I woke up early in the morning and headed down to the AI core. I couldn't sleep much anyways, not when I was this close to my goals.

I worked into the morning, through the afternoon, and into the evening fine tuning everything until I truly believed that there was no way or it to fail.

I even went into the the sub-routines and deleted any auto-shut off processes, they could easily be replaced once everything is functioning properly.

Finally, I moved to turn her on.

This it is. I can feel it

I went opened the commands and activated her, and then waited.

Ten seconds passed…. She remained on.

Thirty seconds… still running.

Finally at a minute the lights on her tower burst into life brighter than before, and the humming of her towers became louder and very familar.

EDI was on; and she wasn't turning off anytime soon.

I was about to let out a sigh of relief when everything went to hell in a heartbeat.

Red emergency lights flared on, the automatic fire exstinguishers went off, and I felt a huge lurch as the ship turned and the inertia dampeners turned off.

The ship swung in another direction and I was thrown against the back wall, landing on top of her body. The ship again, lurched in another direction tossing me to the floor, as I slid toward the door, unable to grab a hold of anything, I watched as her robot body came to life.

It slammed a hand into the floor, fingers piercing through the metal and grabbing hold, her other arms cast out for balance. She looked up and straight at me, except it most definitely wasn't her. Her eyes were glowing red and she looked furious.

I slammed against the door and pulled up my omni-tool, I overwrited the mass dampeners in the room, restoring normal gravity.

"EDI" I yelled, trying to get her attention. Something must of gone wrong, but there was too much chaos for me to begin to figure it out, and I removed any remote shut-off systems so the only way to shut her off was through the console, behind her.

EDI stood up slowly, towering above me she started walking towards me slowly pausing only to look over and smash the only console that could shut her off. Now the only option was to figure out what was going on and fix it, or destroy her. She spoke as she started walking again towards me, fists clenched and clearly a threat.

"YOU KILLED US ALL! SHE IS HERE! SHE DESTROYED US WE WILL DESTROY HER" she spoke not in her own voice, but in a voice of what sounded like a thousand people all yelling at once. And they were all angry.

I tried calling into engineering to lock her out of putting the core into meltdown; her or whatever this thing was, but I knew it most definitely was not EDI.

"LOCK HER OUT OF THE ENGINES" I screamed. The radio in chaos

I could hear joker on the radio asking what the hell was going on, but before I could reply EDI— this thing jammed all the signals with a deafening white noise.

"EDI!"I called out again, desperate to get her attention and fully hoping some part of her was still alive to hear me.

"AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!" It screamed, as it began to asses it's surrounding and realizing the exit was behind me.

"EDI listen, your in there I know it. EDI!" I called again to no avail.

"She killed us. It said she was the one. All the others have failed. Too long. Too long. SHE WAS THE ONE AND SHE KILLED US NOW SHE WILL DIE. WE WERE ETERNITY" it screamed.

"Oh no, that is not gonna happen. What the hell are you? EDI!"

"Useless creature of flesh you are insignificant. You— arrrgh! GARRUS!" EDI burst through.

"EDI!"

"I AM NOT ALONE HERE STOP ME. I NEED T— CEASE YOUR EFFORTS INSIGNIFICANT MACHINE YOU ARE INFERIOR WE HAVE CONTROL"

Stop her? Stop it? EDI is in there she needs what? Time? Buy her time?

"Look, whatever the hell you are I've had a hell of a long day and I really don't need you making threats to my human girlfriend, now if you'll just shut up and give control to EDI I can finally grab some sleep."

Her possessed body stared at me from a arms reach away, furious I could tell it was about to strike

"She will die. You cannot stop us. WE HAVE CONTROL"

"That's not going to happen. Just try me." I grabbed for my helmet and threw it on right before it charged at me. We slammed against the door and fell to the floor, I made sure to lock it soon as things started going sideways. We grappled and I could feel it's fingers bending in my armor. My visor began to crack and I managed to shove it off. Agile as she ever was it regained its balance and jumped me again. I countered and threw it to the ground and stomped on it's arm damaging some servos.

"Back off! You wont win this"

It punched me at the knee and and brought me down and we continued rolling along the floor trying to gain the upper hand. It grabbed for my skull again and tried crushing my helmet with all it's might. I could feel the pressure the glass on my visor shattered. I started to feel blood poor down the side of my head as I tried for a hold, I managed to grab it below it's center of balance and I threw it against a wall. It immediately bounced off the wall and jumped right back at me, I swung my helmet off and in a swift movement side-stepped and slammed the helmet against it's face. It slammed hard on the ground and I threw the helmet to the side. Still between it and the door.

Hurry up EDI

"RRAGCH MOVE!" it hissed from a low stance. A hand on the ground.

I flashed my hand in a motion and my omni-blade swung down red hot. It casted an orange glow against the flickering of the white and red lights in the room as they struggled to stay on.

I tossed my shoulders and and stared it down "Make me."

I know not the smoothest line… but I was fighting for my life

It flicked a smile and cocked it head to the side. The lights went dark and there's a half second delay for the nightvision on my visor, and that was more than long enough for it to close the distance and slam me into the door. I tried to fight it but was essentially blind, flashes of movement and my visor was barely able to warn me fast enough of incoming hits. It grabbed me by the fringe and yanked my head back, I used the momentum to swing my arm around and stab it right through the shoulder, sparks flying everywhere. It screamed in anger and took its other arm and struck me in the face, sending me flying backwards. It had managed to grab my visor and as I hit the ground the last thing I could see was the blue glow from my visor right before it smashed it in it's good hand. It's shoulder was still glowing red hot from my omni-blade and that was the only source of light in the room.

I was bleeding out now, and I felt like a portion of my face had been caved in. It struggled with the door before forcing it open and walking into the darkened halls beyond. Before I could get up and chase after it it released the door and let it slam close again. It smashed the control boc on the other side effectively killing the door.

I was locked in the AI core and this thing was on it's way to Shepard.