Enjoy!


Kal watches as Elsie takes several steps back from the edge of the slowly vanishing platform before running forward and leaping with all her might toward him. Her arms whirl forward to gain more momentum, and moments before she impacts the stone platform that he stands on, she smoothly rolls to a stop in front of him.

"I would've caught you, y'know?"

"Not gonna take a chance on that," she says. "Not all of us can get revived." Elsie continues past him, pressing her back against the wall and inching forwards.

"And if you could? If you were a Guardian?"

"It never happens," Elsie says. "And it will never happen."

"As far as you know."

"As far as I know."

"And everything you once knew—"

"Is now not the same," she finishes. "Yes, I'm aware. Could you let me focus, Kal? Before I accidentally slip and fall into the endless void?"

"Alright."

The rest of the treacherous walk is done in relative silence, and when they reach the other side, Elsie continues. "To answer your question, if I were a Guardian, it would be inconvenient for us. Guardians lose all memory of their past life, in case you forgot."

Kal caught Elsie's unspoken words. What she meant to say yet didn't. He would miss her too. "Fair enough," he decides to say.

Both he and Elsie press onward, deeper into the Vault. As they do so, memories of the raid that he and his fireteam went on so many years ago return to him. Everything was so different then. So intense and violent and awful. Back then, they all shared the weight of the system on their shoulders. And while his friends were loath to admit it, the burden on Kal's shoulders was greater than the one that rested on their own.

His pace slows, and it is then that Elsie takes notice. "Are you alright, Kal?"

"Just remembering things."

"Oh." She slows herself down to match him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Kal shakes his head. "I'm alright. Not bad memories."

"How are they doing, by the way? Your fireteam. Besides Apollo."

"Adrestus, Diana, and Heirax are off exploring beyond the system together. And Avrina… I think she retired. Started an orphanage in the Last City."

"That does sound like her."

Kal nods just as the duo comes to a stop before the closed stone gates of the Glass Throne. "It's closed. Why is it closed? Daph, run a scan on the surrounding area. I want to know the last time someone was here."

"Already done," Daph says as she transmats between the two. She blinks. "Kal, no one's been here in years. Not since you and the others were."

"Acknowledged. Elsie," he says, glancing at her. "Stay back."

"While you go inside? That's not happening."

"If the Vex have a presence here— if they're back in the Vault of Glass… I can't have you take a chance like that. Not without a ghost."

"I'm not helpless, Kal," Elisabeth says. "I'm going in there with you. No matter what."

"I know you're not helpless, I just—" Kal is cut off by the deep rumble of the moving stone doors.

The entirety of the Glass Throne is different. There is no glass. No stone. No Vex gates. No Vex platforms. There are only flowers. Flowers and vines and greenery cover and enshroud every inch, every corner, every nook and cranny of the Glass Throne.

The Vault of Glass had been turned into a garden. A Vex garden. Like the Garden of Salvation and the Black Garden.

"It's a Vex garden," Elsie says, putting her rifle away.

"No," Kal says. "This is different. It feels different."

"What do you—"

"It's like the Garden of Salvation," Kal says.

"I haven't been there."

"It's the only thing I can compare it to."

Elsie frowns. "Well, we still need to look around. See if we can find something that can clue us into what Winter-1 saw."

Kal nods. He patrols around the room, crouching and kneeling down to touch the flowers. His hands, still gloved, gently caress the flower petals. They extend, blooming outward to meet his touch.

Inside of the flower, within its glass-like bud, a sphere containing innumerable stars swirls constantly, rotating around another sphere that rotates around another sphere— continuing endlessly forever. It reminds Kal of the Milky Way if it were repeatedly stacked on top of itself. It is beautiful. Arguably one of the most beautiful sights that Kallios has ever seen. It rivaled the golden skyline of Mercury, the ethereal bloom of the Dreaming City, the violent vastness of the Tangled Shore, and the endless tides of Titan.

"Elsie," Kal says.

He stares into the bud, waiting for her response.

"Elsie?" He calls.

