Mass Anomalies

by Jamezy

I try to live a normal life. I have simple pleasures, I love playing video games and reading fanfics. So you can imagine my excitement when I am sucked into the Mass Effect universe, but of course it's short lived. Now I am stuck in a bad position with some new "friends" I can't seem to get rid of. Now I have to prepare for the coming war. Rated T for Language and violence.

23. You Reek Of Teen Spirit

A/N: Hey guys, what's going on? This update was late eh? Well that's because it's the longest chapter I've had to write, it's about 16k words. Tell me if you think this is too long, I was going to split it up but I really don't want to split up a main mission. Also I noticed that the amount of reviews are going down each chapter, don't be afraid to review guys! I love hearing from you and writing back in the R/R, don't be afraid to criticize, ask questions, make suggestions, make predictions, or just say that you like it. I do read every single review (and respond to it) and I even check out your profiles when you follow or favorite. Now that's that out of the way, here is some story.

Chapter 23
-You Reek Of Teen Spirit-

Everyone makes their way off the ship into the battle scarred ruins of Feros, the incomplete building looked as bad as it is without plasma scorches everywhere. I'm the last off the ship and the rest of the squad moves ahead towards the lone figure waiting at the end of the platform, Shepard makes a b-line towards him and I can already hear him making demands to see Fai Dan.

The next thing I know, a rocket screams towards the man, but he gets pushed out of the way by Art. The rocket sails over everyone's heads as we all dive down to the ground, the rocket impacting the far wall with enough force to shake the platform and knock concrete loose. By the time I get back to my feet the geth that fired the rocket is strewn on the ground littered with holes, and the unstoppable force of Shepard's entire squad is rolling through the rest of the geth.

My rifle clicks to its full length as I bring it to bear on the geth still tucked away in the stairwell, letting out small bursts of suppressing fire as I sidestep down the platform. I don't really need to though, the whole entrance to the stairwell is a swarm of bullets. One of the geth hiding behind the door way peaks out and is caught by a few rounds, knocking it further out of cover and to its quick death.

Shepard raised her hand back at us and the gunfire cuts off instantly, everyone shuffles towards the door and we form a makeshift firing line, guns at the ready. Shepard turns and looks at us for a second before her hand points to Wrex and me with a quick flick and then back to the stairwell. "Clear the hole." She orders as she nods for us to move on the door.

Without asking why she chose me to go with Wrex, I start to walk towards the door alongside the krogan, holstering my Lancer and drawing my Katana. If I'm going into this geth infested staircase I'm sure as hell using a gun I don't have to aim, so I take the shotgun in my right hand and a ball of biotics envelops my left as I walk off to get shot.

Wrex goes through the door first, letting loose a blast that cues an electronic wail. I take a long stride into the stairwell and immediately spy a geth peering from around a pillar, it tries to raise its weapon but I'm already pulling the trigger. My Katana jolts in my hand sending a swarm of pellets through the geth's shields, forcing it onto its back with a digitized cry. The next shot quiets the synthetic down and I start to scan for more of them, I don't see any though so I lean out into the doorway and wave for everyone to follow.

We all make our way to the colonists, moving in a giant group that takes out geth stragglers quickly and efficiently. The walk to the colony isn't far, not even a minute from the stairwell and when we get there we are greeted with by the barrel of a rifle. Granted, they thought geth were on the other side of the door but it's still incredibly unnerving to have a gun pointed at you.

"Go talk to Fai Dan." The woman says as we pass. "He's on the other side of Zhu's Hope."

"Thanks." Shepard nods as she jogs towards the building in between Fai Dan and us.

Everyone follows Shepard like baby ducks, not really knowing where we are going but as long as Shepard's going there we will follow her. Jesus that's a frightening thought, I bet Shepard could jog casually into a burning building and we would all just trot along after her. But I think I'd be right there with her and the crew, burning up like a bunch of jackasses.

We all break off from Shepard as she talks to Fai Dan, people splitting off into their usual groups. Ash and Dylan, Ian and Garrus, Art and Tali, so on and so forth. Alex walks up to me and leans on a barricade, setting his rifle down at his feet.

"This place is pretty fucked up." He says as he looks at the colony that's more debris then a home, bits of rubble and battle scars strewn about.

"Yeah." I nod, setting down my own weapon. "The geth made a mess of this place, I'm impressed the people here lasted as long as they have."

"If they held off the geth this long they're some tough bastards."

"Maybe the geth are too busy doing whatever it is they're doing to wipe this place out." I say as I look at the tower hanging overhead. Alex sees me looking at the tower and looks up too, we both gawk at the impossibly high skyscraper.

"I bet they have a lot of stuff in there." Alex thinks aloud. "Company secrets and all of that juicy shit, probably right on the top floor."

"Yeah." I mutter as I stare at the tower. "Company secrets, probably some new tech or experimental research. Just sitting up there, ripe for the taking…"

"You ok?" Alex asks, hearing the mischief in my voice. "You're going supervillain on me."

"Yup." I chirp as I push off the barricade, scooping up my shotgun. "I gotta make a call." I say as I walk away from Alex.

I flip through the contacts on my Omni-tool and find Saylems name, I hit call and wait a few moments for Saylem to answer, eventually his blank face pops up in my wrist.

"Hey Saylem, what's going on man?"

"-Hello.-" Saylem says finally, not knowing how to answer 'what's going on'.

"I'm at the ExoGeni headquarters right now, the geth have demoed most of this place but I figured you might want some stuff while I'm here." I explain. "You interested?"

Saylem pauses to ponder my offer for a moment before answering. "-Yes.-"

"Ok." I nod. "I just need to take it off their computers, I'd probably have to hack through firewalls or something… can you teach me how to hack?" I ask, realizing that the ExoGeni computer probably have a password at the least.

Saylem blinks at me like I'm stupid, sighing at my lack of future computer knowledge. "-Not now, download this program and run it through the mainframe.-" he explains. "-Then send me the files.-"

"I can do that." I assure him. "Anything I should know about this? Do's and don'ts?"

"-No, the download should only take eight seconds.-"

"Ok Saylem, you can count on me man." I smirk. "By the way, I have a design for something that I want you to look at, I'll send you the file right now."

"-I can fix it.-" Saylem blinks, his finger activating the file and swiping through the designs.

"It doesn't need fixing." I snort. "I just wanted you to take a look at it, add something if it needs it."

Saylems eyes dart around on screen, I assume he's looking over my design. " -I can fix this.-" he nods.

"No, Saylem… it doesn't need fixing." I sigh, shaking my head. "Just take a look at it, and DON'T say you're going to fix it!"

"-Ok.-" he says, allowing a long pause before talking again. "-I will though.-"

"Goddamn it Saylem." I mutter. "Whatever, do your thing man. Anything new in the research department?"

"-Yes.-"

"What are you working-" I start to ask but am immediately cut off by an explosion. I look over to see geth pouring out of the door next to Fai Dan and Shepard, Shepard pushing Fai behind a barricade before firing back at the geth. As more and more squad members appear, the geth get pushed further back into the building and by the time I add my share of bullets they are all dead.

"You four, with me!" Shepard shouts as she points to Tali, Kaidan, Dylan and Ian. "The rest of you, lock down the colony!" she barks before pushing into the building, the sound of her sniper rifle tearing through the air as the others shots fill in the spaces.

The rest of the crew breaks off into small groups and heads to the entrances to the colony, and by my own shitty luck I am left at the tower entrance with Garrus, but Liara's here so it balances out. Garrus starts to shift one of the barriers into a better position as Liara leans behind one of the barriers that's already set up. I walk over to Garrus and tap him on the shoulder, causing him to look up at me with a glare.

"Let me help you." I say reluctantly, a bit of venom in my voice. Garrus's mandibles twitch and his eyes narrow at me before he moves out of the way, when he's clear I raise my hand and the barrier is wrapped in a blue tinge before it lifts off the ground and moves in front of the door.

"Thanks." Garrus mutters out of habit, not because he wants to.

The three of us sit there in silence, weapons trained at the door Shepard went through. The silence is eerie and the tension is thick, both Garrus and I glaring at each other now and then. Apparently the quiet is deafening to Liara because she decides to speak up, breaking the imaginary beams of hatred between Garrus and I.

"Are you two ok?" Liara asks, sounding incredibly unnerved by the dirty looks and muttered threats.

"I'm fine." I tell her.

"You're scum." Garrus sneers, causing me to glare back at him.

"I'm scum?" I ask loudly. "Out of all of the shit you've probably seen in C-Sec, your idea of scum is me?"

"Yes." He states bluntly. "You're a criminal, a serial killer."

"Serial killer?" Liara asks quietly.

I quickly turn around and shake my head at Liara. "I'm not a serial killer, don't listen to him."

"What you haven't heard?" Garrus asks smugly. "You haven't heard about all of the people he killed? The murderers he calls friends?"

"My friends are good people!" I snap back at him.

"What about the friends of the people you killed?" he snarls back. "Did you talk to their friends? Their families? Did you have to tell them that their friend, son, father, brother, was murdered and the man who did it is walking free? I did!"

I shoot up and take a step towards Garrus, ripping my helmet off my head and letting it fall to the ground, he does the same and we are inches apart. "You think I didn't think about that? You think I don't lose sleep at night, that I don't lie awake because I still see their faces, I still see the way they died and their blood on my hands?" I snap quietly. "Do you think I want to remember? Because I don't! I want to forget it ever happened but I can't!" I scream, my last words echoing through the colony until they fade back into silence.

Garrus quickly breaks that silence though. "Good." he leers. "I hope it eats you alive, a murderer like you deserves it."

"That's enough out of you two!" Shepard interjects as she walks out of the doorway.

"Shepard, we-" I start but she cuts me off.

"I don't know what's going on between you two, but it stops now." Shepard says sternly.

"Commander-" Garrus says quietly, but again Shepard interrupts.

