***Author's Note***

I can't believe it's chapter 20 already! This Story has surpassed my other stories massively, so I would just like to thank everyone for reading and following and the such :3 Your support is greatly appreciated!

A big thank you to Gamer072196 for all the help and support :D

Also, I've been asked if there will be sex in this story so this is like a super pre-emptive warning/heads up: There will be sex in this story! There will be a warning in the note before the chapter for those of you who don't want to read that kind of stuff :)

And! (I know this note is huge and I apologise...) I've been debating about revealing Shepard's name but I can't decide. Leave a review or PM me if you think I should and I'll get on it :)

I think that's it...yeah...enjoy! :)

Chapter 20 - Reapers and Geth

The squad had gathered in the shuttle bay as Shepard decided who he would take with him.

He had already ruled out Jacob and Miranda due to their split loyalties, he just didn't have the patience for them today. Jack and Grunt were too volatile and something as delicate as a dead Reaper really shouldn't have those two running around inside it. Mordin was preoccupied perfecting his shield against the swarms and analysing any data they had on the Collectors and Shepard didn't want to disturb him. Kasumi was still distracted with her grey box, every time he had tried to speak to her she had hushed him and turned back to looking through Keiji's memories. And Zaeed simply stated that he didn't wish to go.

That left him with Thane, Marie, and Garrus. He would be lying if he didn't say he was pleased with this outcome.

Thane and Garrus were ready in the shuttle. He and Marie were arming themselves.

"Hey, your breather isn't on right." He turned her to face him and quickly adjusted the minor clasps that kept her helmet on her head. He stepped back and looked her armour up and down.

It was quite similar to his own. All the way down to the N7 logo on the right breast. But, where his armour was built for power and endurance to keep him going as he fought close range with his enemies, her armour was built for safety and stealth. Her shield buffers gave her fifty percent extra sway with the amount of hits she could take before they would damage her armour. Her tactical armour and cloak on top of that would give her an all round better chance of staying out of sight and allowing her drone and incinerate to do the damage, her heavy pistol and assault rifle were to be used when she thought she had a good shot and only if she thought she could handle it.

But then, Shepard was hoping they wouldn't need their weapons but after Bekenstein he wasn't taking any chances.

"You sure you want to come?" He spied her eyes shutting briefly as she took a calming breath, before she nodded. "Okay then, let's go."

She couldn't keep still. Her legs were bouncing on the balls of her feet, her fingers were tapping meaningless tunes on her knees, and her eyes were flitting between the men in the group. Who could blame her? It was a dead Reaper! And after what Shepard had told her about the ancient sentient race she couldn't wait to see one. So long as it doesn't try to kill us...

Shepard was talking quietly with Garrus as they glided through the Thorne system and toward the derelict Reaper. The shuttle shuddered through the chop as Joker confirmed over comm that winds were gusting at 500kph only for all to go quiet and still.

"The Reaper's mass effect fields are still active. We just passed inside their envelope."

Marie craned her neck to look out the front window. "Whoa..." Everyone turned to look at her reaction. Her eyes were wide inside her helmet and her mouth formed a small 'O'. "It's absolutely massive!" The Reapers arms were degrading and their debris silently drifted on the non existant current. It's black silhouette loomed above them making her feel quite insignificant. Who the hell made these things!? Just visible beneath its arms was another ship. "What's that ship?"

Shepard frowned as he caught a glimpse of the smaller ship. "Joker? Any readings on that thing?"

Joker's voice crackled around them. "Umm...hang on...It's not transmitting an IFF, but the ladar paints its silhouette as Geth."

Marie chewed on her lip as she watched Shepard's scowl turn to fury. His eyes flickered red briefly and his scars lit up. "I guess we know why the science team stopped reporting in." He growled out. He and Garrus continued on their minute inspection of the Reaper ship and Marie took her time to gather her thoughts and courage.

Geth!? She remembered reading up on geth after she had come across the term whilst learning about quarians. A race of networked artificial intelligences that the quarians created. They became sentient and questioned their masters, this resulted in a war that lost the quarians their home world: Rannoch. She had meant to ask Tali about it but Thane had advised against it. Such a touchy subject...she mused.

