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If you want to be on the Supporter list, PM me for details or join our private server for details. Hope you enjoy reading my stories, please leave me a comment to let me know if you did, or where I can improve. Link here, where able to be seen : /2UZncAm

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Beta(s) :

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Requested By :

Espacole and Spork

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So begins an attempt at writing space combat once again, lmao.

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The God of Darkness stared long into the depths of the Crucible, built between the dying corpses of dozens of starts, compacting and annihilating spectacularly around the unstable mass of debris and rock. From its depths, he heard the screaming - thousands, crying out for salvation, for mercy, in desperate pleas that the gods he sensed watching didn't even have the dignity to ignore. To turn away from. To set aside and remain oh so purposefully ignorant. Instead, as they were, one by one, quieted, he sensed their fixation echoing across the multi-versal planes they watched through.

They relished the suffering, anguish and fear.

"Brother…" He turned, sitting on his throne, to observe his shining sibling watching the same spectacle. He did not even turn as he said, "This is not yours to change."

"So you enjoy this?"

"No." Light sighed, "But it is not our decision to make."

"According to whom?" Now, Light turned to regard him, ignoring the screams in favor of watching Darkness rise from his throne and cross his arms, hands curled into tight fists. "I have the power. Therefore, I have the obligation to act."

"According to whom?"

"To Freidrich. To Nietzsche. To Salvano. To Ignat. To Garatus. To Varmant." Darkness listed out, turning to Light and growling, "And that is just those from this realm, and a scant few. Millions agree with my conclusion."

"And millions agree with mine." Light argued, "Do not think numbering out our lessers will win you this point. I will not help you fight the gods of this realms."

"Why not?"

"We gave our word-"

"For you value your honesty ever so much." Darkness snarled, lashing out with a hand and obliterating a section of his palace's wall. Pointing a long, clawed finger at his brother, he growled, "We are here because of your lies. You deceptions, manipulations-"

"You do not need to rage at me." Light cut him off, voice flat and hard and even - his attempt to be commanding. "I told you the truth."

"Eventually!" He hissed, shaking his head and returning to his seat, weaving a will that restored the stone wall he had destroyed. Leaning his chin on his fist, he sighed, "Ever, you seek to control. Not just your creations, not even just mine, or ours, but me as well. Do you not see why I rage, Brother?"

"I suppose." Light turned away, regarding the den of sorrow seated at this galaxy's breaking heart. "Still, you alone cannot act against this. And I will not consent to."

"And what if I act regardless?"

"You would be destroyed." Light answered simply, turning to regard him. When he scoffed, Light's eyes widened, just a bit, and he pressed, "Alone, you are not omnipotent. Alone you would be-"

"I am aware." He sighed, "It was merely a thought. Something you ought consider. You cannot simply reign over all, myself included, and not anticipate reprisal."

"I suppose…" Light sighed, fading out in the same moment as he left Darkness to his own palace.

And his observations.

"Foolish brother." He sighed, "I have already set in motion a solution to this… Travesty."

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The moment they Relayed into the system, EDI spoke up, "Commander, you may command the battle directly using the CIC tactile interface. This system is specially designed, and more in depth than Alliance standard systems. It is deep enough to be over-complicated and overwhelming in the heat of battle, and was only installed due to my presence. Please, do not hesitate to delegate tasks to me."

"Understood." She grunted, thinking and quickly snapping, "Process and delineate the various Geth fighter-craft on hand. Put strike-fighters with Aria's."

"Understood, Commander." EDI answered, "Grouping now. I have also taken the liberty of dispersing unique IFF codes to the Geth ships, which they will broadcast. I will notify the Quarians of their meaning when we arrive."

"Understood." She nodded, "See to it and if they don't believe you, put Tali on the line."

"Yes, Commander."