"It. Stops. Now." She reiterates, pointing downward after each word. "We will talk about this on the Normandy." She tells us before raising her Omni-tool to her mouth. "Everyone return to me, this colony needs a lot of help so I'll be delegating jobs."

Shepard give Garrus and I one more disappointed look before walking towards Fai Dan, the squad of people Shepard brought walk by us after her, giving us nervous sidelong glances. Great, that's just what I need, more people judging me.

I look back to my left and see Liara looking back at me, and she looks worried. I don't know if it's because of what Garrus said or what I said, but either way I don't like it, it makes me feel bad. Normally I would get angry about that look she's giving me, but for whatever reason it makes me feel awful.

I'm the first to look away and I curse myself for it, looking at the ground like an idiot. I spy my helmet sitting on the ground and I quickly scoop it up and slip it on my head, looking back at Liara behind my visor only to see her still looking at me. I look back to the ground again and instantly hate myself for it, I feel like a pouting child. I grab my Lancer and walk after Shepard, annoyed at the whole situation that just happened.

Everyone has formed a semicircle around Shepard, waiting for her to give out her orders. "Alright, listen up!" she says as she starts to pace back and forth. "This colony is in trouble, the geth aren't the only problem they have so while we are here we are going to help them."

"Just tell us what you need Commander." Kaiden stands up straight.

"Garrus, and Wrex." She says, nodding to the two of them. "Go find Davin Reynolds and talk to him, he is going to need your help securing food for the colony."

"You can count on us Commander." Garrus nods, walking off with Wrex into the colony.

"Kaidan, and Art." Shepard looks to them. "Talk to May O'Connell about the colonies power problems."

"Yes ma'am." Kaiden salutes before walking off.

"Tali and Liara, you can go talk to Macha Doyle. There's a problem with the colonies water supply that need attention."

"Let go find Mrs. Doyle Tali." Liara say softly before they walk off.

"Ashley, Ian, Dylan and Alex, you're with me." she says as she draws her sniper rifle. "We're headed to ExoGeni headquarters, it's where the majority of the geth are."

"Hey Shepard." I say as I walk forward, getting her attention. "What about me? I've got nothing to do."

"Go talk to Arcelia." She says, pointing at the woman standing next to Fai Dan. "There are geth in the tunnels around here that have some sort of communications system set up, see if you can get together some soldiers to take care of it."

"You want me to gather a squad and destroy a geth communicator?" I ask. Shepard nods at me and I shrug. "I'll see what I can do, then."

"Good, we'll be back soon." Shepard says before walking off towards the Mako's garage.

I guess I now have to find Arcelia, who if I remember correctly is a huge bitch about this. Great, I hate dealing with those types of people. I don't even know if she'll give me anybody to help, probably not if the colony is under attack.

I find Arcelia and walk up to her, interrupting her conversation with Fai Dan.

"Hey, Arcelia?" I ask, just in case it's not her.

"Yes, what do you want?" she asks, sounding very annoyed to be talking to me.

"Oh my name is Maverick, I'm doing great thanks for asking." I say sarcastically.

"If you don't mind, my home is under attack." She says, pointing at me. "I don't have time to deal with you or your Commander."

"Well me and my Commander are trying to help you." I say, pointing back at her. "I need to take out a geth transmitter in the tunnels under the colony, I need some volunteers to come with me to take it down."

"We're spread thin as it is." She shakes her head, still maintaining a bitchy tone. "Nobody is leaving their post to go get killed with you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, bitch." I mutter as I walk away.

Well I called that one, I guess I can do this by myself plus I'm pretty sure Tali and Liara will be near the tunnels too taking care of the water. Well, here goes nothing.

---

I made my way through the various staircases in Feros, getting lost once or twice but eventually run into the tunnels. I start to make my way across a catwalk, working towards a large pipe system. That must be the water problems run through, once I get closer I see that's exactly what it is. I walk up to a small terminal that controls to water valves.

"Well, looks like Liara and Tali were through here." I mutter to myself as I see the water valve was recently reactivated. "And they're almost done too." I add as I read they only have one valve to go.

As if on cue I hear gunshots echo down the tunnel, letting me know that they're on the last one right now. I'm thinking about whether or not to help them until I see a geth hurled of the side of the catwalk by a biotic orb, crashing apart at the bottom of the chasm. Yeah, I think they can handle it.

I move up to the next catwalk and move across the long platform, reaching a cryptic door that opens when I get near it, the steel scraping on the concrete as it does. I don't even take one step in the eerily lit hallway before a pair of laser lights dance towards me.

"Shit!" I curse as I run towards a pillar to my left, slamming against it just as two shots ring out and chip away at the edge of my cover. I quickly lean out of cover and fire back at the two geth snipers, focusing on one and draining its shields. Before the geth can recover my left hand leaves my rifle and flicks forward a warp, the purple blob sailing through the air and slapping across the geth's chest.

"Yeah!" I yell as I step out of cover, sighting my Lancer at the second geth while it's busy looking at the warp eat away at its buddy. "Come here!" I roar as the geth shields crack open, dropping my rifle again to send a pull at the geth. The pull slips of my arm like silk and slams into the geth, sinking into it before ripping the geth from the balcony. The geth clatters to the ground with a pained wail and I grab my rifle and sprint towards it, shooting round after round until the geth stops moving.

"Well look at that." I smirk as I prop my rifle butt into my elbow. "Maverick, the geth slayer."

I hear a soft hum behind me and I turn around to see a geth drone hovering towards me, its turret spinning up. I raise my rifle and take a knee, squeezing the trigger against the handle of the rifle. The drone starts to fire and I feel the sheer number of bullets force me back, but I pull the tip of my Lancer down and keep it on track, quickly bringing the drone down.

I look at the sparking drone on the floor, its propulsion systems puttering out as I stand back up. I feel my barriers tighten over my body as they come back to full strength, like zipping up a loose hoody. I let out a sigh before turning back around, walking down the corridor, taking note how creepy the beams of light that catch the dust and the drips of water are.

"Maybe I didn't need anybody after all." I whisper to myself as I slink along the wall. "I'm kicking ass down here."

"Did you here that?" a low voice grumbles from the far door, causing me to freeze in place.

"Sounded like gunfire." Another voice replies. "Go check it out."

"Why should I have to go?" the first voice barks. "Let the stupid machines take care of it!"

The two voices continue to argue as I creep to the edge of the door, slipping my rifle onto my back and gripping my Katana tightly, peeling it off my back with a series of clicks. By the sounds of it they're krogan, which means I have to hit hard and fast because if I don't they might eat me. I've never tried it, but I can take an educated guess that being eaten is very unpleasant.

"Fine!" a voice yells, causing me to whip my Katana towards the door, making sure that it doesn't poke into the doorframe. "I'll go… Pyjak."

I reach into the pouch on my stomach, drawing a grenade and setting the timer for an on-contact detonation. The footsteps pound towards the door, getting louder and louder until they drown out my heartbeat.

Finally the krogan bellows out of the doorway, not even a foot away from me. He immediately locks eyes with me and for a moment everything seems to slow to a stop, the milliseconds dragging on as we wait to see what the other does. The first noise breaks the painful silence, it's not me yelling or the krogan roaring, it's the metallic click of my shotgun pressing against his jaw.

The buckshot erupts from the barrel of my Katana and shreds the krogans helmet, splintering in his head and bursting through the top of his head with a shower of gore. I drive my shoulder into the krogan, pushing him clear of the doorway and I tuck my left arm under my right as the last krogan turns to see what happened. My arm springs outward and lobs the grenade at the confused krogan, the grenade touching against his hump before engulfing him in a fiery explosion that knocks the dust off the walls.

The explosion echoes away as the bottom half of the krogan slumps to the ground, the top half nowhere to be found. The only thing I can hear now is my heavy breathing and the last pieces of dust and pebbles hitting the floor.

"Holy shit I did it." I breathe as I look at the two dead krogan in awe. The last krogan I fought almost killed me, yet these two where barely a problem. Well, I did have the jump on them and they aren't Battlemasters, just Sarens goons. I actually feel pretty good about myself, normally I would be hurt by now but I'm feeling fine! Point for Maverick baby!

The thunder of footsteps quickly stops my celebration and I turn to see the hump of a krogan and feel a pressure around my torso before a pain smacks across my side. The force of the krogan pinning me to the wall knocks more gravel loose and I feel the small stones plink off my helmet before my stomach sinks as the krogan send me flying across the room. My shoulders smash into a small barricade and I slide down it, my body crumpling headfirst into the ground.

"HA!" the new krogan laughs. "If you're what killed my 'kin' then they didn't deserve to live." He snorts as he walks up to me, which by now I've managed to flip over and have gotten to one knee. "You're weak, so there were weaker."

I shake my head as the krogan gloats, trying to get rid of the pain creeping into my skull. I look up and see the krogan standing over me, smiling as he prepares to savor his kill.

"Pray to whatever gods you have human." He sneers as he draws back his giant fist. "You're about to meet them."

I bring up both of my hands and lock my elbows as the krogan swings his fist down at me, and just before it connects I raise my mass as much as I physically can. My whole body jolts back and slides a few inches but I hold my ground under the weight of the krogans punch. The krogan tilts his head in pure confusion at the fact that I'm not dead and I smile wide as I lower his mass.

With one quick motion a stand up and grab a plate on his waist, spinning and throwing the krogan as hard as I can, adding a push from each hand as I let go. The krogan sails a several feet before colliding with a concrete barricade with his now regular mass, the impact breaking the barricade into small pieces and scattering them across the ground.

"I've got a better idea!" I jeer happily as I strut over to the krogan who is struggling to get up. "How about you pray to your gods! Because you're just as weak as your friends!" I yell as I whip my hand up, sending a shockwave that knocks the krogan against the far wall with a ground shaking thud. I keep a cocky swagger as I walk up to the krogan, but my confidence falters when the krogan lets out a roar and charges towards me.

