Author's Note: So, Noveria at last! Only two new Shepards this time around, Noveria is taking longer to write than I thought it would, I haven't even gotten them outside yet! Still, I hope you'll enjoy the two newcomers. Reviews are always appreciated!

Angela decided she'd spent enough time running around doing errands. Sure, stopping biotic terrorists and crime syndicate leaders was important and everything, and her lead on Noveria probably wasn't going anywhere, but really, enough was enough. An impartial outside observer, if they could read her thoughts, probably would find it amusing that it took a fight between Havok, Polarity, and Charles, over what constituted "proper" food, to bring her to this decision.

Angela had actively avoided the last handful of ground missions, sending down two or three Shepards at a time, pairing them off with her non-human crew to take down some geth outposts. It had been time well spent; she got to learn more about the Shepards who stayed, the aliens got time integrating themselves into the crowd of Shepards, and Tali got some brand new encrypted geth data to take home. Plus, loads of salvage and weapons the quartermaster was struggling to fit in, which was yet another reason to stop and Noveria.

"A mouse is only the size of my hoof," Polarity said, loudly enough to break into Angela's train of thought. "How the heck can you feed four people on one?"

"In your world, maybe. Grandmother still owns a mouse farm, grows them the size of Wrex's hump," Havok interjected before tearing off a mouthful of chicken. "Tastes kind of like this 'chicken' only more salty."

"You should have brought a couple with you," the krogan rumbled from the next table over. "I'm willing to try just about anything."

"Anything?" Garrus asked skeptically.

"I've heard that krogan are the only people capable of eating turian cuisine," Eric said, "though they don't get anything but a bellyache out of it."

"Turian food tastes like crap, compared to asari food, but it's still better than the mainstay of Tuchankan food."

"I'm afraid to ask, but I'm going to anyway," Lilitu muttered. "What mainstay?"

The krogan stuffed a whole biscuit in his mouth and swallowed it. "Still-breathing varren."

"Alright, enough!" Angela said, pressing her palms to her eyes. She could still hear the click of credit chits being exchanged along with Deirdre's mocking giggle. "We're heading for Noveria. Everyone gear up and be ready."

"Everyone?" Oksana asked.

"Are you deaf, Ruskie?" Jared murmured through a mocking grin. "Of course all of us. One Shepard, they might stall. All of us, with our alien cohort as backup?"

"Just … get everyone ready. Bradley, come up to CIC when we're good to go," she snarled, dumping the tray into the sterilizer and dodging around Polarity to get to the stairs.

The CIC, lacking a dozen plus Shepards, was comparatively quiet, and she stepped up to the galaxy map with a sense of relief. She couldn't even retreat to her quarters, seeing as it now housed Deirdre, Flora, Gina, and Inara. She was damn tempted to swap out Gina if the French tart didn't quit moaning so damn loudly while "meditating."

"Pressly, Joker, take us to Noveria," she ordered, "fastest possible speed."

"Aye aye," the navigator responded, and they headed for the nearest relay.

They arrived on Noveria in short order, and she marched out at the head of a 22 person group. Angela led, flanked by Jared and Charles, with Wrex at her back, and everyone else straggling behind her. Despite no deliberate formation, everyone had quite nearly banded together in groups of four or five, and it amused her to look back to see Liara and Garrus flanking Williams with Havok and Neville cheerfully chattering away at the rear of their mob.

At the doors, the four security guards looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, but Noveria policy states clearly that you're all going to have to surrender your weapons before we can allow you entry."

"You're going to use a syringe and take all the eezo out of my body?" Jared asked, deceptively calm as he played with a ball of biotic energy.

"Huh?" the blond sidekick asked.

"Exactly. Angela, are we going to take this from them?" the adept responded blandly, fixing her with a stare. Behind Angela came the distinct sounds of multiple weapons being charged for combat, and one of the security guards let out a small whimper.

"Stand down, stand down! For the love of money, don't start a firefight!" came a desperate voice over an intercom, echoing through the security guards' omin-tools. "Council Spectres are authorized to carry weapons. Um, which one of you is the Spectre?"

Sixteen mouths grinned (the unicorn was a little hard to tell) and sixteen voices said in unison, "I'm Commander Shepard." The air seemed to ripple out from them like a shockwave at the force of the declaration, and only the asian woman before them did not flinch.

