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"This… this is impossible." Liara stares at Kallios' palm as a small metal sphere disappears before her very eyes. "How? How is this possible?"

Kal shakes his head. "In our universe, we don't ask that question when it comes to these powers."

"The simplest and most true answer is that it is paracausal in nature," explains Daphne. "Paracausal— meaning that it is free from the laws of cause and effect. It's impossible to try and understand it using the system of cause and effect that we know."

Liara nods. She continues to stare at the sphere that blinks in and out of existence, her thoughts moving faster-than-light. "I believe I understand what you mean. At least part of it. Though, this will certainly require more in-depth research."

"I'd be more than happy to discuss it with you after the mission on Palaven," Daphne says.

"Wonderful." Liara turns her attention back to the sphere in Kal's hand.

Using Stigma, Kal causes a small metal sphere to disappear before her eyes. Liara reaches out— hesitantly and carefully— to touch where the sphere once was.

Daphne, who floats just above Liara's shoulder, says, "Careful. It's still there. Just… out of our understanding of perception."

Liara nods. And presses onward. She finds purchase around the sphere. "This is most fascinating! The implications of such a force, and the possibilities of its usage in and out of combat scenarios is just…" Liara exhales dreamily. "I am glad you are on our side in this conflict, Kallios."

Just as Kal is about to respond, EDI's voice cuts through their conversation in Liara's office, "Serviceman Kallios, Commander Shepard is requesting your presence in the Shuttle Bay for a pre-mission briefing."

"Got it. Thanks, EDI." Kal causes the sphere to reappear in Liara's hand. "We'll chat more later, Liara?"

"Yes." The scientist nods quickly. "I am eager to see more of your abilities. Be careful on Palaven."

"I will." Kal smiles. "And I'll tell Shepard to do the same."

[;]

Shepard watches as Kallios slides his hawk-like helmet into place, automatically fastening to his chestplate, which is a simple-looking onyx hauberk. Two golden cobras that are affixed to his gauntlets snake around each of his arms before they come to a sharp point at the back of his hand. His pants, if Shepard can even call them that, look like they were discovered in an ancient ocean ruin.

Needless to say, even compared to his extra-universal companion, Kallios is dressed strangely.

"That's all?" Shepard asks. They all stand just before the Kodiak shuttle set to deliver them to the surface of Menae. "Where are your weapons?"

"Daphne has that part handled," Kal says.

"What about Elisabeth?"

"Oh." Kal glances at his companion. "What are you feeling?"

"Do you still have the rifle I gave you?"

"I do."

A sleek, bright orange rifle appears in Elisabeth's waiting hands. Her eyes flick up to Kal's. "What did you do with it?"

"Gave it an ornament," he says. "I got tired of not being able to see through the sights in the Crucible, so…" He waves his hand to the weapon.

"But orange? Really?"

"What color then? Black?"

"Blue."

The paint on the weapon shifts to blue. Kal crosses his arms. "Happy now?"

Elisabeth slings the weapon over her shoulder and locks it into the strap. Then, she pats Kal's arm. "Yes. I am."

"Commander," Joker says into her comm-link. "We're arriving in the system in two minutes. Buckle up. Bullets and lasers are gonna be flying all around us once we're in."

"Got it." She motions to Kal, Elisabeth, and their pilot. "Get in. We'll be dropping out of FTL soon."

Kal and Elisabeth step inside the Kodiak; Kal stands by the hatch, and Elisabeth finds a seat near the opposite corner of the shuttle. Shepard follows after them, sealing the shuttle hatch behind her. On a monitor in the corner of the Kodiak, a live feed of the battle on Palaven plays.

The turians are losing. Terribly. A Reaper ship latches onto a turian dreadnought and tears it in two.

"That's your galaxy's strongest navy, isn't it?" Elisabeth asks.

"Yeah," breathes Shepard.

Elisabeth glances at her. In her robotic eyes, she can see sympathy. "And it was worse on Earth, wasn't it."

Shepard nods, unable to force the words out of her mouth. She can still hear the screams and the cries— Shepard steels herself. She silences those thoughts and shoves them into the deepest recesses of her mind. "Here's how this operation is going to work: I am your commanding officer, which means you listen to whatever orders I give you. No matter what. Understand?"

"We've both worked with a commander before, Shepard," Kal says. "We know how to follow instructions. Don't worry."