Kal pulls himself away from the bud to locate Elisabeth. He scans around the Glass Throne, only to find that Elisabeth is not there. She is nowhere to be seen.

Panic seeps into his thoughts. Against his will, his breath quickens.

"Kal!" Daphne cries out, transmatting to a flower some thirty feet away. Her shell twists and spins at a frantic pace. "She was last here." She pitches down, indicating the trail in the flowers left by Elsie's footsteps.

"Is she…?" Kal approaches the flower; he crouches down beside it. The petals bloom outward to meet his touch. He has never seen this before, but he understands. He knows how dangerous the Vex are. He and Elsie know. He would take no chances with their machines.

He glances up at Daphne. "Leave a message behind."

"Kal…"

"Daph," Kal says. "I'm not losing her."

Daphne does the equivalent of a sigh— a tightening and expanding of her shell. She lets out a machine-like chirp, before saying, "Done. Message encoded and delivered to the Vanguard."

Kal takes hold of Daphne with one hand before touching the flower with his other hand.

The moment his extended finger graces against the surface of the petal, Kal and Daphne are gone.

They disappear, taken by the budding flowers of the Garden.

A breeze blows sourcelessly from within the Glass Throne. It pulls strange, haunting sounds from the garden as it rushes past.

[;]

The plinking beeps of a message arriving draw Commander Zavala's attention to his office terminal. It is a message from Daphne, Kallios' ghost. A rare occasion at this time. Zavala sits down at his desk to read it.

Commander, Ikora, and Crow, Kallios had me send this to you before he went and did something stupid. Before we went and did something stupid, actually. Elisabeth Bray and Kallios got hold of a weird transmission and have spent the better part of this week trying to solve the mystery surrounding it.

Their search brought them back to the Vault of Glass on Venus. They found a garden there. Like the Garden of Salvation on the Moon, but smaller. The flowers are different, though. I think each one houses a Vex simulation of some sort.

Regardless, Elisabeth touched one of the flowers and it sucked her into the simulation. Kallios and I are going after her.

Send your best to the Vault of Glass. If there's a chance that it's reactivated, you need to stop it.

Daphne and Kal.

Zavala closes his eyes, breathing in deep. He opens his eyes once again, and begins constructing a message to send to Ikora. And the rest of Kallios' fireteam.

[;]

Whispers coalesce from every conceivable angle around Kallios. Inaudible words and phrases that twist, bend, contract, and relax. It is a combination of sounds, unlike anything he has ever heard before. The speech is slow and heavy like each word uttered requires nothing short of exacting effort. Kallios, even just barely breaching the state of consciousness, manages to decipher parts of what is said.

"This is no place for his kind."

"For none of them."

"Yet here he is."

"Yet here he is."

"He's listening to us now— the little rascal."

A series of rhythmic thumps echo all around Kallios. It sounds like fingers drumming against his skull; muted drumming Laughter, it seems.

"Rest now, you sly little rascal," it said. "You have quite the journey ahead of you."

Kallios fades into unconsciousness.

[;]

"Commander Shepard, our sensors picking up two anomalies exiting FTL on our starboard side."

Commander Jane Shepard clenches her jaw, worried. "How large?"

"Human-sized, Commander," EDI says. "And they are quickly approaching."

Shepard sighs with relief. "Move to intercept using our shuttle bay," she says. "If these are people, we need to rescue them."

The Normandy and her crew are on approach to Mars, following the swift evacuation of Earth. The Reapers are here in their galaxy, and the races of the Citadel were desperate for anything that would help them defeat the Reapers. If the Prothean archives on Mars contained anything, it was in the galaxy's best interests for the Normandy and her crew to check, at least before the Reapers could get their hands on it.

So despite all of Shepard's interests and wishes, Admiral Anderson ordered her to get off Earth and head to Mars. And from there, warn the Council of the Reaper invasion. If they didn't already know.

"Anomaly interception in three, two, and one," EDI announces. The ship alarm blares, signaling the opening of an airlock before it falls silent once again. "Medical crew are transferring them to the medical bay, Commander."

"Good work. What's our ETA to Mars?" Shepard glances down at the galaxy map.