Before I can send a biotic attack back at him he slams into me, carrying me across the room and smashing me through a barricade. I brush the rubble off of me as the krogan hefts himself to his feet, only to lift one foot and shift it over my head. I roll out of the way just as his foot stomps on the ground where my head was not one second ago.

"DIE!" the krogan spits as he charges at me again, but I decide it's time to fight fire with fire. With a loud bioticly flanged crack I slam into the krogan, sending him sprawling to the floor with a hole punched through his chest plate that sends hundreds of cracks across the plate.

"I'm good thanks." I quip before stepping over the krogan, leaving him to die from collapsed lungs and whatever other horrors come out of a biotic charge. I walk to the end of the room and find the odd looking geth transmitter, small binary clicks coming from it as it spins.

I walk up the transmitter and trace a warped finger along its side, making my own access panel. "Well that looks important." I nod as I look at the tangle of wires and circuit boards, there are even a few turning gears in there. I reach into my pouch and pull out a grenade, setting the timer for five seconds before wedging it in the mess of wires and walking away. The grenade explodes and destroys the transmitter, bits of shrapnel kicking up small plumes of dust around the room and bouncing off my barriers. I turn my head over my shoulder and look back at the stump of metal, as I do though I feel a pressure compress my windpipe and I look back to see a smiling krogan, blood leaking out of the cracks on his chest plate.

"I said, DIE!" he laughs as he slams me against the wall, his three fingered hand pressing against my throat.

"Fuck… nhnn… you…" I squeak out as grab the krogans hand and try to force it off me.

"You've got spirit!" he cheers. "Worthy of a death by my hands!"

I drop my hand down and build a throw before slamming it into the krogans elbow, cracking the elbow pad and sending it to the floor. The krogan looks at me and seems amused at my strike until I do it again, the blow unhindered by the elbow pad and breaks the krogans elbow upward, bending it unnaturally with a loud crack.

The krogan roars in pain and I fall to the floor, rubbing my neck to try to get air moving through my throat. I take in a huge gulp of air and rise to my feet but the krogan swings his good arm and smashes me back down to the ground. I reach out my hand and wrap the transmitter in biotics before I turn over and hurl the transmitter at the krogan, the jagged frayed end smashing into his chest and sticking into him.

I roll to one side and push myself to my feet and my shoulders sag and I sigh when I look at the krogan. The krogan is gripping the transmitter in his chest and slowly pulling it out, trails of blood etching down his armor onto the floor as he does. With one final pull he wrenches the transmitter free and a ribbon of blood splashes on the floor. He pulls the transmitter to one side and tosses it back at me, but I flick a small throw into the side of it and it crashes harmlessly to the side.

The krogan lumbers towards me, one arm dangling to the side but the other is up and ready for a fight. I start to run towards the krogan and before he can strike at me I slam my fist into the right side of his face, a nova detonating and sending him out of the transmitter room and into the room full of dead krogan.

I follow him out and curse when I see him still moving, I knew krogan were tough but I had no idea it was this tough. As I walk up to him my foot kicks my shotgun so I lean down and pick it up, noting some scratches on it but it seems fine apart from being misted in blood. As the krogan sits up I raise my Katana and squeeze the trigger twice, sending volleys of pellets into his chest after each kick of the weapon. The krogan is still breathing though, so I send two more volleys into him and my Katana overheats, but the krogan finally stops moving.

"Jesus Christ." I mutter as I put my Katana on my lower back. "Finally, you big lumbering jackass." I sneer as I walk by the krogan towards the door, but something makes me stop before I make it to the hallway.

I notice the first krogan, leaning against the wall with a bloody trench carved out of his head, a spray of blood up the wall above him. I look back in the room and see the charred stump of a krogans lower half in the middle of the room, little blackened hunks of him littering the room. Then there's the last krogan, its chest absolutely shredded apart. I look down and see blood splashed down my right arm and sigh, adding three more people to the tally I keep in my head and I walk back to the colony.

---

I walk through the doorway to the colony and make a b-line to Arcelia, noticing that I'm the last person to come back from helping the colony.

"Transmitter is down." I nod to Fai Dan, pulling him from his conversation with Arcelia.

"Thank you." He smiles, holding out his hand. "The geth attacks should soften because of you."

"My pleasure." I say as I shake his hand, when he pulls away he notices the blood left on his hand and grimaces before whipping it on his pants.

"It's a good thing I didn't send anyone with you." Arcelia adds. "It looks like you barely made it out yourself, I wouldn't want anyone here dying because you couldn't handle yourself."

"Are you serious?" I snap, taking a quick step towards her. "We just took our entire squad, split them up and sent them into hotspots in this colony so we could save you!"

"The only reason you're here is because of the geth!" she snaps back, pointing at the ExoGeni headquarters that has a large geth ship tacked to the side of it. "You don't care about this colony!"

"Then why the hell are we risking our lives to fight the geth off, huh?" I ask, point back at the gathering Normandy squad behind me. "Or fixing your water supply, or your food shortage, or your power problem?" I list off on my fingers. "Hell, I asked you for help taking out the transmitter and you didn't give me any, but I still went in there by myself! Why would we do that if we didn't care?"

Arcelia looks at me, her anger is building in her face but she can't find an answer.

"Despite what you might think, we are here to help you." Liara speaks up from behind me, and I turn to see the entire squad is standing with me.

"Our Commander just marched off to ExoGeni, with only half her squad, to destroy the geth at their source." Kaidan adds.

"We could have just sent in a small team." Garrus says, shaking his head slightly. "Slipped past everything, found out what the geth were after and left you here."

"Which is starting to sound like a good idea." Wrex grumbles.

"But we didn't." Tali chimes in. "We made sure this colony could survive, we fixed all of the problems here because you needed help."

The squad seems to stand a bit taller when Tali stops, proud of what we accomplished here and proud of all of the people we saved. To be honest, it almost feels like we're bonding, actually becoming a squad and not just a collection of specialists. I even don't mind Garrus being so close to me, it seems like he doesn't mind either.

Arcelia just stands there, glaring at the Normandy crew before huffing off without saying a word. Fai Dan frowns as she walks off, disappointed at her reaction but he turns back to us a smiles a warm thankful smile.

"Thank you for helping us." He says sincerely. "There have been no reports of geth around the colony, they've all left the area. We can handle it from here, you should go back to your ship and get some rest."

"You're welcome." Kaidan nods, turning back to us and motioning to where the Normandy's docked. "He's right, the colony will be fine. We should wait for Shepard to come back aboard the Normandy."

Everyone starts to walk towards the docking bay, about to wait for Shepard to take care of the geth at ExoGeni headquarters. The place that I need to be, right at the tip top of that building. While everyone starts to walk back to the Normandy I slink off to the side, taking up a quick pace towards the elevator that leads to the highway. Unfortunately I'm not as stealthy as I think I am because I hear footsteps following behind me, I reluctantly turn to see Liara behind me.

"Where are you going?" she asks suspiciously.

"ExoGeni headquarters." I say, not finding a decent lie so I go with the truth.

"Why?" she asks, cocking her head. "Are you going to try and help Commander Shepard?"

"No." I say slowly, still not able to find a lie. "I have some… work to do. For Icarus."

"Oh." She says, sounding like she doesn't approve.

"I'll be back." I say as I start to walk backwards towards the stairs, but Liara speaks up and I stop.

"Was what Garrus said true?" she asks suddenly. "Did you… are you…"

"No." I say sternly as I step forward, but I lose some of my confidence as I continue to speak. "I mean, I did what he said I did. I didn't want to and I wish I didn't, but I did it for the right reasons." I explain, maybe a bit more for myself then her. "If I had to do it again I would, in a heartbeat. But I… I don't know… I'm sorry but this is really hard for me to talk about, can we just, not talk about it?"

"Ok." Liara says, probably seeing how uncomfortable I am. "Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Yes." I respond immediately. "Now I've got to go, I'll be back later. This shouldn't take long." I assure her before turning around and walking up the stairs. I listen for more footsteps behind me but I don't hear any, and when I round the staircase and look down the stairwell I don't see Liara standing there.

I have to stop thinking about the people I've killed, it's going to drive me insane. Maybe the Icarus therapist was right, maybe I do need to talk about it. But I know I don't, there's not a single fiber in my body that wants to talk about it, I just want to forget about it.

{You should really talk to someone, it might make you feel better!}

[You need to stop bitching about it, so what you've killed a few people? Embrace it.]

It's been a while since I've heard from you guys, but like always you don't seem to have any answers.

[We're part of you, you idiot. We don't have any answers, we just offer our opinions which you never seem to take. You just sit up there on your fence, bitching about everything.]

Fuck you, what I think in MY head is my business but I do NOT bitch about things!

{Liara seems worried about you, I bet you she would listen to you! Imagine how much better you would feel if you just talked about your problems!}

[Don't listen to this fairy, don't talk to anybody. Man up, stop your whining, and kill people. Easy as that.]

It's not as easy as that, they're still people you asshole! They could have kids, or a family!

[Or they could eat kids, and murder families! Why the fuck do you care? It's not like you have to read up about them before you kill them, and if you just kill them it won't matter anyway!]

{Don't listen to him, every life is precious and it's good that you feel guilty about murdering them! It means you have a conscience!}

It doesn't feel good, it feels shitty. I wish I didn't have a conscience, it might make all of this easier.

[There you go! Fuck your conscience!]

{No! Don't do that, that's horrible! You need to embrace it, let people know how you feel, open up to the world!}

No, don't be ridiculous. I can do this by myself.

{You don't have to be like him you know, you can be your own person.}

You're out of line.

{I'm just saying-}

And I'm just saying you're on thin ice, this conversation is over.