"Dropping in three," the pilot announces. Three seconds later, the Kodiak lurches and drops out of the Normandy's shuttle bay. "Commander, we're on approach. ETA is three minutes."

"Understood, Adams," Shepard says. She then turns her attention to Kal. "You don't strike me as the type to follow instructions well."

"That's because I'm not."

"And that's not how this operation is going to work, Kallios. You follow my orders."

"If I followed every order that was thrown my way, I would not be alive, and neither would humanity," Kallios counters.

"This is exactly why I was against bringing you along," Shepard growls. "I knew you wouldn't be able to follow even the most basic concepts of how a military works!"

"I'm here because I want to help. Not to be your lap dog."

"I am getting reports that the designated drop zone is being overrun, Commander," EDI chimes in, cutting Shepard off just before she can respond to Kal. "You and your team will need to clear it out before the Kodiak can land."

Shepard stands up. "Got it. Kal—"

The shuttle hatch opens.

Golden sunlight gathers around Kallios as he leaps through the open hatch into an army of Reaper husks that gather on a cliffside.

Hundreds of tiny, solar blades form a cloak of daggers around him. In the air, Kallios jumps again and unleashes a blade barrage. Every dagger finds a target, embedding themselves into the twisted synthetic husks. For a moment, Shepard foolishly thinks that the daggers did nothing to affect the husks. But just as she completes that thought, every single dagger bursts into flames, causing a series of ignitions that spark across the entire body of husks that approach the camp.

Nothing but blackened ash is left of them.

"And the LZ is now clear," announces EDI.

The Kodiak swoops into the turian encampment.

Shepard is too fucking tired for this.

[;]

Kal looks at the large, robotic lobster that roams the surface of the moon. "Look at the lobster," he says to Daphne.

"That's a Reaper, Kal."

"Eh, calling it a lobster makes it seem more fragile."

Kal glances over his shoulder from his position on the walls that surround the encampment. Shepard had gone to talk to the Commanding Officer of the camp that was barking orders at his soldiers. Something about getting more soldiers at a barricade and fixing a communication tower.

"What do you want to do?" Daphne asks.

"Give me Patience."

Patience transmats into his hands. The old yet familiar body of the worn sniper rifle is one that he has missed. One that he has not used since he removed the Witness' head with it.

He sets the bipod against the fortifications of the encampment and aims it towards the Reaper. Kal lines up his sights with the Reaper's large body.

"Not that I'm doubting yours and Ada's craftsmanship, but do you really think that Patience is going to punch through that thing's armor?"

"It will."

"If you say so."

Kal squeezes the trigger. A mechanical whirr begins to build from the weapon as its paracausal round charges with his Light. The whirr builds and builds until it becomes a whistling sound, almost like the sound of a hummingbird's wings at a higher pitch. It is a tinny buzzing that reverberates across every cliffside, every ridgeline, every rock and boulder, every pebble, and every grain of gray dust on this moon.

Light gathers from around the rifle's barrel, illuminating the area until it almost looks like a small star.

Kallios can hear commotion from around him, turians and Shepard voicing their worries and Elisabeth trying to calm them down.

Now.

Kal pulls the trigger fully.

A beam of pure white Light explodes from Patience. Kal's cloak flutters in the blasting wind. An echoing boom echoes out and out and out.

The Reaper stops in its tracks, turning to the beam.

The beam rips straight through the Reaper's carapace, creating a hole clean through the entire machine's body. The Reaper drops to one leg, then another, and then its final one as it collapses on the surface of the moon.

"Daph," Kal breathes. His hands tingle and his arms are already going numb as the sensation travels throughout his entire body, to his chest, his neck, and his waist and his legs.

"I gotcha."

Patience transmats away. As it does so, Kallios buckles before catching himself against the camp's fortifications. He makes his way back down to the ground, a hand on the railing the whole way.

Shepard and the whole camp, stare at him with wide-eyes and slacked-jaws.

"You… you just killed one of those things," a turian says.

"I did." Kal inhales slowly. The feeling in his body returns with every breath he takes.

"With a rifle," another adds.

"Yes."

"Who… who are you?" The Commanding Officer asks with Shepard standing beside him.

"He's in Alliance custody," Shepard answers. "He's working with me and my crew for now."

"And the Alliance has been hiding weapons of this magnitude from the entire galaxy?" A turian comments, a safe distance from Shepard.