"Ten minutes, Commander."

Shepard fixes her hair behind her ears. "EDI, tell Vega and Ashley to prep for deployment. We're getting in and out, quick and easy."

"Of course, Commander."

Shepard makes her way out of the CIC and onto its elevator, selecting the third deck of the Normandy as her destination. She needs to make sure her new guests aren't dangerous. Or their sworn enemies.

The elevator doors slide open, and Shepard paces to the sick bay. She sees two members of the security team— Adams and McJones— standing outside the room, and just as she is about to enter, one of them stops her with a hand.

"Sorry, Commander. Doctor Chakwas said she needed the room cleared while she works on the survivors."

Shepard nods. And she waits.

[;]

The next time Kal grasps consciousness, he is able to open his eyes. Pale, fluorescent light blasts his vision; he blinks frenetically, eventually adjusting to the light, focusing on the older woman with silver-gray hair that now hovers over him.

"Good, you're awake," she says, curtly.

"Where—" Kal sits up on the bed.

"You are currently aboard the Normandy SR-2, an Alliance vessel," she says. "My name is Doctor Karin Chakwas. What's your name?"

"Kallios."

"Just Kallios?"

He nods. He glances about the doctor's office, trying to locate Elsie. The room is industrial and modern. There is a sleekness to its gray, gunmetal walls and ceilings. The design is unlike anything Kallios has ever seen. Either it is from beyond the Sol system, or something else.

He finds Elsie quickly. Once he spots her laying on another bed on the other side of the room, he rushes to her side. He checks the monitor that displays her vitals.

"She's fine," Dr. Chakwas confirms. "Though, I've never seen anything like her."

Kallios files that information away for later. "She's important to me. How long until she wakes up, Doctor?"

"Not too long," she says. "Both of your vitals were fine, despite being spaced. I won't question it myself, but Commander Shepard likely will."

"Is he the leader of this vessel?"

"Commander Shepard is a woman." Chakwas' eyes narrow slightly. "But yes. She is."

"Apologies." Kallios half-sits at the foot of Elsie's bed. "And how soon will we be meeting her?"

"Now," Chakwas says as the door behind her slides open to reveal Commander Shepard.

She is a pale-skinned, red-headed woman that gazes fiercely at Kallios. She stares at him uncompromisingly. She looks momentarily at Doctor Chakwas; they nod and share in brief, silent conversation. Her shoulders are set forward, firmly and stiffly. Like she was carrying something.

"Commander Shepard," a feminine, robotic voice says from somewhere above them. "We are now in orbit above Mars."

Mars? Then that means they are still in the Sol system. Kallios puts that aside, turning his attention to Commander Shepard. It opens up the realm of the possibility that this is all just a Vex simulation. Some test that they conducted in the Vault of Glass to try and turn Venus into another Mercury. Into another machine world.

"Keep them within the med bay, Doctor," she orders. Her voice is softer than what Kallios expected. The command is given to Chakwas, not barked at her.

Chakwas salutes the Commander as she leaves the med bay. "I trust you won't do anything rash?" She asks Kallios.

Kallios shakes his head. "Not exactly keen on making enemies of your crew. Or your commander." He glances out the window of the med bay. He sees many other crew members patrolling the floor. His and Elsie's presence seems to have put the crew on some sort of alert. Or maybe they were on alert to begin with.

If the transmission that ended up in Elsie's possession was any indication, Shepard's crew— and humanity, most likely— are at war with something. Something powerful. Something dangerous. Something that, to their understanding, is unbeatable. Undefeatable.

He pulls up a chair to the side of Elsie's bed.

He places his hand atop hers.

Kallios waits for Elisabeth to wake up.

[;]

Shepard and her fireteam return with blaring alarms that Kallios instantly snaps awake to. He reaches for his hand cannon, only to find it missing. It takes him a half-second longer to realize that he is in no danger; a medical team of three rolls a gurney into the sick bay, containing a severely injured human woman. They transfer her from the gurney onto a proper hospital bed.

Doctor Chakwas is already on the scene, her gaze focused on her patient. "What happened?"