I stop walking as the voices echo out of my head and I find myself in the garage. There isn't any vehicles in here, just a bunch of rubble and the tire marks of the Mako tearing out of the garage. Great, how the hell am I supposed to get to ExoGeni? There's got to be something in here I can use.

I start looking around and after a few minutes I spy something peeking out of the rubble, it looks like a wheel well to a car, or something else because it looks too small to be a car. I walk over and grab one of the hunks of concrete, lowering its mass before lifting it off the thing and tossing it to the side. When I see the things shocks lift it up after the weight was taken off I smile, I smile really fucking wide.

Under the cement was a personal ATV with the words "Utility" scrawled all over it, the ATV is completely white minus some scuffs and dirt and has a large box on the back. I look inside the box and find a bunch of stuff, not a lot of it is useful so I close it and hop onto the Utility ATV. I look around the console for a set of keys but I can't find any, I actually can't find a lot of things. There's no speedometer, no clutch, no light switch, just the throttle, brake and a button. I guess I'll press the button, when I do a small whir comes from the ATV and a display lights up a speedometer.

"Easy enough." I shrug and I inch the ATV towards the garage door, waiting for it to open automatically and when it does I tear down the highway, trying to see how fast this thing can really go.

---

The ATV topped out at 60 kilometers an hour, god damn limiter holding me back. But I get over that pretty quick, not as quick as I get to the ExoGeni but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. The ride there was uneventful, I spent most of the ride avoiding the leagues of dead geth and random piles of rubble. I finally get to the Mako, which is stopped in front of a narrow set of stuck doors. I however, can fit the ATV through the doors and when I do I come across the small drop into ExoGeni.

I move the ATV out of sight before walking towards the hole, peering down into the rubble that Shepard had went through. I'm definitely not going down there, that's nowhere near where I need to go, not to mention the geth ship. There shouldn't be any geth above that ship though, if there is they'll be heading down to die by Shepard's hand. I look up at the tower through the hole in the ceiling and I get an idea when I see a broken window a few floors up.

I start to climb my way up out of the hole, making makeshift footholds with warps to help me climb. It only takes me a few minutes to get to the broken window, I scramble through it and then look at the dots trailing from the collapsed ceiling, proud that I managed to climb all that way. I turn around and see a huge office laid out before me but the whole place is torn apart, plasma scorches and flipped desks and I see a few charred bodies lying on the far side of the room.

I start to root around the room, looking for anything of value and trying to avoid finding any bodies. I manage to find a working terminal that's still signed in, there isn't anything that I can send back to Saylem but there is a map that I downloaded. I follow the map to a group of elevators, one of the elevator doors is surrounded with scorch marks from geth weapons but the door is spotless. No doubt there's a horror show inside that so I pick a different one, walking in a selecting the top floor.

"-Hello, welcome to ExoGeni headquarters!-" an electronic voice says, making me look around until I find the speaker. "-We have no record of you in our guest log, you and 137 other unauthorized individuals are in violation of our health and safety regulations including 2 parking violations and 1 unchecked Utility vehicle. Please acquire a guest pass or if you have lost your pass, please say your last name after the tone.-"

*Beep*

"Uhh." I mumble, trying to think up a random name on the spot. "John… son… sen."

…

"-Hello Mr. Johnsonsen!-"

"No fucking way." I chuckle.

"-ExoGeni files have you marked deceased, are you still deceased?-"

"Umm, no?"

"-I will update your file accordingly, do you remember your security clearance password?-"

"No." I shake my head, still smirking that I got the name right.

"-Would you like to receive a personal hint to help you remember your password?-"

"Yeah, sure."

" -Here is your personal security hint!-" the audio clicks off and the nice cheery voice is replaced with the voice of an older sounding man. " -Your password is one two three four.-" the man's audio is cut off and the cheery VI is brought back. "-Please state your security clearance password after the tone!-"

*Beep*

"One two three four." I say clearly.

" -Welcome Mr. Johnsonsen, you have security clearance beta which allows you access to all floors excluding the top floor. Have a nice day!-"

"Seriously?!" I shout at the speaker. "All that bullshit and you let me into every place in building except the place I need to be!? Well fuck you!" I curse as I flip the speaker the bird, slamming my other hand down on the just below top floor.

The door to the elevator opens and the scene looks pretty much the same as the first floor I was on, a little less damaged maybe. I spend some time looking around and find absolutely nothing, I'm about to stop looking when I see a closed door on the far side of the room.

"There better be something behind that fucking door." I grumble as I walk up to the door, building a warp on one of my hands. I press my hand into the door, the warp quickly melting through the door before it hits the locking pin. After a minute I get through the pin and start to wedge the door open, grunting as I try to slip through.

Once I get in the door I find it's just a bathroom, of all the things to find, I find a god damn bathroom. I see a girl about my age sat against one of the stalls, her whole body slacked over at an awkward angle and a pipe still loosely gripped in her hand. I'm about to leave but I see something catch my eye, a reflective sheen on her chest catching the light from the open door.

I walk closer and kneel down beside the girl, noticing that her lab coat isn't done up, revealing a black graphic t-shirt and her pants are some sort of future punk looking jeans. The sleeves of her coat are rolled up, showing some tattoos but all of this is rendered unimportant when I see the thing that caught my eye. An ID badge pinned to her shirt over her breast, partially covered by her lab coat, the words 'Alpha Clearance' shining like it's under a heavenly light.

"Well well well." I mutter as I eye the badge. "To bad you had to die sweetheart, you put up a fight too. Even though you thought a pipe would work against the geth, not two bright were we?" I chuckle dryly, brushing her lab coat to the side to see the badge better. "Well Janet Hughes, I know this sort of thing is frowned upon, but I don't think you're going to argue eh?" I say as I reach for the badge, fidgeting with the pin.

Suddenly her whole body twitches and a huge crack echoes in my helmet, causing me to grip my head in agony as my ear starts to ring.

"GAH FUCKING FUCK!" I roar as I roll on the ground, the sharp pain of being hit with a metal pipe pings over and over on my body.

"That what you get!" the not as dead as I though girl yells as she beats me.

I start to raise my mass as I get to my feet, each blow lessening until they feel like gentle taps. I finally get to my feet but the girl refuses to stop hitting me, even though I am literately standing in front of her like a statue, the assault not phasing me at all even though my ear is still ringing. This doesn't dissuade her though, she just focuses her attack onto the glass on my visor, refusing to stop.

"Are you done?" I ask, crossing my arms and I look at her. She doesn't answer though, she just swings harder at my visor. "You're done." I tell her as I reach my hand up, catching the pipe and wrenching it away from her.

"Leave me alone perv!" she yells as she starts to run away.

"Perv?" I exclaim, insulted at the name. Why the hell did she call me that, that's not nice. I whip my hand out and send a pull towards her before she can reach the door, the biotic ball yanking her back to my feet. "It's not nice to call people names." I say as I look down at her, amused at how mad she is to be back where she started.

"AAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" she shrieks at the top of her lungs, causing me to jump before I scramble down towards her and clamp my hands over her mouth.

"Shut the fuck up!" I snap at her. "Do you want every geth in the fucking building to come running?"

She finally shuts the hell up, still glaring at me as my hands press against her mouth.

"Now, if I let you go are you going to be quiet?" I ask nicely.

She glares at me more intensely as I wait for an answer, and I get an answer. One of her hands slaps across my helmeted face with a loud crack. The blow splits the casing on my helmet and turns my head to one side, and I see a softball sized hunk of cement skipping along the ground. I turn my head back to her slowly, my face hot with rage as my head pounds like a drum.

"Not the answer I was looking for." I whisper in a low threatening tone. One of my hand darts to her badge and tears it of her shirt, the quick movement mistaken for a punch and she flinches until she realizes I'm clutching her ID. "Good luck with the geth." I spit as I stand up and walk away.

I curse my way out of the room and start to head back to the elevator, feeling around my neck for the seals on my helmet. By the time I get to the elevator I have disconnected my helmet, pressing the top floor button and waving the ID card at the VI and as the doors close I take off my helmet and look at the damage. I see the scarred line on my helmet from the first hit from the pipe, the paints is chipped away but on a whole it doesn't seems to have any effect but a dent. The concrete smack however has cracked the casing wide open, a small hole showing me the inside of the helmet and large cracks segmenting away from the hole.

"Fucking bitch." I mutter as I run my finger along the hole, flipping the cracked plastic back and forth to make a small sound. I look at the helmet some more, tossing it back and forth until I decide that the seals are still good so I pull it back on, still rubbing the cracked side of the helmet.

"I thought you said it wasn't nice to call people names." I hear a feminine voice jeer from inside the elevator.

My whole body screeches to an annoyed stop before I let out a sigh, I turn around and see the punk girl standing behind me, the smuggest of grins on her face. I can't even say anything I'm so annoyed and angry, how the fuck did she get in here without me seeing her? She must have slipped in when I took off my helmet.

"What do you want?" I ask, trying to sound calm.

"I want to know why you're here." She demands. "I've heard of you."

"What have you heard?" I sigh, trying not to sound curious but I am.

"Yeah." She says, leaning against the elevator as the door opens. "Someone from your company tried to buy ExoGeni, we didn't accept your offer because we have a secret project we're working on."

"Great story." I grumble sarcastically as I watch the door to elevator open, I don't hesitate to walk through the door and leave Janet in the elevator but I hear her follow me out.

"Don't you want to know what the project is?" she asks, almost mad that I didn't ask. "Isn't that why you're here?"

"I couldn't care less about the thorian." I huff as I start to root around the top floor, walking into rooms and looking around for a terminal and leaving if there wasn't one.

"How do you know about the thorian?" she demands, now mad that she didn't get to tell me about it.

"Icarus knows everything." I say in a flat voice, hoping the dry answer will get her to go away. It doesn't.

"Yeah, sure." she scoffs. "What's my middle name then asshole?"