The shuttle whirred and began to slow down as they approached a viable docking point. Marie looked around the shuttle as the lights began to brighten.

Garrus was slowly guiding the shuttle to a halt, his dextrous talons flickering over the orange controls. He was murmuring to himself as he did so. Shepard was watching him with a small smile. His brown eyes glistened with mirth as he listened to the small trills that came from the turian.

Shepard's eyes flickered to her and he winked with a jaunty bob of his head, before pulling on his helmet and altering the display to his specifics. She took this as a que to turn her own on as he had shown her earlier and the display flickered into life. Its blue lines showing her the life signs and condition of the crew. Thane's life sign was a blip on the top left corner and she turned to look him over.

His head was bowed and black eyes were shut against the glare of the over head lights. His scales glistened beneath them and his full lips moved as he spoke his silent prayer. His prayer to Amonkira.

It wasn't until his eyes blinked his dual eyelids at her did she realise she had been staring. She held his gaze for a second more before letting them rove over him. Green skin and black lines, tight leather and supple muscles. She smirked and looked back into his eyes only to see his neck had turned much darker and he squirmed beneath her onslaught. She allowed her mind to wander over what else could make him squirm before Shepard called for them to step of the shuttle.

She vaguely heard Garrus speak. "Exploring an abandoned area, expecting something mechanical and nasty to jump out at any moment. Just like old times."

They moved in a small diamond like formation. Shepard on point, Thane to his left, Garrus on his six, and Marie on his right. Shepard explained that this way the snipers could get to vantage points quicker, and Marie would be safer where someone could always see her. Also, Garrus was always on his six.

She was barely listening however. Her mind was an explosion of thought and wonder as she took in the inner workings of the Reaper. Tainted though it was by the Cerberus personnel's own tech, it was still amazing.

It's organic yet...not.

The sheer age of the thing was one thing. The advanced technology was another. She wondered how something so old could be so developed and her small scans of the walls around her revealed substances that she could only dream about. Substances that simply didn't exist.

Shepard did his investigations of the seemingly abandoned corridors and small lab.

"So...everything you hoped it would be?" Garrus murmured as he stood beside her.

"Hmm. I wish I could see it without all this foreign tech." She replied honestly.

Garrus chuckled and leaned against a wall beside a door as he watched Shepard and Thane talk over a log. "If this tech wasn't here it would mean the Reaper was alive. And we'd be dead."

"Yeah, but-"

"These aren't your everyday AI's or VI's, Marie. The Reapers are killers. Bent on destroying all organic life for some higher purpose that we couldn't possibly understand. Or that's what Sovereign used to think." He took a moment. "Before we destroyed it."

Marie bowed her head and looked at the foreign steel floor. "I know."

"It's a shame you didn't join us sooner. You would have seen a live one." He chuckled. "Also, don't bring anything back with you, nothing good will come of it." She nodded her understanding and he looked at her fully. "So, have you and Thane talked about..."

She furrowed her brow before catching his meaning. "Oh! Kinda, it's a bit of an awkward subject around him." Her eyes slid over to the drell with an unspoken 'Shut up, Garrus' behind them. Garrus canted his head before his eyes grew wide with understanding.

The ground shook beneath them and pitched Marie into her turian friend.

"Joker to shore party!"

Shepard and Thane jogged over to the other two squad members. "What just happened?"

"The Reaper put up kinetic barriers. I don't think we can get through from our side." The pilot sounded panicked which, in turn, panicked Marie.

"We're trapped!" Thane came to stand beside her and gently squeezed her fingers in his.

Shepard shook his head as the door opened for them. "We'll have to take down the barrier generators from in here. Fuck, any idea where they are?" He asked of no one in particular.

EDI's synthetic voice echoed through their comm link. "At the moment of activation, I detected a heat spike in what is likely the wrecks mass effect core. Sending the coordinates now." Their Omni-tools pinged and the coordinates were sent to show on their displays. "Be advised: this core is also maintaining the Reaper's altitude."