"No, no," Shepard quickly says as the other turians begin to look at her— and Kallios— accusingly. "His situation is complicated, but I can promise you: the Alliance has never seen anything of this caliber before."

"Can you do it again?" The CO asks, his full attention still on Kal. "How many times can you do it in a day?"

"I can do it again," confirms Kal. "But it takes some time for me to recover using it."

"How long is your recovery time?"

"About three to five minutes."

"Then that is more than enough time for you to save my people. And win this war for the galaxy. Follow me." The CO makes his way back to the center of the camp.

Kal follows behind the CO. "I never got your name," he says.

"General Corinthus."

Kal goes to respond, but he is cut off by Elsie as she steps in front of him. "Could I talk to you? For a minute? Alone?"

Kal nods. "Sorry, General. This will only take a minute."

"The fate of my people is at stake here, Kallios," the general states. "Any minute wasted is tens of thousands of lives lost. And if you are capable of destroying the Reapers, then you have a duty to the galaxy to save as many lives as you can."

Shepard glances at Kal. He sees something in her eyes and her countenance that he has never seen directed his way. Empathy. "Give him the time, General. You still need that communications tower fixed, right?"

The general closes his eyes and lets out a small growl, but he relents. He lays his hand on the digital battle map. "Yes. I do. We need to…"

Elisabeth pulls Kallios away from the encampment, a safe distance away so that their conversation is completely private. "Kal… I don't think you should use that weapon again."

He tilts his head. "Why?"

"It's… It's not right."

"How? I killed a Reaper."

"Yes. You did. But you didn't do it the right way."

"There's a right way to kill them?"

"No— I don't know— but you're not listening to me," Elisabeth says. "Think about it. If you go around destroying every Reaper, killing them using that weapon and eliminating them from the galaxy, it would be disingenuous."

"Hold on. You want me to let people die because it would be more genuine? More truthful?" Kal scoffs. "Elsie, this is ridiculous. This sounds like something your father would have suggested. Not you. I thought you said you wanted to save this galaxy, but when I try to save it by killing the forces that are actively destroying it, you try to stop me."

"You don't understand, Kallios. I do want to save this galaxy, but they must also learn to do it themselves," she says. "There is so much division, subversion, and evil happening all around the galaxy. The Council races can't even come to an agreement with each other; they're all too selfish and worried about their own people to see reason. To see the bigger picture. The krogans hold a grudge against turians and salarians for the Genophage; the asari will never see any of the other races as equals; and humanity is left to pick the pieces between the outer colonies and the Citadel. But with the Reapers and the threat they pose… They might be able to change things. They might be able to unite the galaxy." Elisabeth holds his gaze. "It's not right to change their story for them."

"Which I would do if I killed every Reaper."

Elsie nods.

"Elisabeth," Kal says. "This is an insane idea."

"I know."

"This is something your father would actively approve of."

"I know."

"And you're asking me to let billions, maybe even trillions, of people die."

Elsie closes her eyes. "I know."

"Why, Elsie?" Kal asks softly.

Elisabeth's eyes slowly open. She looks at Kallios with such an intensity, such a fierceness, that for a moment he can see brilliant blue fire burn behind her irises. She is close to him. So unbelievably close to him. "Because across every timeline, every future and every past, I have never seen something as beautiful as this universe."

"Okay," Kal breathes.

"Okay? That's it?"

"I jumped into a different universe for you, Elsie. I think that says enough."

Elisabeth rests her hand on the side of his helmet where his cheek would be— and it is only then that Kallios realizes how close they are to one another. "Thank you, Kallios."

"You're welcome."

An explosion rips through the encampment. The shockwave causes the ground beneath their boots to shake and their knees to buckle.

Kal and Elsie look at each other.

"That's not good."

[;]

Shepard takes cover behind a rock formation as one of a turian gunship explodes. The heat from the explosion rolls over the rocks in waves, and Shepard braces herself against the rock. When the heat fades, she pops out from behind cover and shoots down two husks.

She leaves cover and surges toward the third one. Shepard cuts down the husk with her omni-blade, stomping her boot on the monster's head when it folds to the ground. She, along with two other turian soldiers, had managed to repair the communications tower while Elisabeth and Kallios were having their private conversation.

Only a minute , they had said.

Total bullshit. She knew it the moment she'd heard it. Not that knowing it changed anything.