"You aren't worth the time to type in the search bar." I smirk, finding a terminal and tapping the ID card against a small pad to get access.

"Fuck you!" she snaps. "You don't know me!"

"I know your name is Janet Hughes." I say as I fish around the terminal, looking for anything of value but its looks like it's just a receptionist terminal.

"Shows what you know." She chuckles smugly. "My name isn't Janet Hughes, I just found that badge."

"Ok." I shrug as I walk past her, praying she stays in the room but of course she doesn't.

"Don't you want to know my name?" she asks, still keeping a rebellious tone.

"Is it Kurt Cobain?" I ask as I walk into another room. "Because you reek of teen spirit."

"Who the hell is Kurt Cobain?"

"How do you not know who Kurt Cobain is?" I ask, genuinely surprised. "You know what? Never mind, I don't really care." I admit, logging of the useless terminal. "Why don't you go look up Kurt Cobain, somewhere else preferably."

"I don't have to do anything you say, you fucking perv." She growls defiantly.

"How the hell am I a perv?" I snap, looking at the map of the building on my Omni-tool.

"You thought I was dead, and you tried to cop a field you sicko." She says accusingly.

I actually stop when she says this and I look at her and shake my head. "What the fuck are you talking about? I tried to take you ID badge and you hit me with a fucking pipe!"

"Bullshit!" she barks. "You said what you were doing is frowned upon, or did I knock some screws loose in that big melon head of yours?"

"I was talking about looting dead bodies, you god damn idiot, not groping dead girls." I sneer as I walk by her and head down a long hallway. "Maybe if you didn't tack the thing to your boob you wouldn't have this problem."

"I can do whatever I want!" she yells rebelliously.

"Yeah yeah." I wave her off. "You're a rebel, fuck the police, all that bullshit."

"Now you're talking!" she says excitedly.

"Jesus Christ." I mutter. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm whatever I want to be!" she shouts, spinning around to express her 'freedom'. "Unlike you who just follows orders from the machine!"

"Well I built the fucking machine." I shake my head. "So they're my orders, so I am doing whatever I want."

"So you own Icarus?"

"Yeah, with four of my friends." I sigh, deeply wanting this conversation to end.

"What does Icarus even do?"

"Make money so we can help people."

"Lame." She sighs. "You should be toppling governments and burning the corruption from the system!"

"Oh my god!" I shout as I grind to a halt. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I yell as I point at her angrily.

"YOU CAN'T KEEP ME DOWN!"

My response is a low grumble, one of pure rage and annoyance. My hands are shaking, wanting to lash out at something, not specifically her but I want to break something. I turn and let out a roar as I slam my fist into the wall, bits of drywall and plaster exploding into the air with the wisp of biotics. I rip my hand out of the hole and point at the girl as I storm forward. "You're right, I can't keep you down. Why don't you go rebel somewhere else, because if you don't I might have to end your life!"

"Oh big man!" she says as she waves her hands about sarcastically. "Breaking things and threatening women, you're a pig!"

I shake my hand at her, imagining what it would be like to drill my fist into the side of her head and leave her here. But I collect myself, I'm not going to hit a woman no matter how annoying she is. I shake angrily towards another door and walk in to the head office.

The room is relatively well kept, there's a large glass desk at the far end of the room with three glass panes sitting on the edge of the desk. There are a bunch of exploration probes hanging from the ceiling on wires, one of them has crashed to the ground. Oh, and there is a huge hole in the middle of the room, spanning thirty or forty feet.

"Well look at that." I mutter as I walk up to the hole, glaring down at the floor below me.

"What?" the girl asks.

"Do you not see the giant fucking hole in the middle of the room?" I snap at her.

"I'm not blind asshole."

"Whatever." I grumble as I start to walk around the hole to the desk. "What are you even doing here?"

"I work here."

"OH!" I say as I stop and spin around, throwing my arms in the air with grandeur. "Working for the man are we? You fucking hypocrite!"

"I'm not on the payroll ass!" she yells in defense. "I'm an intern, and I've been impeding this companies socialist agenda every way I can!"

"Oh no." I say dryly. "I'm sure you stealing printer paper and coffee filters is putting a kink in the system."

She stews in silence as I walk up to the desk, tapping the ID card on a pad on the desk and the three panes of glass light up as three terminal screens.

"Wait." I say as I stand up and look at the girl. "If you're an intern, how do you know about the thorian?"

"Please." She scoffs as she crosses her arms. "This companies communication system is a joke, just flood the main firewall with garbage data until you gain access to the secondary firewall and backtrack to the first firewall to make it think you were already in, it opens up like a whore on prom night."

"Well look at you." I say as I go back to the terminal and find Saylems program. "You actually have a use."

"I have a lot of uses!" she growls.

"Prom night?" I smirk.

"Fuck you." She snaps.

My Omni-tool pings as the download starts, I look at the time and see it says it will take two minutes.

"Two minutes!" I yell at my Omni-tool. "Eight seconds my ass Saylem!"

"What the fuck is taking two minutes?" she asks as she walks up to me and looks over my shoulder. "Nothing should take two minutes on an Omni-too—where did you get this Omni-tool?"

"I don't know, it's just an Omni-tool."

"Jesus you're using a civilian Omni-tool?" she yells in disbelief. "This piece of shit makes the Bluewire look like a Cipher."

"Sure." I roll my eyes. "Who cares?"

"Why don't you just use Morse code?"

"It's just an Omni-to-"

"Bang some rocks together and make signal fires!" she goes on, ignoring me.

"I don't care!" I yell over her. "It's just two minutes!"

"Whatever." she says as she walks to the door. "I'll be back, I've gotta use the little girls room."

"There literately isn't a single thing in this universe that I care about less then what you do."

As she walks out of the room she shoots me the middle finger over her shoulder and I savor as much silence as I can, for a minute and thirty seconds I bask in the pure bliss of silence. I start to lay on the desk as the download finishes and I send it to Saylem, considering whether or not I should leave that punk chick here or not. As I think I feel the entire building lurch and a huge grinding noise rattle the building, then it stops just as soon as it started. There's a slight pause before the sound of something very big crashing to the ground fills my ears, Shepard must have gotten rid of the geth ship on the side of the building.

I hear the door open to the room and I roll off the desk and check to make sure all of my weapons are still linked to my back and I stroll over to the hole in the floor. I look up and I stop when I see a woman who is not the one that had left a few minutes ago.

This woman is wearing a skin tight gel armor, thicker sections of gel armor woven onto the suit that cover her chest, abdomen and thighs. Her face is covered by what looks like a recon hood but the eyes are narrow slits instead of round circles. There's a single pistol hanging off her hip and a small knives on her collar bone, calf and other hip. They look a lot like Japanese Tantos but it's hard to tell that they're in their sheaths.

"Well hi!" I say cheerily as I tilt my head at her curiously. "Who are you?"

She looks over me very curiously, her head tilting back and forth as she does. "Interesting." She says in a distorted electronic voice.

"I've been called worse." I shrug. "Seriously though, who are you?"

She lifts her hand to her ear and listens carefully, looking back up at me as I sit there and wait for an answer. Then she starts to walk around the hole in the floor but once she clears it she rips her pistol off her hip and fires a round well above my head.

"Jesus!" I shout as I duck down.

"I expected more." She says ominously as she passes me, not looking at me as she talks.

I'm about to yell at her, but something creaking above me makes me stop. I look up just as the sound of a cable snapping cracks through the air, and an exploration drone lurches down towards me. Without thinking I fling both of my hands in the air and send two throws into the drone and its fall staggers just as the drone touches my hands. With every ounce of focus I can muster I try to lower the drones mass, but the drone forces my arms to bend and smacks down on the back of my head and my shoulders. I start to push on the drone as it forces me to a knee and I can feel it getting lighter, until finally I can support its weight.

I can feel my face go red as I struggle to lift the drone and myself to my feet, but once I'm standing up straight the drone weighs no more than a few dozen pounds. My head turns to see the woman standing by the computer and I don't hesitate to take a quick stride forward and toss the drone at her. The drone sails through the air and I can see its flight pattern change as its original mass returns, but it still barrels through the air towards her.

The woman looks up from the desk as the drone catches her eye and she dives to the side as it smashes through the desk and shreds apart as it rolls into the wall with a loud crash. The dust settles and I start to walk over to the desk, taking my shotgun off my back as I walk. I round the desk and see the woman crawling on the ground, grasping for her pistol that has slid across the room.

I notice a trail of blood being left behind her as she pulls herself along desperately and I walk along it until the trail ends at her leg, the leg flattened awkwardly and leaking blood through the tears in the gel armor. She gets five feet from the pistol and I walk around her, my hand leaving the shotguns handle to lob a warp onto the pistol. Then I squat down and tilt my Katana towards her and she stops crawling and to her credit she isn't screaming in pain, she's only making small grunts and breathing heavy.

"Well how's that?" I ask quietly as I stare at her. "Is that more of what you expected? A little more up to snuff?"

She doesn't say anything, she just glares at me as I stand up. I hear the door open behind me and I turn to see the punk girl walking into the room. She walks slowly and carefully and I quickly see that someone is behind her, a man dressed in the same sleek assassin armor that's holding a sword against her throat. I immediately point my Katana at them and they stop right before the hole in the floor. The punk girl looks terrified, her eyes are darting around in a panicked frenzy.

"Let her go man." I say calmly as I take a step towards them, but I stop when I see the sword press against her throat.

"I don't think so." The man says in the same electronic distortion as the woman.

"Nobody needs to get hurt." I say as I look back to see if the woman is still there, making sure she is going to gut me while I'm distracted.

"You've already hurt someone." The man says as he looks to his injured partner. "The way I see it, killing her would even things out nicely."

"Your friend here isn't dead." I say as I glance back at the woman. "So I don't think it would."