"Severe head trauma, Doctor. Likely a fractured skull. And worse." one of the team reports.

"How did this happen?"

"That." Another med-team member points to the large man striding into the room with a robotic body slung over his shoulder. It is unlike any exo Kallios has ever seen.

"Alright," Chakwas says. "Everyone clear the room. We need to go to Huerta Memorial Hospital. Now."

"I'll pass the message to the Commander, Dr. Chakwas."

Chakwas nods at the man who dropped off the robot's body. "Thank you, James."

The med-team— and James— gives the doctor a crisp salute before heading off to their other duties.

Kallios glances down at Elsie.

She is still not awake.

"That included you, by the way," Doctor Chakwas calls. She glances over at him as she operates on the injured fire team member. "You're healthy. Which means you don't need to be in my room anymore."

"But I need to watch over—"

"You can visit her any time," she says. "But you need to eat something first."

Right. Food. Kallios glances out the window of the sick bay. "Is that the mess hall?"

"It is."

"I'll… go and grab something then."

"The door will lock on your way out," Chakwas says. "Come back in an hour or so, Kallios."

He nods, slowly standing up and taking another look over Elsie. Kal sighs. She would wake up soon.

She had to.

[;]

Kallios, after his meal, takes the time to learn the layout of the ship. The Normandy SR-2, as Doctor Chakwas described earlier. It is a smaller-sized ship; it reminds him of the H.E.L.M. when it was still active. His first impressions of the Normandy, from the small viewport he had access to in the sick bay, are right. It is a ship that is unlike anything he has ever seen before.

Kallios rides the elevator down to the shuttle bay.

"Daphne?"

"I'm here."

A weight lifts from his shoulders. She had been silent ever since their arrival, and that worried Kallios to no end. Hearing her response comforts him.

"What do you think?" He asks.

"I think we need information," she says. "We're in the dark here. I've been scrubbing their systems and putting together what info I can."

"And?"

"It's bad, Kal." Daphne pauses. Thinking. "Earth is in shambles, and a lot of these alien homeworlds have either already been destroyed, or are being sieged."

"By the Reapers?"

"Yes."

Kallios exhales slowly through his nostrils. He thought it would just be Earth that would be endangered. But no, this was something else entirely. Yet Kallios could not rule out the possibility that this is still a Vex simulation. Some final, cruel trick that they need to escape out of before the Vex could truly be considered "dead."

The elevator comes to a slow halt. It shudders as the doors slide open.

The shuttle bay is larger than Kallios expected. A large, bright blue shuttle hangs from the ceiling, awaiting deployment through a pair of large, brightly-lit steel doors. Situated directly in front of the elevator doors are workstations and a workbench populated with weapon parts and tools.

Kallios watches as the crew brings the shuttle down from the ceiling, scanning it using orange light-devices on their wrists and forearms.

"Hey!" A strong, masculine voice barks at him. "Why the hell are you out of the sick bay?"

It is James, who rushes over to Kal with a fierce anger in his eyes. A pistol is affixed to his thigh, but his hands are nowhere near the grip.

"Doctor Chakwas told me to leave," Kallios says. "She needed to work on your fireteam member in peace. And that I need to eat something."

"Well, that's—"

The entire ship goes dark. The lights flicker once, twice, and then a third time before switching back on with a low hum.

The crew in the shuttle bay hussle to different parts of the room, activating orange and blue display monitors and checking the ship's systems.

"EDI just went offline," one of them says.

EDI?

" Mierda ." James sighs. "Technically you're a patient onboard the ship, which means we need to keep an eye on you in case you endanger yourself," he says. "How long did Doctor Chakwas kick you out of the sick bay for?"

"An hour-ish."

"Great." James lifts his forearm, an orange light-device appearing around it as he begins to type away. "Hopefully by that time, Shepard will have figured out what to do with you."

"And what am I doing in the meantime?"

"Not leaving my sight." James crosses his arms.

The thought to vanish into Void Light crosses Kal's mind.

"So, how the hell did you end up in space?" James asks.