Shepard knew well enough what had been thrust into Kallios' hands. The fate of the galaxy. Her galaxy. Her home. Killing that Reaper sealed his fate as the supposed savior of the galaxy by sheer circumstance.

She knew what that was like.

Shepard grit her teeth, setting her shoulders as she unleashed a barrage of ammunition at a group of husks.

"Shepard, on your four o'clock!" Garrus shouts from his perch. He fires several shots, each one taking down a distant husk.

Shepard whips around, her omni-blade snapping out from her forearm as she slashes at the husk that attempts to grab her. In the same motion, she draws her shotgun— a M-27 Scimitar— and blasts the husk straight in its chest, blowing a hole in it and sending it flying back.

"That's the last of them," Garrus says.

"Commander, Garrus, we need you back here. The main barricade is under attack, and if it falls, this entire base will be overrun," General Corinthus orders, his voice crackling over the commlink.

"Understood, we're on our way back," replies Shepard. She smirks at Garrus. "You just had to say something."

Garrus rolls his eyes. "You would have said something if I didn't."

"Shepard," Kal says through the radio. "Elsie and I are heading back to the encampment. We'll rendezvous at the main barricade."

"Good. See you there."

Together, Garrus and Shepard sprint back to the center of the encampment. She sees several turian soldiers standing atop the fortification walls, shooting down at husks in accurate and deadly bursts as they approach. Marauders bolster the force, taking cover and popping up to weaken some of the turians' shields.

Shepard spots Kal— he jumps twice and vaults over the main barricade, willingly entering a battlefield flooded with Reaper forces. Shepard heads up to the top of the wall.

"Get on the turret, Shepard," Garrus says, pointing to the mounted machine gun. "I'll cover your flanks."

Shepard nods once and positions herself in front of the turret. She spins it up, the barrels whirring with energy.

Kal is dancing across the battlefield. He rolls around a squad of husks. He raises his lightning-cloaked fist and punches it straight through the head of a husk. The husk explodes with lightning, electrocuting every husk within five feet and completely vaporizing all of them.

The kill seems to have energized Kal. His speed and acceleration appear amplified as he zips around, punching every husk he gets in range of. And he can get in range of every enemy on that battlefield.

Shepard does what she can to support him. She uses the turret to take out stragglers.

"Who's the new guy? Is he a biotic?" Garrus asks.

"Nope," Shepard says, glancing at him. "I'll tell you when we're back aboard the Normandy."

"We've got a problem," Kallios announces.

Shepard scans the field in front of the main barricade for Kallios. When she doesn't see him, she says, "What kind of problem?"

"The big monster kind," he answers. "I'm coming up over the ridge now."

Shepard whirls the turret to the ridge. It only takes a few moments before she can see Kallios, sprinting back towards them.

And then she sees what is following him.

A massive monster, a hulking brute of amalgamated flesh and tissue that charges at Kallios. He attempts to lead it away, like a matador guiding a bull, but the Brute seems to be smarter than that as it ignores Kallios and rushes the barricade.

"Take cover!" Shepard orders just as the Brute slams into the fortifications. The impact causes the turret to dislodge from its mounting. Shepard loses her footing, and she tumbles backwards onto the battlefield, on the other side of the barricade.

Kallios almost seems to appear at her side and helps her onto her feet. "Nice of you to join me out here," he comments.

Once she is up on her feet, Shepard pulls out her shotgun.

"Any ideas, Commander?" asks Kal.

The Brute, having recovered from the impact, slowly turns to face them. Shepard notices the thick armor shielding the front parts of its body, and says, "The front of its body is armored. We need to flank it. I'll draw its attention, and you can—"

"Got it."

Shepard watches Kallios take a single step to his left, and vanishes completely from her sight.

Seriously, I am too tired for all this. Shepard switches her ammo to Incendiary Ammo. She pumps her shotgun, loading a concussive shot into its chamber. "Hey ugly!" She calls.

The Brute stomps closer to her.

Shepard breathes in deep and raises her shotgun. Once the Brute is in range, she pulls the trigger, firing off a concussive shell. The shell explodes against the Brute's armor, blasting and breaking parts of the plating.

The Reaper construct— the brute— yells out in what Shepard can only assume is pain. Angered, it charges after her, forcing her to spin on her heels and enter a full sprint to get away from it. But she is too late; the Brute is much faster than she believed considering its size.