Shepard sighed. "For fucks sakes. So when we take the barrier down to escape, the wreck falls into the planet core."

"And that means everyone dies. Yeah, I got it." Joker quipped. "We'll pick the shuttle up and do some laps before you signal us to pick you up..."

Shepard laughed. "If any helmsman can pull us off this thing before it reaches crush depth, it's you." He paused for a breath. "We'll make a sweep for survivors and recover what data we can. Stand by."

"Aye aye, good hunting!" A click and they were alone once more.

Shepard turned to her as they began their mission into the depths of the Reaper. "Well...I'm sorry, Marie." She cocked a brow at him. "Every mission you seem to come on seems to crash and burn."

"Maybe I'm just not made for missions..."

"Yeah...or maybe you're just bad luck!"

She lightly punched him in the arm as they carried on walking through the ship.

Thane walked close beside Marie as he watched the panic slowly creep in. Her shoulder brushed against his arm and he was glad she found even a small amount of comfort from him in this gods forsaken place.

Ahead of him he saw Shepard give a signal to slow down and he gently pulled Marie's forearm to keep her beside him. She slowed her pace and moved her fingers to entwine with his. He hadn't meant to imply for her to hold his hand but he wasn't about to complain either. He looked down at their hands and let a small smirk grace his lips behind his mask. His fused fingers were nestled between her small finger and ring finger, giving the impression that her middle finger was fused to it and he didn't wonder at the warm feeling it gave him.

So lost was he in his thoughts, that he nearly collided with Garrus before Marie pulled his hand back.

Shepard was knelt over a group of decomposing bodies that had taken their last breath on a precarious gangway. Thane frowned and quietly said a prayer for their souls to Kalahira. The small hand in his gripped tighter and he stroked his thumb back and forth on the back of her hand.

And then the Husks came.

Defeating them was a simple task for the hardened warriors in their group. Thane placed his bullets well as he covered Shepard and Garrus who had decided to fight up close and personal with the enemy. Shepard had a slight grin on his pale face as he blasted Husks into oblivion with his shotgun, his back to Garrus whose calm demeanor was a counter balance to his partner as his assault rifle pelted the undead.

Thane quickly looked over to Marie who...wasn't there.

Panicking he spun around to look for his siha. Her life signature on his display was gone and her body was nowhere to be seen. A grunt from the fight made him turn back and he cursed himself.

Shepard and Garrus had been overwhelmed. The Husks had swarmed over the banisters and were promptly climbing on the commander and the first officer. Shepard was beating at one Husk by his face whilst another scrambled on his back. Garrus had fallen to one knee as his shields fell in a flicker of blue.

He had to pick one. He aimed his sniper rifle at the Husk on Shepard back, maybe if he was quick he would be able to save the turian. He flexed his finger and the Husks head exploded in a fountain of black-blue blood and grey skin. He turned his rifle quickly to Garrus and paused...

The Husks were being shocked by a ball of orange and green. Michelangelo...and then from behind the fight, further down the runway, Marie flickered into being and a surge of fire erupted from her Omni-tool. Shepard battered the Husk off him and blasted away the one on Garrus and together they stood.

"Fuck..." Shepard rolled his neck and shoulders. "I wasn't expecting that." The commander turned on Marie. "What the hell, man?" His brown eyes stared her down and she squirmed beneath his chastising gaze.

"I panicked..." Her drone returned to her side. "...and then I saw Garrus' shield go down. I rushed over to this side to flank as Thane shot the one off you and sent Mike out..."

Garrus clapped her on the shoulder. "Maybe you could do that from the beginning next time?" Shepard laughed with a shake of his head as she smirked at the turian.

"Hey, Thane! You coming or what?" Thane nodded and jogged over to the group. "Nice shooting." He received at pat on the back from the commander.

They followed the gangway for a short while. Thane and Garrus listened closely to a conversation Shepard and Marie were having.

"You never told me about those!"

"Well excuse me, princess! I have a lot of shit to think about." He crossed his arms in indignation.

"Zombies, Shepard! Zombies!"