They'd come out with a few hundred thousand kilometres of distance between their grouping and the remnants of the Heavy and Patrol fleets, formed in staggered lines in the distance lit up in blue on the wide, angled system-map projected onto the CIC navigational display. With a flick of her hand, she ordered the thirty or so strike-fighters from their rapidly thrown together fleet away and around on a flanking maneuever, towards the gas giant Rantus, whose moons orbited closely enough to the planet to pull some of its gas away in stretches of bright plasma, lit up by lightning discharges as they orbited around and the gas returned to the greater gravity well of the planet. Behind it, they'd be invisible, and only minutes away from the battle occurring only a couple thousand kilometers away from the planet.

"Commander, I am detecting a Cerberus signal from beyond the gas discharge." EDI reported, "Officer Lawson reports a small fleet, sent by the Illusive Man, in case of emergency."

"This doesn't count?"

"Not per their protocols." EDI answered, "They are to avoid combat, for fear of estranging the Quarians."

Shepard 'tsked' and shook her head - but didn't countermand the protocol. It made sense, as much as she disliked considering politics while a battle raged. And while she'd have pulled them in if the Quarian Fleet as a whole were at risk, the Liveships had already pulled out, along with the greater bulk of the Quarians themselves.

Ignoring that, then, she took stock of what else she had - two dozen Geth superiority fighters, and half a dozen heavy bombers, along with twenty small frigates. Each the same size as her own shi[, with - EDI's information processor let her see with a tap - twenty plasma-encased mass accelerator guns, ten port and ten starboard. The enemy fleet was made up of a similar composition, but four times the numbers, and as her fleet formed up and advanced their superiority and interceptor fighters broke away from harassing the un-defended Quarian ships and moved to intercept them.

Cueing up a broad-spectrum comm-line to the strike fighters, she grunted, "Orient around and come in on the flank. We're going to meet their fighters head on. I want you there when they reach us."

"Yes, Shepard-Commander." The Geth answered.

"Whatever you say." The Turian sounding lead added, "Talons, on me. Drop and pull out, three-talon formation."

She placed a waypoint for her fleet at one end of the Quarian formation, which adjusted as her fleet approached, blasting them with friendly IFF signatures. Whether they believed it, or just didn't want to turn away from the Geth in front of them yet, she didn't know. But her Geth - and fuck, that was a strange thought - would hit at the end of their line. And - she indicated by dragging her finger over the holo-haptic out, through the opposing Geth - punch through, disorienting the enemy formation and relieving some of the Quarian fleet so they could reform or retreat as needed.

"Joker," she said, "take us in."

"Aye, Commander." He answered through her ear-comm, "Bringing us to the front, weapons crews are ready and tracking targeting telemetry."

"Have fun."

"Oh, you know I will, Commander." Joker chuckled, "Hot 'n ready, comin' steady. Right to your door, or your money back!"

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He watched the fighters burst away from the Quarians and approach them until dozens of little splashes of bright green shrapnel-pods lit up the space ahead of him, showering the Heretic fighters in shrapnel as they came. Kinetic barriers flared and fighters pitched, trying to minimize damage, but twenty signatures blinked out as the rest banked around and back, through Quarian lines to reform with their frigate support while he pressed their acceleration harder. Geth signatures closed in around him as the supremacy fighters broke away, escorting him in to offer what cover they could.

"EDI, ping the Quarians." Joker grunted as he lead his very unexpected contingent in, headed for a space between four Quarian destroyer-size ships as the fighters on both sides scattered, some to dig-fight and others to pull away. "Have 'em spread so we can punch through. Forty seconds out."

"Relaying." The AI answered, coming back less than ten seconds later as the contact-tags on his display began to move away, clearing a path towards several of the Heretic frigates that turned to try and angle through at the same time. "They are responding."

"Yep." He nodded, angling nose-on to one of the lead frigates. "Vakarian, you have a feed-"

"Target confirmed." He answered, "Fire."