It crashes into her, sending her flying back and slamming into the ridge. Her shields go down, and she knows that her back armor plates are destroyed as well. Shepard struggles to her feet as pain lances down her spine and to her legs.

"Shepard!"

She hears Kallios' voice somewhere to her right and a small, luminescent white orb comes flying toward her. Shepard instinctively raises her hand to her face to shield herself from whatever it is. The orb splashes against her hand, pale white vapor surrounds her body.

The pain is gone. Completely and totally gone. Shepard glances up; she sees the Brute is readying itself to charge at her once more. She waits. And waits. She waits until the last possible moment before she throws herself out of the way. It is not graceful in the slightest, but it gets the job done.

The Brute collides with the stone face of the ridge.

"Now, Kal!" Shepard shouts from her prone position on the moon's dusted ground.

Kal becomes visible once again, appearing fifteen feet in the air with a spark of golden light in his palm; burning, coiling flames fill the eyes of his hawk-shaped helmet.

Is that a—

The light in Kal's palm becomes clearer to her. It is no mere light. It is a gun. A golden gun made of pure starfire. Kal raises the sights up to his eyeline. He squeezes the trigger and—

A beam of solar light pierces straight through the armorless back of the Brute, staggering it; another beam vaporizes the Brute's left arm; a third beam disintegrates the Brute's head. The Brute, now nothing more than burning pieces of its former self, turns into a flaming pyre of flesh and metal.

Shepard rises to her feet. She watches Kal pull out a pistol and shoot the Brute a few more times. "Really?" she asks.

"Can never be too sure?" he offers while holstering his pistol.

"Area secure," Shepard says into the radio.

"Shepard," Corinthus replies, his tone urgent.

"What's the word on the Primarch?"

"Still can't get a stable commlink."

Of course . "Okay, we're going on foot. Shepard out," she decides. She motions for Garrus and Elisabeth to join them on their side of the barricade. Once they arrive, she says to Garrus, "Take us to the last place you saw Victus."

"Roger that, Commander." Garrus glances at Kallios for a little too long, long enough that Kal tilts his head in confusion. "Let's move. It shouldn't be too far, unless we run into trouble on the way."

[;]

"The Reaper is gone," Garrus says as he climbs over the incline. "Pretty sure the entire moon— hell, maybe even Palaven— saw that beam of light. Was that you?" He asks pointedly at Kallios.

"Yeah. It was," confirms Shepard.

"We need to get you on an orbital platform then," Garrus says, half-jokingly. "Take out those Reapers one shot at a time for the entire galaxy."

Kallios does not reply; neither does Elisabeth. The uncharacteristic silence from both of them, especially Kal, is extremely off-putting for Shepard. She's only known them for a week at most, but Kal has never been as quiet as now.

Their conversation is briefly interrupted by a squad of husks that climb over the ridge. They are put down and executed. Shepard blows two of their heads off with her shotgun, Garrus fires three bullets into one's chest and a final bullet into its skull, and Kallios whips out a revolver, cracking off two powerful rounds that split a husk in half.

"It is hard to believe that Earth is overrun with these creatures yet they still asked you to leave," Elisabeth says.

"It's bad everywhere," Garrus points out.

"Leaving a fight unfinished would make anyone angry," reasons Elisabeth.

"But yet you're here asking Victus to do the same thing. Leave his homeworld— his people— to go make nice in some war room."

"This summit is the only chance we've got, Garrus," Shepard states. "No one is beating the Reapers alone."

"Except the new guy who doesn't even look like he wants to help," scoffs Garrus.

"Need some help getting the stick out of your ass, Garrus?" Kallios retorts, finally breaking his silence.

"You never answered my question."

"Shepard answered it."

"Shepard isn't you." Garrus stops in front of Kal. He towers over him. "You can kill the Reapers. We all saw it. No one else helped you kill that thing, and the fact that you aren't out there right now, using whatever you used to destroy every Reaper in your range is evil . Pure fucking evil."

"Just be happy I'm here in the first place," Kallios counters. "And be happy that I'm not on their side."

"Oh, do you want to be? Because if you are—" Garrus draws a pistol and raises it to Kallios' forehead. "I'm more than happy to put you down where you stand."

"Try me." A fire-woven dagger flashes into Kal's hand.

"Enough!" Shepard orders, her tone like a lion's roar. "That's enough. Both of you: stand down."