"You're right." he says sympathetically. In a quick blur he whips his sword around in his hand and plunges it down into her leg, the sword diving straight through the muscle like a hot knife through butter. The girl lets out a scream of pain as the assassin yanks the sword free but she whimpers quiet when the blade returns to her neck. "How's that?"

"You're a real gentleman." I say through grit teeth as I adjust my shotguns sights over his head. "Now let her go, we don't even know why we're each here. I've got what I want, let her go safely and we'll leave you to your business."

The man looks at his friend on the ground and then back to me, his fingers unfurling of the handle of the sword and readjusting their grip. Then suddenly he reaches his free hand up to his ear, and I hear the feint sound of talking coming from his ear.

"Yes I'm there now." He says into his wrist. "No, something came up. No it's someone else." He says as he looks back at me. "I don't know if… yes it's him… I can handle it!" he snaps angrily into his wrist. "I… yes… yes sir." He says obediently but with a healthy tone of distain. His hand leaves his ear and he looks at me, I swear I can see his glare even from behind his recon hood. Without saying a word he shoves the girl forward and she collapses to the ground, he slings his sword onto his back and starts to walk around the hole in the floor.

I tilt my shotgun up in the air as he walks around me to his friend, making my own way to the injured punk chick on the ground. I walk up to her and lift her up into a sitting position.

"Why haven't you killed that fucker?" she seethes as I pull her hand off the stab wound and look at it.

"Because he let you go." I say simply as I apply pressure to her leg. "Were you not listening?"

"I was too busy getting stabbed to listen to what he said!" she snaps at me, I ignore her though as I use two hands to keep pressure on the entrance and exit wounds. "Don't you have any Medi-gel?"

"You would think I would." I muse as I look over at the two assassins that are still huddled by the desk. "But I guess I forgot to get more."

"How the hell do you forget to get Medi-gel?!" she yells at me. "Aren't you a fucking mercenary or somethin—AHH!" she screams as I press tighter on her leg, squeezing the wounds.

"Oh, sorry." I say innocently. "I'm just a mercenary, not a medic. Gee if I were a soldier or something I would have some sort of medical training, but seeing as I'm just a merc I don't know what I'm doing."

"Alright!" she yells, wincing and grabbing at my hands. "Gah! You're a soldier! Not a merc! Now fucking fix my leg!"

"I don't know how to fix this!" I laugh, causing her to glare at me with worry and anger in her eyes. "I'm normally the one who's getting hurt!"

"WHAT?!" she yells. "FUCKING, FIX ME! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"My fault?" I yell back as I scoop my arms underneath her and lift her up.

"What are you doing?" she asks angrily as she looks around as I carry her towards what was the desk.

"I need light." I tell her as I walk up to a window, laying her down in the beam of light pouring through the window.

"For what?"

"Hold still." I order as I unsheathe my kukri, twisting the blade so it catches the light.

"What are you doing?" she asks nervously as I lower the knife to her leg.

"Shut up." I sigh as I pinch and pull the pant leg off her leg with one hand as I slide the knife through the fabric. The knife slices through the fabric and I cut the leg off her pants, short enough so her pocket liner pokes through. I put the pant leg to the side and lean closer, examining the thick sliver shaped hole in her leg. "Well the blood is dark red, which is good because it probably didn't hit an artery. You're gonna be fine."

I expect a bitchy comeback but it doesn't come, it's just silence. I look up and see her staring at the stab wound and her face is snow white and her breathing is hoarse and sharp. Shit, she's going into shock.

"Hmm, maybe I spoke too soon." I hum as I quickly wrap her leg in the makeshift bandages. "Ok, you need to talk to me."

She sits there and continues to gawk at her leg, fixated completely on the wound and completely shutting me out.

"No." I shake my head as I force myself into her view, grabbing her chin and tilting her head to pry her eyes off her injury. "Look at me ok? You'll be fine you just have to keep talking ok? Tell me your name, I want to know what your name is."

"N-Nicky Harlow." She blinks as she focuses on me.

"Alright Nicky, we're leaving and heading back to the colony." I say as I pick her up again. "Tell me about the Cipher Omni-tool, what makes it so good?"

"Elkoss Combine makes them." she says quietly as I stop moving, hearing something odd in the room. "Fitted with kinetic boosters, salarian… special ops like them for… fast cool down."

"Uh-huh." I say mindlessly as I walk up to the shattered desk, small little buzzing noises coming from underneath the rubble where the assassins were, I don't see them here anymore. "I heard Chameleon is good too, should I get one of those?"

"No, stupid." She breathes. "Fabricator can't run… for more than twenty minutes."

I nod along with what she's saying and I keep asking simple questions as I kick the debris around and then finally I flip a section of the desk over and a small metallic package, the buzzing noise is actually a beeping noise. I stare at the package and see that a small timer is on it, twelve seconds left on the timer.

"Well that's not good!" I yell as I look around the room, immediately seeing the broken window and running towards it. "Not good at all!"

"Where… we going?" she asks quietly as I leap onto the window ledge and hurl the both of us out the window. "What the hell are you doing?!" she starts to yell, realizing we are plummeting to the highway below. A large explosion goes off in the room we were just in but I try to ignore it and focus.

"Anywhere but there." I say calmly as I hug Nicky and twist myself so I'm in between her and the ground. "You need to be quiet so I can focus. If you don't we'll both die, but don't panic."

I can feel the wind start to push harder on my back as my mass lowers and try to clear my head like Liara taught me. I can also feel Nicky get lighter too, her whole body feeling more delicate as I wait for the ground to smash into me.

Then it happens, the concrete rises to meet my back I slap against it like a car hitting a tree. I let out a roar of pain as I arch my back in agony, it feels like I had a sunburn and someone slapped my back with a wet boat ore. I don't even swear, I just hiss as I push Nicky off me and writhe around like a worm, trying to pat out the searing pulsing pain that's sticking to my back.

I hear a noise growing louder to my right and I force my tightened eyelids open to see something huge screaming towards me. Without thinking a roll to my left and get in the fetal position overtop of Nicky and raise my mass as much as I can before I feel something smash into my side and roll over me, the weight of it trying its best to crush me but it stops as soon as it started. Then it starts again, the thing rocking me to the side with the force of a lead wave before it stops and starts for a third time. All of that happens in less than a second and ends with the sound of crunching gravel cascading away until it stops suddenly.

I roll off of Nicky and groan as my hand reaches behind me and rubs my back, as if it has magical healing properties. I hear a hydraulic hiss and boots hitting steel and then concrete, the marching getting louder as they get closer. I roll back and look up to see a people standing over me, and it doesn't take long to figure out who it is.

"Christ Shepard, I knew you're a bad driver but this is… this is something else." Ian says as he cocks his head at me.

"He fell from the damn sky." Shepard scoffs. "How are you blaming me for this?"

"I think you just killed Maverick." Dylan says to Shepard.

"Well," Alex shrugs as he looks at everyone. "if someone on the squad was going to die, it would be him."

"And it would be because of Shepard's driving." Ian adds.

"It's not that bad." Shepard sighs. "Is it?"

"I almost threw up on Therum." Ian deadpans.

"I did throw up." Dylan nods. "Had to swallow it."

"That's gross." Ashely chuckles.

"Yeah." Dylan agrees with a slow nod.

"You're both ridiculous." Shepard says as she glares at Dylan and Ian. "I'm a great driver."

"You made Tali cry." Ian says as he rests his hand on Shepard's shoulder.

"Medi-gel." I mutter as I point to Nicky, Ashley immediately running over and helping her. Everyone moves over to her and starts to help her up, sitting her on the Mako's rear door, leaving me to get up by myself. I drag myself to my feet and stretch out my back, it doesn't feel like anything is broken but it hurts like hell. I shuffle over to them and see that the color in Nicky's face is coming back, Medi-gel is a hell of a drug. "Are you ok?" I ask.

"You threw me out a god damn building." Nicky sneers. "No I'm not fucking ok."

"Get over it." Alex mutters as he glares at me. "You're not the first."

"You need to drop that." I shake my head at him.

"This is the third fucking person you've done this to!" Alex shouts.

"They're spread out asshole." I say in a snarky tone.

"How long?!" Alex immediately asks, still yelling.

"Two or three weeks." I state, pointing at Alex.

"Oh yeah, that seems reasonable." Ian says sarcastically. "Only three forced skydives in two weeks? Perfectly normal behavior of any sane human being."

"What is wrong with you?" Shepard asks, shaking her head at me disapprovingly.

"You don't get to talk." I point at her. "You ran me over with the Mako."

"That what you get." Nicky speaks up.

"Can we go?" I ask, pointing at the open Mako.

"There's only room for one of you." Shepard says as she climbs into the Mako. "One of you will have to ride on the back."

"The back?" I ask, watching everyone pile into the Mako. Ashley smiles at me and taps a cross bar that's on the back of the Mako over the rear door, then she climbs in the Mako and the door closes behind her, leaving me by myself outside of the Mako.

"Oh oh! Pick me!" I jeer to no one as I wave my hand in the air and walk up to the Mako. "I'll ride on the outside of the tank driven by a madwoman!" I cheer sarcastically as I grab the cross bar and set my foot on a step at the bottom, slamming my other hand on the rear door to tell them I'm ready. "Let's get this shit over with."

---

I almost fall off the Mako eight times as Shepard 'drives' back to the colony, I swear it's like each tire on the Mako is a different size and shape when Shepard drives. We come to a shaky stop outside of the colony doors and I hop of the Mako and walk around to see the first thorian creeper, let me tell you I regret wanting to see that thing.

The creeper unfolds its arms and stands up to look at me, but it doesn't have eyes, just rotted out holes in its head. Its skin is a dry leathery grey and when it moves the skin cracks open, leaking pus and quickly giving the creeper a disgusting sheen. The noise that leaks out its mouth is a stale raspy moan, it sends chills up my spine and my blood cools when I hear it. Then there's the smell, even though my helmet can filter out toxic fumes and runs on a separate oxygen system, I can still smell the rotting flesh and pus in the air.