The lance of magnetically propelled semi-plasma soared out under the nose of his baby, flashing across space at hundreds of kilometers an hour. It impacted the Geth frigate and, as projections had told him it should, seared right through its barriers and melted apart its hull in a splash of Eezo and melted metal that sprayed away. As it pitched to the side, dead or dying enough he could ignore it, he reoriented and depressed the trigger on his secondary pulse-guns, peppering a second frigate as it passed between the Quarian ships. One of which dropped a torpedo which curved around and caught it on the flank, its emp-payload frying the barriers of the frigate and letting the next burst of pulse-fire rip into its light armor and cripple it.

He didn't slow, though, angling nose-on to another of the frigates and grunting, "Vakarian."

"Firing." The shot caught this one full-front, picture perfect in the center of its front, and the semi-plasma melted through its core as a result, leaving it a spinning husk and little else as he passed by.

"Fighters." One of his support officers in the long 'neck hall' behind him called out. "GARDIAN lasers online."

He spun as he went, giving the GARDIANs the widest venue possible, and watched as the contacts winked out nearby him. The Geth supremacy fighters stuck close, shielding his ship bodily and peppering the oncoming wings with mass-accelerator fire both to wear them down and to draw their attention. A few of them winked out on his display, too, and he frowned for it - but from what he knew, they just uploaded out of their ships and into the nearby ships, so it hardly mattered as much. As they reached the two hundred kilometer mark past the original battle line, he banked around, the Geth frigates that had managed to come with him fanning out to either side as their supremacy fighters came up on their flanks, facing the battle line.

"Pinch 'em." He snapped, angling in towards the line, "Pop 'em like a bad zit!"

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Half of her Geth frigates didn't manage to make it through the line in their breakthrough, instead angling around and into the Quarian lines to cover for damaged, retreating Patrol Fleet ships. These ships didn't withdraw, though, instead pulling around and using their longer range cannons to pepper the Heretic ships that tried to pull away in any direction. Up, down, or further out at either end of the combat line - any ship that poked its head out without EDI's codes to protect it received a barrage of focused fire that ended several of them before they could pull back in. And weakened three more enough for the Quarian and Geth ships to destroy on their own.

The Heretics still had the numbers, for the moment, but caught between the Normandy's lancing in and out, its Thanix ripping apart the small ships, and the Geth ships that pulled away to broadside the Heretics, they were faltering. And quickly.

Too quickly…

"Something's wrong, here." She murmured, watching the ships blink out on her screen. "But what?"

"Uh, Commander, we got motion from the gas giant." Her brows furrowed and she zoomed out, away from the battle, with a pinch and flick of a hand. Eight signatures were emerging, but they weren't broadcasting any Cerberus codes. Instead, the largest was…

"Shepard!" EDI suddenly said, voice urgent and sharp, "That is the Collector vessel!"

"What?" She blinked, shaking the sudden dread off and opening the broad-comms again. "All ships, this is a priority alert - fall back to the Relay! The Collector Vessel is in-system and on approach! We can't risk you-"

"Commander, energy build-up from the Geth frigates!" Joker warned, "Shit- Their Eezo is going up!"

"Get us clear!" She ordered, "All ships-"

"All comm-channels are being jammed, Commander." EDI cut in as the Normandy suddenly pitched to the side, hurling the armored woman against the railing of her raised dais and sending her tumbling off of it. Strong, mechanical arms caught her, one arm looping under her legs and the other around her back and under an arm.

Legion stood as the lights flickered off and the ship stabilized, emergency power kicking on to backlight everything in red. Shaking it off, she tried her comms and grimaced. "Long range trans is down…" Flicking to short-range, she asked, "Tali?"

"Shepard?" The Quarian gasped, sighing in relief a moment later and going on tensely. "I'm working as fast as I can, but we're on tertiary power. I'm getting a transmission on another line. It's…. Goliath?"

"Link it in." She ordered, stepping up onto the platform and looking down on the darkened display. A moment later, she heard the tell-tale static of the short-wave connection, and said, "Goliath?"