Neither man makes a move.

"That's an order !"

Garrus lowers his gun and steps back. Kal's dagger burns away like flashpaper.

Even though she knows that her face is hardly visible under her helmet, she glares at both men regardless. "We need to focus on rescuing the Primarch and getting him to safety. Then we need to save the rest of the galaxy. And after we're done killing every single Reaper in it, you two can have your pissing contest. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yeah."

"Yes ma'am."

"Kallios. Do I make myself clear ?"

Kal sighs. "Yes ma'am."

"Good. Now let's double-time it to the Primarch."

[;]

"What am I gonna tell Shepard when we're back on the Normandy?" Kal asks Elsie on their private commlink.

"That you overestimated the impact that firing Patience had on you, and you'll only be able to do it two more times," Elisabeth says.

"Why two?"

"Because you're out of Light," came Daphne's response.

Kallios stops dead in his tracks. "What?"

"No, no— you're not actually out of Light. I'm saying that's what you should tell Shepard," Daphne says. "She doesn't know the true nature of Light and Dark, and since that beam was white, she'll assume that it's Light. If you tell her you're out of Light, or don't have enough to use Patience infinitely, then you're fine. Right?"

"Daphne," Kal begins. "If you were a person, I could kiss you."

"Ew."

Elsie hums. "Did Kal teach you to lie?"

"No."

"That was too quick of a response for it to be true."

"It's just how I was made, I guess." Daphne sighs. "It's the most reasonable answer I could come up with this fast. If I had more time, then maybe I could fabricate more concrete evidence. A few graphs, some data and information… Those might help us convince Shepard."

"I never asked you where you stand in all of this, Daph."

"Wherever Kal goes, I go," she answers. "Even if what both you and him are doing is morally questionable. And dubious."

"We're on the same page then," agrees Kal as he hops down a small dip in the long pathway to the newly-deemed Primarch's last known location. Shepard and Garrus are a few paces ahead of them. "So who's going to be the one to tell Shepard? As in: who's gonna lie to her face?"

Both Elisabeth and Daphne are silent.

"You can't be serious."

"You're the best liar here," Elisabeth says.

"Yeah. And you can turn the charm on her or something," Daphne suggests.

Kallios resists the urge to facepalm. "This is going to go so badly."

"I just need you to keep her at bay long enough for Elisabeth and I to make up some data," Daphne says. "We'll need a day or two. Maybe."

Kal sighs. That makes it easier. "Alright. I'll tell her."

"Thanks, Kal."

"Anytime."

[;]

The rest of the mission on Palaven goes smoothly. Kallios avoids using any supers and instead relying on guns and grenades to dispatch the Reaper forces that had infiltrated Primarch Victus' encampment. His Fatebringer is more than sufficient to punch through most basic Reaper armor; as for the two Brutes that appeared, two shots from Conditional Finality removed one of them from existence, and Shepard took care of the other.

As Kallios listens to Primarch Victus' story, he watches the once-General slowly unravel with Shepard's convincing words. Despite her brashness outside of the battlefield, Kallios understands just how convincing Shepard can be. When she wants to be.

The Primarch walks back into the camp to say goodbye to his men.

"Without him down here, there's a good chance we lose this moon," says Garrus.

"Without him up there, there's a good chance we lose everything," Shepard counters.

Garrus and Shepard stare at the fractured corpse of the Reaper that lies still on the gray earth of Menae.

"A single shot took that thing down," Garrus says, shaking his head. "They wanted my opinion on how to stop it. Failed C-Sec officer, vigilante, and I was their expert advisor…" Garrus glances at the Commander. "Do you think, with his help, you can win this thing, Shepard?"

"Yeah, I don't know Garrus," Shepard breathes. "But I'm sure as hell gonna give it my best shot."

"And I'm damn sure that nobody else can do it. For whatever its worth, I'm with you." Garrus extends his hand.

Shepard clasps forearms with him, and says, "Welcome aboard, Garrus. Good to have you back."

Shepard collects the Primarch once he is ready, but not without a few final words being exchanged.

"Commander, I can't spare you my fleets while my world is burning," Primarch Victus begins. "But if the pressure can be taken off Palaven…"

"That's a pretty tall order."

Victus steps closer. "We need the krogan, Commander. I can't see us winning this thing without them. Get them to help us, and then we can help you."