"What the hell is that?" Shepard asks as she draws her pistol and levels the sights on its head.

"Whatever it is its been here for a while." Ashley says and she eyes the creeper. "There's no way that's a colonist."

The creepers skin cracks and begins to leak as it takes a step forward, but I'm sure as hell not letting it get closer. I whip my hand up and let lose a warp, the biotic ball slamming into its chest and the sheer force of the impact knocks large flakes of rotting skin off the creeper before it hits the ground. Within seconds it dies, the warp melting entirely through its soft flesh in under a second, almost before it hit the ground.

"Now it's dead." I nod, pulling my Lancer off my back. "There's going to be more, let's not waste time. Nicky, stay behind me at all times, I don't need you wandering off and getting stabbed again."

"Don't tell me what to do." she says as she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.

"Maverick, take this." Shepard says as she sends me something on my Omni-tool. "It's a modification for your grenades, it will incapacitate the colonists without hurting them."

"Got it." I say as I select the anti-thorian gas as my current mod, drawing two grenades while they're on my mind.

Shepard walks up to the panel to the garage and slams her fist down on the green button and all of our weapons drop as we see what's in the garage. The garage is literately filled with creepers, there has to be at least a hundred of them in here. The only thing that snaps us out of our stupor is a few colonists by the stairwell opening fire on us, the gunfire forcing us out of the doorway and into cover behind the Mako.

"Open fire on the creepers!" Shepard commands as she draws her pistol and leans around the side of the Mako.

Dylan, Ian and I climb onto the tires of the Mako and start firing over the top of the Mako as Ashley and Alex take up positions on the side. The sound of all of our weapons firing blends into one continuous loud noise, the bullets tearing through the creepers that are flooding through the garage door. The creepers are falling like flies, some of the rounds go through multiple creepers and kill more than one but they keep pushing forward, inching their way closer to the Mako.

"Our creepers will blot out the sun!" Dylan hisses in a Greek accent, mimicking the movie 300 as he fires his rifle.

I can't resist yelling back at him as I move behind the Mako's turret and pull a grenade out of my pouch, changing the charge to explosive before throwing it into the mess of creepers. "Then we will fight in the shade!" I laugh as the explosion rocks bodies of creepers into the air like a wave, bits and pieces of rotting shiny flesh cascading into the air.

"What the hell are you two talking about?" Ashley yells as she draws her pistol as her rifle overheats.

"Quoting movies!" Dylan yells innocently as he mimics Ashley and begins firing his pistol.

"Awesome movies!" I add, placing my steaming Lancer on my back and pulling out my Katana. I stand up and fire my shotgun, holding it in one hand for a moment as I slash my hand at the crowd and sending a biotic shockwave at the horde. The shockwave hits the horde and knocks the first few creepers down and staggers the rest of them, the whole thing looks like they're tall grass being blown over by a gust of wind.

"Maverick, can you do that again?" Shepard yells, still pacing her pistol shots so it doesn't overheat.

"Couple more times!" I shout as I fire my shotgun again. "It's just going to hold them back from this range, why?"

"Good!" she yells as she moves in front of the Mako. "You're on point, everyone else fall in next to Maverick!"

I take a few quick steps over the Mako and hop down to the ground, everyone else hopping down next to me as I holster my katana and rub my hands together. I feel someone yank my Lancer off my back and I turn to see Shepard with my rifle, in fact everyone has their assault rifles leveled at the door.

"Push forward!" Shepard yells as we all start to walk towards the door, assault rifles thundering as we do. "Maverick, now!" she yells as the creepers get within fifteen feet.

I coil back my arm and feel it get heavy with biotics before I swing it across my body, sending goose bumps across my arm is the biotics slide off and smash into the creepers. The creepers in the first row are pulled apart like old chicken, ribbons of pus and hunks of rot sailing through the air as the other creepers are knocked back violently like bowling pins.

"Ugh, that's nasty!" Ian yells as we keep pushing. "I think I'm gunna hurl!"

"Keep going!" Shepard yells, tossing her own grenade into the pile of bunched up creepers, the grenade turning the pile into soup.

We keep moving and the amount of living creepers starts to dwindle, as the last one falls Shepard fiddles with a grenade before hurling it towards the colonists. A cloud of gas erupts around their feet and they quickly fall to the ground. Then the garage falls into a state of silence, which is a nice change of pace. We make our way through the colony, annihilating the creepers and knocking out the colonists until we get to the colony and Shepard plays with a console.

"Let's go!" I huff as I pull Nicky's arm further across my shoulders, hoisting her up higher. "You're so god damn slow."

"I was stabbed in the leg asshole!" she snaps as she pulls her arm back. "And stop lifting me up, I'm not seven feet tall like you!"

"I'm trying to help you you fucking…" I mutter under my breath, rounding the corner and seeing Shepard activate the console to lift up the platform to the thorian. As the platform rises I see everyone with Shepard draw their weapons and point them at the opening, Fai Dan walking out with his own pistol drawn.

"I tried to fight it…" he cringes as he staggers forward. "You can't imagine the pain! It wants me to stop you…"

I slide Nicky's arm off of me and start to walk towards Fai Dan as his pistol slowly rises to his head, closing the small gap before he can press the barrel against his head. I reach out and grab the pistol and Fai Dan looks at me, his face twisted in agony as he tries to fight the thorian. I yank the pistol from his grip and bring it back down on his head, knocking him out cold. I look over at Shepard and she seems to approve, though she apparently isn't happy how I stopped him.

"What?" I shrug as I click the on the safety before tossing it to the side.

"We have grenades." Shepard points out as she holsters her own pistol and walks towards the opening.

"You want to waste a whole grenade on one person?" I ask, nodding back to an unconscious Fai Dan. "Grenades don't grow on trees Shepard."

Shepard rolls her eyes and raises her wrist to her mouth. "All Normandy ground crew regroup in Zhu's Hope, all hands on deck for the thorian."

"What do we do with her?" I ask as I point to Nicky, who casually shoots me the finger.

"Bring her aboard the Normandy, take her to Dr. Chakwas."

"Me?"

"Yes you, now go."

"Fine, but I'm coming back here when I'm done." I tell her as I grab Nicky and start to walk to the Normandy.

I get Nicky in the Normandy and immediately drag her to the med bay, listening to her whine about how the military wastes money on 'stupid' ships instead of helping the poor. I can't stand this fucking woman, everything about her and her beliefs irritate me. Once we get to the med bay Chakwas does a quick scan and patches up the leg surprisingly quick, filling the wound with some sort of fluid and sewing up the entry and exit wounds. Unfortunately it's fast enough so that I have to take Nicky out of the Normandy and back to the colony.

"So what, now you're all just going to leave us here?" she asks.

"Yup." I nod, impatiently walking next to Nicky instead of running to the thorians lair. "ExoGeni will take care of you."

"Great, leave us to the fascists that got us in this mess in the first place." She huffs.

"Yup." I say with the same tone as before, motioning for Nicky to sit down on a bench.

"You're just as bad as them."

"Yup." I sigh, looking at my now blinking Omni-tool. I see it's Saylem and I take a few steps away from Nicky and accept the call. "Hey Saylem, did you get the files ok?"

"-Yes.-" he nods. "-I also fixed your design.-"

"There was nothing wrong with my design." I shake my head. "I checked everything, it's weighted right and functional."

"-It lacked modern technology.-" he blinks. "-So I fixed it.-"

"Ok." I sigh. "You might want to run clean up on this colony, I only went through one building. There's at least ten here."

"-Pakiev already dispatched a ship.-" Saylem says. "-I don't know which one, but they will be there tomorrow.-"

"Perfect." I say as I look around the colony. "I'm sure there are a bunch of goodies lying around here."

"-Aila wanted me to tell you there's a care package waiting for on the Citadel.-" Saylem adds. "-It's waiting for you at Warehouse 01-"

"Cool, anything else?"

"-You're helmet is broken.-"

"I know Saylem." I sigh. "See you later."

The call disconnects and I start to jog down to the thorian, winding down more staircases until I find the disgusting mass of shiny tentacles and fur that is the thorian. It just hangs there, expanding and shrinking as it breathes. Suddenly the whole thing shakes and lets out a shrieking howl as one of its tentacles rips loose, the sounds of battle erupting at one of the upper levels.

"Shit!" I curse as I look a few floors up, seeing the Normandy's squad tearing through creepers. I'm about to run up to them when a disgusting squishing and dripping noise comes from the thorian, its tentacles contracting as it makes low retching noises. Then a body slinks out of the thorian, a slim black armored green asari. Then something clicks as the slimy asari gets to her feet, this asari is one of Benezia's commandos. "Shit."

The asari blinks at me for a moment, the thick saliva batting off her eyelids as she does. Her whole body is covered with the spit which smells like wet dog, it makes my face twist in disgust. She cracks her neck as she walks forward, strings of spit falling from her body and leaving a little trail behind her. I have never been one to shy away from a fight, but this might be the grossest thing I'll ever have to do.

The asari's biotics flare and she begins to raise her hands but I flick my wrist and send a warp in her direction, she moves to the side and sends a wave of biotic energy at me in return. The wave crashes into me and I fight it like it's a raging current, leaning into the force and raising my mass. The wave passes quickly and I stand up triumphantly, proud that I stood up to a commandos biotics.

"That all you've got?" I sneer.

The asari huffs a small laugh, amused if nothing else. She raises her hand and a small blue bolt flies from her hand at a ridiculous speed and lightly hits my chest, the aura spreading across my body and sinks away within a second.