Thane watched Shepard shiver at the word. "Ew, Marie. They aren't zombies...ugh, that's just..." Another shiver. "Just...no." A half-hearted glare toward Marie.

His siha grinned which made Thane grin aswell, though he wasn't sure why she was grinning. "Shepard...are you afraid of zombies?"

"What! No! I'm not afraid of...zombies! Woman, please! I've fought worse things than..."

"Aww! You are afraid of zombies! Don't worry, we will protect you." She laughed and gestured at Thane and Garrus. "The mean zombies wont get you." They laughed together and walked on.

Thane felt a small nudge at his shoulder and he turned to Garrus. "What the hell is a 'zombie'?" The drell simply shrugged and rushed to catch up to the humans.

Marie felt herself pulled to the side as a bullet found its home in a Husk's head. She looked up at Thane whose eyes were scanning everywhere above them.

Garrus cried out "Sniper!" And they all pulled out their weapons and proceeded with caution.

They descended to a large platform. In the distance Marie could see large black spikes, just visible beyond the edge of the platform.

A gravelly moaning filled the air and suddenly there were Husks all around them.

Marie pulled up her Omni-tool and sent out Mike. The orange and green ghosted over the battle and began its assault on the Husks appearing toward the back. Heads exploded into gray matter as Thane and Garrus put their skills to use. Shepard exploded into the blue light of his biotics and slammed himself into the middle of the enemies.

And then Shepard was flung away from the Husks by a blue-black energy that travelled through the ground. Marie turned to where the assault had come from and very nearly screamed.

A large humanoid figure was shuffling toward them. A deformed arm pointed at them and its bulbous back wobbled through its gait.

"Scion!" Thane shouted and pulled his sniper on it, whittling away at its defenses before Garrus hit it with a concussive blast. It fell with a gurgling wet moan.

Marie sighed in relief and incinerated a small group of Husks that were descending on the commander who was finding his feet again. He pumped his shotgun into those nearest to him and the room fell eerily silent.

Shepard and Garrus moved forward toward the black spikes at the end of the platform. "We've seen these before, Shepard. Dragon's teeth, your people call them. The geth used them on Eden Prime."

Shepard sighed and looked around. His face was an angry scowl as he took his helmet off for a breather. "See how the room is arranged?" He pointed to more 'Dragon's Teeth' in the walls. "They treated this thing like some kind of altar..." The Reaper tech flowed over the walls and into a main pillar beyond the Dragon's Teeth.

"It does look like that, but why would they want this to happen?"

"You heard the logs. They were seeing things. Hearing things. They were being indoctrinated." He turned to Marie. "Now you see why this has to end...why this tech shouldn't exist."

Marie frowned. "I had no doubts in the first place, Shepard."

The commander nodded and replaced his helmet. "We can't help these people now. But we wont let the machines use their corpses like this." He strolled past the others and moved on.

The red in the room made visibility difficult and Marie found herself relying more and more on the display in her helmet. She paid attention to Shepard's orders as he sent the three of them ahead of him whilst he reloaded his shotgun.

She heard the moaning before the racket of a gun. She spun around to see two husks drop to the ground. Dead again.

Garrus and Thane had their rifles out and pointed at a target above them and she followed their line of sight.

What the hell is that..?

"Shepard-Commander." The robot, as Marie decided, began to walk away, blue lights flickered from with a hole in its chest. She watched it go with wide eyes and a twitchy trigger finger.

Thane was the first to question it. "I've never heard of geth speaking to someone..." It was a geth? I thought they-

"Since when do geth operate alone? They get smarter the more of them there are." Garrus mumbled as they walked forward.

The moaning began once more and husks climbed over the barriers of the gangway.

Shepard huffed and threw a shockwave into a forming line of them, promptly knocking them back over the barrier and down to where the came from. A concussive blast dissolved a small group of them and one was lifted and thrown away. Marie sent out an incinerate and pulled her heavy pistol out, aiming it at the torsos of the shambling corpses. She felt proud when most of her shots hit and Thane nodded in approval.