Shepard, through the window of her helmet, looks like she cannot believe what she is hearing.

"Looks like your summit just got a lot more interesting," Garrus comments.

[;]

Kallios wanders into the QEC room just as Shepard slams her fist into a console, a deep clang echoing throughout the chamber. "Is… everything alright?"

Shepard inhales slowly, trying to calm herself down. "Everything is as good as it can be, considering no one in the galaxy wants to cooperate with each other."

"Yeah. I know what that's like."

"I guess you would." Shepard turns to face him, leaning her hips against the railing. She crosses her arms. "You finally gonna talk to me about how you killed that Reaper?"

Kal nods.

"I'm all ears."

"Daphne?" Kal calls. "Bring out Patience."

The sniper rifle that destroyed the Reaper appears in Kal's hands. "This is Patience," he begins. "It is a sniper rifle that takes the user's Light to charge up a singular shot. The longer you wait— the longer you hold it— the more powerful the beam."

"The name fits."

"It does," Kal says. "Only there's a small problem."

"Which is?"

"I can't use it an infinite number of times."

"Explain."

"Remember the Traveler? The one from the datapad?"

Shepard nods.

"That was my source of Light. Because of the Traveler, I am able to do the things that I do. It's why I can conjure lightning and fire, turn invisible, and—" He lifts up Patience. "Use this gun."

"And without the Traveler, you don't have Light," Shepard concludes.

"Yeah." Kallios nods. He purses his lips. "Daphne and Elisabeth are working on getting more data. More conclusive evidence, but it's going to take time. Maybe a few days or weeks." Kal takes a step closer to Shepard. Patience transmats into nothingness. "Have you told the Council about me killing a Reaper?"

"No," Shepard says. "Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first."

"Then how do you want to play this?" Kal asks.

Shepard nibbles on her bottom lip. "Slowly. Everyone on Menae will see that Reaper's corpse, if they didn't see you kill it. Just let it naturally find its way into the council's reports, and when they discover it, hopefully Elisabeth and Daphne will have more conclusive evidence."

"Okay," Kal says. "That sounds like a plan."

"Good."

"Great."

Shepard yawns. "I gotta catch some shut-eye, Kallios."

"It really looks like it," he says, noticing how deep the bags are under her eyes. "Did you eat?"

"I'll eat when I wake up." Shepard walks past him. She puts a hand on the doorway. "And Kal."

"Mm?"

"You did good work out there today."

"I always do."

"And thanks for saving my life," she whispers.

He smiles. "Anytime, Commander."


So, I feel like I should talk about what happened in this chapter story-wise. Kallios, Elisabeth, and Daphne all consigning to the decision that they will not do everything they can do save this galaxy, despite Kallios being able to one-shot Reapers will definitely be a controversial decision. Elisabeth's perspective is extremely romantic, especially given her characterization in the game(s); while Kallios and Daphne agree with her "just because."

I disagree on both of these points.

Elisabeth has been forced to relive and re-experience the same Sol system for who knows how many cycles. I believe that it is not too far-fetched to assume that she has seen every future, every timeline, and every possibility while trapped in that loop. And then she is taken to an entirely new galaxy. Somewhere she has never been, places and sights that she has never seen, people and races and species that she never thought possible- I relate it to her being like a kid in a candy store. So many new and beautiful things to experience that she would be overwhelmed. But when she does more research, when she delves deeper into the stories of this galaxy, she realizes just how wrong it is. And so this is her experienced (morally dubious) solution: let the events play out as if they weren't there. How many timelines did Elisabeth not interfere with? How many lives did she let go because she knew that Sol system was doomed? It's not her first rodeo with a galaxy-ending crisis. And if it all goes wrong, then she's got time travel. Right?

Kallios and Daphne both trust Elisabeth. It really is that simple. These two have been untrusting for so damn long- untrusting to other guardians, untrusting to even their fireteam, and untrusting to the Vanguard- but they both give themselves fully to Elisabeth. They both know that as long as they stick together, they'll be able to overcome anything.

Does that make sense? Disagree? Agree? Let me know!

Draedon's Forge - Those are all great ideas, and honestly, I've got no clue what the plan is for Final Shape. I'm just along for the ride!

Knightwolf1875 - And Kal most certainly put the Brute down. Garrus-weapons-freak-out will be incoming soon!

See y'all in the next one!