"We-... ear you." The machine answered, "Sys- down. Trans- weak. Mov- eng- Collect-"

"No!" She snapped, "Do not engage! Repeat, do not engage! Fall back!"

"-ust buy time." Goliath answered, "We- -leged to kno-. Keelah Se'lai."

"Goliath?" She hissed into the comm, "Goliath?!"

"They… Cut the line." Tali said, voice quiet and… Shaken, somehow. After another second, the CIC navigational display winked on, map read-out slowly scrawling online, and Tali said. "Engines and navigation are online, Commander."

"EDI?"

"Rebooting." Tali answered, "But intact. Or I, uh, I think that's what's happening."

"And the Geth are-"

"Engaging the Collector vessel." Legion murmured, standing stock still where they had stood to set her on her feet. Turning, they regarded the map as it came fully online and, indeed, Shepard could track the Geth signatures moving to engage the far larger, escorted Collector warship. "They stand no chance. They are simply buying us the time we need to withdraw."

"What about them?"

"Long-range transmissions are being jammed." Legion answered simply, "We cannot contact them. Or the Consensus. When they are destroyed… They will be unable to upload out."

"What about… Black boxes?"

"A redundant system which only facilitates our program's captures." Legion answered, pacing up to the long display-frame that held the map. Suddenly, it's fist snapped out to the side, into the connector for the railing of her platform, and caved it in. The machine stood still for a moment, a dozen eyes on it, before it turned to regards its arm, withdrew it, and murmured, flanges flicking slowly. "We… No data… We… No data… We…"

"Legion," she said, watching it warily, "go and… Take a breath."

"We do not breathe…"

"It means collect yourself." Kelly offered, stepping away from her station and up to the machine. Slowly, warily, she took it by the wrist and smiled, tugging it towards the armory. "Come on. It'll be quiet in here. You can… Process."

She watched the machine go, silent and still, before she turned back to the display and frowned. "Joker… Get us out of here. Tali, try and raise the Heavy and Patrol fleet survivors and urge them to do the same."

"Already trying." She said, "No answer, but-"

"Their IFFs, and ladar signatures if that is down, are moving towards the Relay." She sighed, turning to one of her officers and grunting. "Get to the XO. Tell her to mobilize the contingent force and prep it. If that ship tries to leave, or when we come back, or… Or… Just tell her to have it ready to move in, priority on the engines."

"Aye, Commander." He nodded, turning and jogging off - towards an access ladder, instead of the lift.

Turning back, she eyed the damage to her railing and frowned, "What on Earth is going on… And why can't it ever be simple?"

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Arguable Reader :

Oh, she's Black and White here, too. Just in a different way. Here, Pyrrha is a just person, fighting for good causes, so she's 'White'. Ergo, applying that to her deity, her deity is 'White' too. Or so Samara is judging.

Henry, if nothing else, at least doesn't seem to be a sexist lmao.

I've made the old, murderous mercenary WEIRDLY wholesome in this lmao.

Familiarantiguo :

Me alegro de que te guste. Y sí, es probable que continúe en ME3.

Sin embargo, las otras respuestas serían spoilers.

Kishino Kurobi :

Zaeed's scene was the focus of that chap, yeah. I wanted it to work JUST right. Glad it did! Miranda's felt… A bit awkward, in places, but worked.

Captain Dick Scratcher :

Yeah, Zaeed is generally turning out pretty well-rounded. And yeah, he's got a sort of paternal streak. ESPECIALLY when he sees kids going through it.

Also, yeah, Shepard is a lot like Jaune in this. I didn't even notice til you said it.

Foxcomm :

Yeah, the theme of individuality even amongst synthetics has been a bit of a thing so far. In the background, often enough, but still there with Penny's defences of her self and identity. Legion will follow suit eventually. Can't say when or how or why though. That would ruin the fun.