tough time getting out. In any case, I have a schedule to adhere to and you'll only delay it. I'll be sure to give Shepard your final regards, Tali'Zorah. We'll be having a fun time without you."

"I'll be sure to make him more comfortable in his final moments," the clone added nastily, Tali's voice sounding sultrier through the other's vocabulator.

"No!" Tali screamed, eyes frantically rushing from Grevel to her own clone. "Don't-!"

With a simple tap, the container tube slid shut and bolted down the rails to one of the stacks lining the walls. With a cranking of gears, the entire structure groaned as the tube slid in to be camouflaged amongst the rest of the containers. Eventually, the mechanisms quieted, and the Archives fell silent once more.

The tube muffled the screaming from the individuals trapped inside, ensuring that the surrounding area remained a perfectly noiseless void.

A/N: Nela'Tiloc (AKA: C-L-O-N-E T-A-L-I) was always intended to take the position of Brooks from the Citadel DLC, which was a giveaway that she was not going to be a good person from the start. It was the circumstances surrounding her that I wanted to be a surprise which was why I included her in there anyway.

This will be the last chapter that is loosely based on the Citadel DLC from here on out. All of the future conversations and battles will be purely original. The DLC was simply used to bring up the setting and what not, so don't expect predictability in the future.

As for what's in store, I'm sure you'll like what I have planned.