There were several moments of silence, before the intercom voice spoke again. "Matsuo, maybe I should speak to them inside." With an obviously feigned show of reluctance, the security guards stopped barring their way, and let them inside.

Up a short flight of stairs, behind some weapon scanners that went berserk, was a secretary in a pink dress. "Commander … Shepard?" she asked hesitantly, only to be put off as all sixteen of them nodded. "Gianna Parasini, assistant to Administrator Anoleis. He'd like to speak to you as quickly as possible about your business here on Noveria."

"Some of us will be around to talk to him," Angela assured her. "Unless you think I need the whole effect?"

"No, no, more than a handful of you would probably make his heart explode." Parasini held up her hands defensively, then lowered them. "On second thought, maybe you should."

"I like her," Kohana said as they moved into the facility at large.

"Can we get back outside where it's comfortable?" Eric asked, making several other Shepards glare at him.

"Alright, listen up," Angela said loudly. "Bradley, Eric, Inara, Wrex, you're with me, we'll talk to Anoleis. Neville, take Alenko and Williams, Deirdre, Flora, and Havok, and do some shopping. Charles, take Gina, Liara, Kohana, and Lilitu, and see if you can pick up any rumors at the bar down that way. Jared, take everyone else and scout our transportation options." They split up, and Angela led her group towards the office of whichever pretentious asshole ran the place.

Anoleis was a salarian, so he looked like Wrex and Eric could probably tear him in half bare-handed. (Actually, as she thought about it, they probably could.) "I'm not amused by practical jokes, Commander," he groused. "Your little stunt out in the docking bay was well rehearsed. State your business so I can get back to mine."

They all tried to talk their way past his obstructionism, to no avail, even when Eric actually did offer to see if his arms were detachable. Feeling rather annoyed after twenty minutes of pointless debate, they moved to the outer office. "Tell me why I can't go back there and play 'Pin the knife on the salarian,'" Eric complained.

Angela sighed as Wrex started nodding along. "Because we are supposed to be more than a thug with a license to do anything for the Council."

"I find myself in rare agreement with Eric," Inara said quietly, pulsing her own biotics.

"I can offer you another option," Parasini said quietly, gulping as all four Shepards fixed her with the same gaze.

"Please, explain," Bradley said eagerly. "I'd rather not tear his arms off, but we can't have ourselves impeded."

"Anoleis is crooked, he's been embezzling more than is acceptable. There's a turian in the bar with evidence to convict him," Parasini said quickly. "If you get the evidence, I'll get you a garage pass."

"Done," Angela said quickly. As they left the office, she activated her omni-tool and called Charles, explaining the situation.

"Yeah, we noticed him," the soldier responded. "Seemed quite depressed. I think maybe we can help cheer him up."

"Let me know," she said, turning it off and turning to Neville's approaching group. The Englishman looked annoyed, while the two women Shepards looked fairly happy. "What's wrong with you?"

"These two," he pointed at Deirdre and Flora, "decided to take up smuggling."

"We were well paid for it," the redhead protested, "better us than someone else."

"Quite shameful," Havok protested.

"Gah, whatever. We have to get some evidence, so we can get a garage pass and head out to the labs where Benezia went," Angela informed them. "Let's head over towards the garage."

They met up with the garage and the bar teams, quickly laying out the security on the vehicles and the rent-a-thugs trashing Lorik's office. "We could always just kill the security guard," Oksana suggested. "There's only the one." Several Shepards turned to glare at her while a few others nodded thoughtfully. "It's just a thought."

"Look, there's twenty three of us, I think we can take whoever's up in that office, collect the evidence, and go on our way fairly quickly." There was a pause, then a quick check around before Gina, Deirdre, and Oksana all moved at the same moment to try and engrave the new Shepard.

"No reaction? No 'who are all these people'?" Charles asked in disappointment.

"Commander Quistis Shepard," the newcomer said, "and I kind of figured that as long as you're all with Liara, you must be ok. Right sweetie?"

"Sweetie?" the asari asked in confusion. "Have you confused me for someone else?"

The new redhead draped one arm across Liara's shoulders, causing a quick blush and a faint look of panic to rise on her face. "After all those times I came down to med bay to talk to you, all forgotten so quickly?"