This guy is not one to pull his punches. Verbally and probably physically, too. "We managed to escape an attack on the Reapers," Kal states. "Our ship wasn't so lucky, though."

James nods once. "Never got your name. What is it?"

"Kallios."

"Just Kallios?"

He nods.

"I'm Lieutenant James Vega, with the Systems Alliance Navy," says the soldier. "But I suppose you already knew that, considering the ship you ended up on."

Kallios nods because Vega likely expects him to. He needs to find time— and privacy— to solidify his and Elsie's backstories with Daphne's help. He is flying by the seat of his pants, and while he's pretty good at improvising, he wouldn't be able to keep it up for much longer.

The elevator to the shuttle bay slides open again before Vega could speak. Commander Shepard steps into the bay, her eyes locking onto Kallios.

She strides over to him. "Come with me."

Kallios tilts his head, but glances at Vega before giving the lieutenant a small nod and smile. "Nice meeting you, lieutenant."

"Likewise, Kallios." Vega turns to Shepard and salutes her. "Commander."

"At ease, James," she says. "I need to take Kallios back to Doctor Chakwas."

"Why the escort?" asks Kal.

Shepard meets his gaze. "Your friend's awake."

[;]

"Elsie?!" Kallios pushes into the sick bay just as the doors open.

He sees her; she is sitting up, being inspected by Doctor Chakwas with another one of those orange light-devices. She hears him, catches his gaze, and then tilts her head and smiles.

I'm okay , she communicates.

He smiles back at her. Good .

"Doctor," Shepard calls. "Do you mind stepping out for a minute?"

"Shepard…" Chakwas trails off. "Fine."

The door closes behind Chakwas, and the normally green symbol on it turns red. Metal plates roll down and shield the windows of the sick bay, and the light dims ever so slightly.

Shepard turns to face Kallios. And Elsie.

"Now that we have time," she begins. "Who the hell are you two?"

"Survivors," Kal says, speaking for him and Elsie. "We were hit by the Reapers on our way out. Couldn't exactly fight them in our ship, so we did what we could and tried to run. You can see how well that ended up."

"That doesn't explain her." Shepard points to Elsie. "We've never seen anything like her, and neither has EDI."

"EDI?"

"Hello, Kallios," a female voice says as the door on the opposite side of the room opens. The same body that James carried onto the Normandy was back on its feet.

"Our ship's A.I.," explains Shepard. "Who has searched through countless databases across the galaxy and turned up nothing that looks like your friend."

Kallios takes a deep breath. "It's complicated. And classified. And buried under a mountain of red tape."

"Almost all standard procedures have been removed following the arrival of the Reapers on Earth," EDI explains. "Most of the Systems Alliance is scrambling to reestablish a semblance of order. And as an AI aboard one of the most renowned vessels of the Alliance, I have nearly infinite access to their databases. You— or Elsie— are not present in any of them. Not even in the public registry. Which means—"

"You don't exist," Shepard interjects.

"That's the point," Elsie says. "We were meant to stay that way. Ghosts. Shadows. Hidden away. Until the Reapers happened."

Shepard looks at the both of them for a long while. Her piercing green eyes try to see through them, through their web of lies. And when she realizes she has very little to work off of, she simply closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and re-opens them. "Alright. Well, either way, we're heading to the Citadel to drop off Ashley."

"And that's when we part ways, I assume," Kallios says.

Shepard shakes her head. "You're coming with us to meet with the Council," she says. "Maybe they know something about you that we don't."

"What do we do until then?" Elsie asks.

"We'll be heading into the Mass Relay shortly." Shepard's forearm glows orange with the light-device once again. She unlocks the doors and retracts the blast shield. "After that, it's about twelve hours at light speed to the Citadel."

Kallios nods. "Thank you, Commander."

"Don't thank me yet," Shepard says as she walks to the door. "The Council might order us to put you in prison. Or kill you."


We've made it into the Mass Effect Universe! And right into the aftermath of the Reaper invasion. I was debating putting the ENTIRE introductory Mars mission in here, but decided against it. It doesn't do anything for the larger story here.