"What was…" I start, but then my whole body erupts in a pain. I fall to my knees and scrunch up in a ball, it feels like my muscles are being torn off my bones and my organs are being separated with a scorching hot scalpel. I scream as loud as my lungs will let me as my flesh burns and I'm forced to my feet as everything in my body flexes in agony. I manage to pull my head down to see what the asari is doing, despite the pain I'm in, and see her throw another biotic attack. This one hits me in the stomach and I feel like I was hit by a truck as I'm slammed against the far wall, barely able to have the state of mind to lower my mass.

I bounce off the wall and land on my hands and knees, the pain of whatever she hit me with still lingering in my body. I reach up a shaky hand and pat my back for my Lancer, but it's not there, Shepard still has it. I don't have time to think of another plan as I'm yanked into the air, lifting up about ten feet and then slammed back into the ground, the wind forcing its way out of my lungs.

I look to my side and see the asari walking towards me, her hips swaying smugly and her smile is evilly amused. I push myself to my feet and my body goes numb as the pain fades away, and then I wipe that fucking smile right off her face. My body twitches and in a blue flash I close the distance between us at fraction of the speed of light, my shoulder slams into her and I come to a full stop as she is sent sprawling through the air leaving drips of saliva hanging in the air.

The green commando hits the ground and slides backwards, after a few feet she swings her legs up and flips over onto her feet as if she planned it. For all I know she did. She runs as me with renewed vigor, raising a hand full of biotic energy. Before she can bring it down though I take a knee and whip my Katana off my back, squeezing the trigger once and then again after she flings the ball of dark matter at me. She crumples to the ground holding her shoulder and I whip a hand up to meet her biotics with my own, the detonation wrapping over my shoulder and side. I can feel the heat through my armor even after the biotics wisp away, but that quickly fades as I'm left with the injured commando.

I stand up and grip my shotgun with both hands, my finger hovering over the trigger until another scream from the thorian distracts me. I watch as the thorian tumbles down the chasm to its death, screeching until it hits the bottom. I look back to the asari and see she's on her feet and a fist is already on a collision course with my head, the punch impacting and causing my body to flinch and pull the trigger on my shotgun.

I hit the ground and hear another body hit the ground shortly after, the asari letting out a long sigh before she lies still. I groan as I feel the other side of my helmet, finding out that it's cracked now too. Jesus, I'm going to have to get extra helmets. I'm going through them faster than coffee filters. I decide to lay there for a bit, the thorian is dead so I don't have to do anything anyways. I might as well just enjoy the silence.

After a few minutes I hear footsteps in the next room so I stand up, dusting myself off so I look like I didn't get my ass kicked, again. Shepard is the first to walk through the door and I walk up to her instantly.

"Give me that." I say as I grab my Lancer off her back, placing it on my own.

"Where did you go?" Shepard asks, a slight smirk on her face. "I thought you said you were coming to help us."

The rest of the crew packs through the door and the now purple asari and Ian walk through the door. "I was busy fight the eco-friendly version of her!" I say as I point at the purple asari and the dead green asari. The purple asari looks at her dead self, staring at it curiously before looking at me. "Yeah, that's right." I nod at her. "Kicked your fuckin' ass."

"Maverick that's not nice." Shepard scolds, the smirk still playing on her mouth.

"Whatever." I huff as I start to walk towards the stairs. "Let's get off this hell hole."

---

[I]
ICARUS
-PERSONNEL DATABASE-

ID Code_A-01-R

Name: Saylem Jodin
Position: Research and Development CEO
Call Sign: Endeavor
Status: Active

Species: Salarian
Height: 180cm
Weight: 57kg
Skin Color: Grey
Markings Color: Violet
Iris Color: Black
Facial Markings: Angular Streaks Under Cheekbones

Research Proficiencies

A-01-R excels at designing new weaponry and technological advancements, often mixing technologies to produce unorthodox but effective gear. A-01-R worked with STG research and deployment teams to try to make more efficient technologies to get the upper hand against other species Special Forces groups, as salarians are less physically inclined as other races so technology is highly relied on. A-01-R also enjoys working in genetics, fascinated with the possibilities of gene therapy and cloning he has taken up most of his spare time researching this field.

Psychiatric Evaluation

Work Relations: A-01-R has barely spoken with other Icarus employees with an A ranking, and only talks to other Icarus employees when vocal communication is the only way to get something. That being said, A-01-R considers the A ranked staff as his friends, admitting that they are the only friends he has had. A-01-R has the closest relationship with Icarus employee A-01-M due to the fact that A-01-M has a very calm demeanor and often gets to the point of a conversation quite quickly, avoiding small talk. A-01-R has admitted that A-01-C's outgoing personality makes him uncomfortable but states that because of A-01-C's friendliness he is "Tolerable". However, A-01-R dislikes Icarus employee D-02-C due to his hostile and rude behavior, stating that it is "Intolerable".

Personal Mental State: Icarus employee A-01-R appears mentally stable, though this assessment could easily be incorrect. A-01-R provides short one worded answers to most questions, making therapy redundant do to the lack of communication. Things we have managed to piece together about A-01-R is minimal, his career in STG was cut short due to the fact that he was discharged by an officer after A-01-R fixed a project the officer had said was a dead end, probably out of embarrassment because such a young researcher had proved him wrong. A-01-R seems unaffected by this to a point of almost forgetting about the experience. A-01-R has also admitted that the only friends he has had in his life are the A ranked Icarus employees, but again doesn't seem to care about this fact. A-01-R could have deep repressed feelings that will eventually result in a mental breakdown or he could not care about the events of his past, deeming them unimportant. As to which possibility it could be is entirely unknown.

---

R/R

toprichie97: I've never read any Dead Space fics, hell I haven't even played the games, they look good though. I don't know if I'll go that far, seems like an anticlimactic way to have a crewmate killed off.

general-joseph-dickson: Haha, no man it's not a Soleneus fic.

Niras91: Yeah, haha! Most people are pretty nervous to act on stuff like that, but honestly what's the worst that could happen? I liked the first Police Academy, the others weren't that great but I know what you're talking about. Glad you got a laugh though, and you are too kind. Hope you liked Feros, it was long but I think it turned out ok.

DavidJ647: Thanks man. Glad you like Mavericks attitude towards most things, especially not needing to be friends with everybody. With all of the different personalities it doesn't seem plausible that everyone is going to get along. I will try to keep it up, and thanks for the review!

TheRev28: Ahh don't worry about it man, I understand. Your right, it was basically a buffer chapter in between missions but you've gotta have right? But now I suppose it's time to respond to the novel of a review you wrote, which I like because you brought up valid points.

It's cool that you don't like the romance stuff, if I can be honest it's not my strong suit so I'm surprised only one person critiqued it. You're absolutely right when it comes to the other romances, when I looked back at previous chapters I found not hints of a romance with the other SI's and if they were they were so small it would be passed off as just regular friendships. One thing I disagree on is the fact that you think the romances should change, while there will be some changes I don't see how having new additions to the crew would change relationships. Sure it'll change missions around but in the off time people will still be drawn to the same person despite who's around them. That's my opinion though, I'd like to think that if I like someone I'm still going to pursue that person no matter who's around me. I also think that the romances are a side feature, something to fall back on because you can't constantly be shoving character developments down peoples throat or you will develop the character too quickly and have nothing left for them to do later on.

I've hear people say that and I think your right, you don't need to show everything but again you're right that I need to show something. I will try to do that in the future for sure though. Thank you for pointing it out, I've got some changes to make. Also I think that because of Mavs knowledge of Dylan's story, calling him Romeo was acceptable. Plus I call my buddies Romeo whenever they ditch guys night for a girl.

I wouldn't call it playing matchmaker, if anything that would be Arts department. Mav if anything doesn't want anything to do with other people's business and is pushing Dylan just because it makes him uncomfortable. Glad you liked his reaction though.

I thought Shepard should be more human because it makes her more interesting, it makes her different from the Shepard that you played in the games. Plus I also thought it was ridiculous that it took Shepard until the reapers invasion of Thessia to show her human side, I mean think about all of the crazy shit she did and it's the one thing she knew would probably happen breaks her? I call shenanigans. Yeah it seems like a lot of people are pulling for Mav/Aila, pretty much anyone who mentions it says they want to see Mav/Aila.

Don't worry about the long review, I love those the most. Plus you got me to take another look at my story and gave me a chance to make it better, so thanks! Hope you liked Feros, I changed the perspective instead of the mission and I thought it worked out, plus some questions that are unanswered. You too sir, you too!

Nas4a2: Thanks, I'll try to do right by ya!

PoseidonN7: I can't wait for Virmire, things are going to change a bit for sure. Hope you like what I keep writing!

Spiritstrike: Yup, fun stuff that character direction. Garrus and Mav aren't going to get along but Shepard's going to work that out next chapter… hopefully, but who knows?

Yeah Icarus is really kicking off, it's going to start showing in the next few chapters. They are spreading like wildfire but that can always cause problem, and it will.

The Wingstick is awesome, I loved that weapon so much I almost used it exclusively in RAGE. Look it up if you have the chance, it's so cool! I thought the Indiana Jones thing was funny, plus I love messing with people like that. Nobody is off limits to my tomfoolery!

Well there's Feros, and nothing terrible happened! Mav didn't even get seriously injured! Glad you liked Aila's file and also hope you like the file for Saylem!

V-rcingetorix: Thanks man, glad you liked it! Yeah, this will probably end up a Mav/Liara. Can't speak for the other fics in the future though. I will try!

ForgottenPrince: No problem man, don't hesitate to ask more. Glad you like it so far, I hope you keep liking it!

OBSERVER01: Yup, that's not all they'll develop but that's for another day. It'll be something different, something I'm surprised didn't already exist in the MEverse.

kenegi: Yup, because you mentioned that I added it into this chapter. Thanks for reminding me! I did plan on the dampening but there haven't really been any enemies who use it, maybe when we get to fight some actual mercs.

ElysiumPhoenix: Glad to hear it man! I try to make an effort to write in some funny, it lightens the mood a bit.