Shepard seemed rushed as he disregarded checking if they had cleared all of the husks, simply shooting and rushing forward and down toward a wider platformed area. Garrus groaned and ran with him whilst Thane signaled for him and herself to go at a slower pace and cover them from afar. The two quickly got overwhelmed by the sheer number of the husks. Marie coded for her drone to take out as many as it could and to be a distraction as Thane cleanly took of heads. A scion rounded the corner and raised its deformed arm to aim at the commander and Garrus. She aimed an incinerate at the thing and it staggered back with the force, its armour was down. Thane smirked and down it with a shot to the head.

Shepard whistled loud and they all rushed forward, smacking away the remaining husks with well placed blows from their weapons.

They rounded a corner and skidded to a stop. Down the stairs at their feet was a huge swarm of husks that were backed up by two scions.

"Everyone! Back up around the corner!" They looked to him with puzzled expressions, Shepard smirked a pulled of a massive gun from his mag strip. "I got this."

Garrus choked and ushered Thane and Marie back and around the corner as a whirring began from the gun.

Maire pulled at Garrus' arm. "What is that thing?" The gun had a slight orange glow to it as Shepard pointed it at the slowly advancing hoard.

"That's the Cain. Shepard's favourite weapon."

A blast that rocked the ground beneath them and blew Shepard back into Garrus' open arms signaled the shot from the gun. A small compact nuke that had wiped out all signs of the enemy group in one blast.

"Ugh..." Shepard shook his head as he stood again. "I love that gun."

Thane chuckled quietly as they moved toward the door. The Cain is a very big gun.

"We just need to take out the core now, right?" He nodded at Marie's question as Garrus answered her.

"Yeah, and then we get of this ship...fast."

Shepard grumbled something about a shower as the door opened for them. They entered the corridor and moved toward the next door, they were just about to pass through before they noticed that Marie had stopped at a data log. She was holding a small grey box in her hand that was covered in odd wires and strange letters.

"Is this the IFF?" She handed it over to Shepard as he hit himself in the head.

"Jeez, I nearly forgot about that." He clapped the woman on her shoulder as he pocketed the IFF. "Good find, what are the chances." They could all hear the smile in his voice.

"So, the Cerberus team did recover it. But, where are they now?"

Shepard shrugged and marched back toward the door to open it. "It doesn't matter. We have what we came for."

The opened to a bright blue light the pounding of more gun fire and the falling of dead husks. At the far end of the room, before the core, was the geth. It turned away from them and began to furiously work at the control pad before it. Thane pulled is gun and the others followed his example. A barrier prevented them for moving forward, so they could only watch as more husks crept toward the geth and wait for the barrier to fall.

As it did, the husks succeeded in their job and the geth fell in a heap. Shepard charged forward with them all at his heels and they quickly disposed of the husks.

The core closed itself and the fighting began once more.

Marie panted, her hands supported her weight as she leaned heavily on a bannister. The ship bucked beneath them as Shepard, Garrus, and Thane argued the pros and cons of bringing the geth with. After one particularly worrying rumble, she had had enough.

"We should bring it with us!" The men all turned to face her. "It could be valuable. Tali told me that no one had every captured an intact one before and if it tries anything we can kill it a throw it out the airlock." The ship rocked again. "We don't have time to argue about it!"

"She has a point, Shepard." Garrus lifted the geth with the help of Thane and the two stared down the commander.

"Ugh! Fine! But if this goes wrong I will not be taking responsibility!" He huffed and began to lead the way to the coordinates that Joker had provided them with. "And we ask Tali to turn it back on!" They nodded in agreement and followed at a slow jog due to their new burden.

The ship had pulled up beside a gangway and Shepard signaled for the geth to be thrown into the port-side airlock. Thane took a running jump and hurtled himself into the door, spinning as he did so he could face the others as they took their jumps. Marie went next and was caught delicately by the drell who pulled her into his chest protectively. Garrus followed closely and turned to watch Shepard.

The commander blasted a few more husks into permanent death before jumping and landing gracefully beside them.

"We're clear! Go!" The door shut and they were enclosed in blackness.

Remember to let me know if yo want to know Shepard's name :)

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