"AHEM," Angela spat out. "We have a mission? Can we please keep the flirting and the touching to a professional level right now?" Blocked by Eric's body, she didn't see Gina and Jared separate hands. "The office is this way, right?"

Still muttering, she checked her pistol as they moved forward, only to be balked by the incredibly tiny elevator. "For crying out loud," she complained. "Fine, Charles, Quistis, Jared, Neville, Williams – first load. Eric, Wrex, Havok, Polarity, next. Everyone else, as you can fit." The first six crowded into the elevator, taking the mercifully short ride up two stories to the office.

They emerged into a short hallway, blocked by two security guards. "This office is secured! Get the hell out of here!"

Charles stepped forward, his assault rifle lined up perfectly on the guard's head. "You seem a decent fellow," he said calmly. "I'd hate to kill you."

Jared stepped up to flank him, the ball of biotic energy growing larger as he tossed it from one hand to the other. "I, on the other hand, am perfectly fine with killing you."

"One way or another, you're getting the hell out of our way," Angela said, prepping an overload.

"Oh shit," one guard said simply, the other forgoing words for simply wetting himself, and they took off at a run towards somewhere in the back of the offices.

"I do believe it's time to, as you Americans say, rock and roll," Neville said, calmly sending a guard tumbling towards the ceiling as the woman emerged from a back room. They fanned out into the main room, backed up a few seconds later by the second elevator load of Shepards (and Wrex). In about three minutes, the whole office was only occupied by Shepards, their team, and a dozen cooling corpses.

They split up, searching the various rooms, and ignoring the four guards who'd managed to barricade themselves in the janitor's closet, except for Eric who made a point of lifting one of the large potted plants and blocking their exit just in case they had a sudden loss of common sense. "I think it's in here," Tali called from a room on the second floor. "It'll take a few minutes to break the encryption."

"I thought he gave us a disk for that?" Inara pondered.

"Personally, I'd rather have Tali crack it," Lilitu said, "just so that we have our own copy."

By the time they finished, everyone had gathered in the office, trading around their latest haul of new weapons and mods. "Isn't Lorik going to ask us for all of this back?" Bradley said.

"All of what back?" Polarity said, making her new pistol disappear into its holster on one shoulder. Bradley responded with a facepalm.

"Let's get out of here," Angela ordered, "and turn this evidence over. We need to catch Benezia before she does whatever Saren has planned." They turned to walk out of the office, only to be confronted by the blond bimbo and four guards as backup. Angela looked at them, then pointedly over her shoulder at the rest of the Shepard Squad, then back at them. "Tell me you're not really this stupid."

"You know what we do to cop killers around here?" she replied, readying her shotgun.

"ERROR: You are not police officers," a synthesized voice came from behind them, causing two of the guards to whirl around in shock. "You are just another group of stupid meatbags."

Whoever the new speaker was, he proceeded to sabotage all of their weapons, while Angela overloaded their shields, and sniper shots from Deirdre, Lilitu, Oksana, and Polarity took out the four guards. Havok shot forward in a blur, snapping the kneecap of the blond before calmly ripping her throat out with biotically-enhanced talons.

"Please identify yourselves," the synthetic person spoke, now pointing a pistol at them. "Williams, Alenko, assist in restraining the unidentified personnel."

"Allah on a pogo stick," Marid said, "it's a robot Shepard."

"Affirmative. Remote Oversight Bodyguard Operative, designation Commander ROBO Shepard. Identify yourselves."

Seventeen of them grinned, and spoke. "I'm Commander Shepard," they said, and the robot regarded them all unblinking.

"ERROR: This statement is illogical. This unit is Commander Shepard," it said, voice reflecting puzzlement, though the facial expression remained the same.

Angela stepped forward, putting her weapons away. "It's true. I'm Angela Shepard, and everyone else has come into my universe. You're just the latest. Can you wrap your programming around that?"

"This unit was designed personally to be the most flexible synthetic operative Heterodyne Industries has created. Do you still serve the Alliance and the Council?" She nodded. "Then I will add you to my reference and analysis queue for consultation."

"I thought a pony was bad," Williams moaned quietly to Alenko as they moved back towards the elevator, "but now we've got the next best thing to a geth siding with us."

"Saren's not going to know what hit him," Wrex gloated from beside her.