It's crazy the things one can get used to. Stepping into an empty room, being scanned, and having a remote holographic conversation with none other than the Illusive man no longer had that thrill of what the heck is this even real. Or it could be that I was feeling quite distracted at the time, who knows. Miranda came in behind me, and the two of us watched as the holographic reconstruction of TIM came to life.
"Mister Morgan," he said, his perennial cigarette between his fingers. I nodded in response. "It looks as if your mission was successful."
"Not sure if I'd call that successful," I said. "We lost Ezno, and Shepard..."
"Do not concern yourself with Ezno, he was a good operative but not an excessive price to pay for Shepard's recovery," he said, and took a drag of his cigarette. Damn, that was cold, even for him. "As for Shepard, it is a setback for sure, but we will use whatever resources are necessary to bring her back."
"Good," I replied.
"The question is what to do next. The reaper threat is still out there, and Miranda tells me your interest in them goes beyond the personal," he said, and made a kind of by the by gesture with his hands when I glanced at Miranda. "Although she gave me scant details about it. Who is it you work for?"
"As I told Miranda," I said, glancing at her again but getting nothing back from the Ice Queen, "I literally don't know. They push me around and feed me info every so often and that's it."
"We could work together. I am one of the few taking this reaper threat seriously. You might not agree with our methods or our overall goals, but in this we have a common enemy."
"Not much of a chance of that," I said. It wasn't personal, but it was a lot to do with what I knew Timmy boy would do after Shepard broke free. "I don't think they work with anyone."
"So how do they expect you, and you alone, to find a way to stop the reapers?" Miranda said. "You're going to need allies."
"Probably," I replied with a shrug, "but that's not for me to decide, that's for Shepard to decide. Where she points, I go. According to what info I've been given, she's the one to bring everyone around and fight off the reapers."
Miranda chuckled at that.
"What?" I said.
"You left the Normandy half way through her mission. Twice," Miranda said.
"True enough, but after Shepard and I patched things up, we got along quite well. She's not easy to work with, you know." I was too much on the defensive, I needed to change the pace of the conversation, mostly because Miranda was right, and she knew it. I couldn't keep throwing my lot decisively with Shepard and pretend it was all fine, I had had a hell of a time getting along with her, and it had all come crashing down in the end. "Look, as long as you're working on healing Shepard I'm on board, and if you stick to trying to stop the reapers then I'm game, but that's as far as I want to go."
"What other information do you have on the reapers?" TIM said. "That, I hope, you would be willing to share."
I looked at him and made a point of thinking things over, absently scratching my incipient beard. I really needed a shave, damn Med genes made my beard grow fast enough you could actually see the hair coming out. Well, not quite, but it sure grew fast and thick.
"Do you know one of the reasons why the protheans never managed to mount a proper counteroffensive against the reapers?"
"I can think of several," TIM said, "but please, do tell."
"Indoctrination. But more specifically, indoctrination that made part of their people believe they could control the reapers. Learn from their technology and use that to overcome the threat. That was the most insidious form of indoctrination they had to contend with, because those who thought they could control the reapers always looked to be on the side of those who wanted to fight them, until the very last minute. You can't control the reapers."
TIM took a moment to puff a cloud of smoke, and looked at me. "And..."
"And what I know is that Cerberus is, for lack of a better way to put it, a double-edged sword." I looked at Miranda, then back at TIM. "You say you take the reaper threat seriously, and it might surprise you, but I completely believe you. However, I can't be sure you'd let it go and try to destroy them instead of trying to control them. All our tech comes from the clues the reapers themselves left behind for us. They're the pinnacle of what our current technological path can achieve. I'm sure it's very tempting. But it's too dangerous to mess with. Take that to heart, because it's the truth."
"Interesting," he said. "Is that what you believe, or what your source has told you?"
"More of the second, but after seeing the things I've seen, I tend to believe it. Saren fell completely into that camp by the end."
"Hypothetical mental exercises aside," he said, "the most pressing matter is knowing what the reapers will be attempting next. What can you tell us about that?"
"The Collectors are their next move. They'll be trying to reconnect with and bring the reapers in deep space back. And they'll be targeting humans to achieve just that. Want to do something about the reapers? Blow the hell out of the Collectors."
"I see. Not an easy task, we caught them by surprise this time. They won't fall for the same trick twice, and we have no means of navigating the Omega-4 Relay."
"Not only that," Miranda added. "Judging by the data we gathered during the mission, our ships are severely outmatched against the Collector vessels."
"That's what we're up against," I said.
"And I must ask," TIM said, doing a Colombo-like one more thing as he spoke, "why do you think they will be targeting humans?"
Damn. I had to stop for a moment to think about that one, but an obvious and not entirely incorrect explanation was readily available. I didn't want to go into the whole baby reaper thing. Everything I had revealed was bad enough, but it at least kind of fit with my prothean expert privileged information persona. That, and the fact that TIM never seemed to question anything, he just filed away for later use.
"You saw what the Geth did during Eden Prime, and later on in other places. They targeted humans and turned them into those husk things. I believe we're ideally suited for reaperification. Which isn't a very comforting thought, but there you go."
"I see," he said. He took a moment to pull another drag again, letting the silence hang. "Anything else?"
"Not really," I said. "After all that we've gone through, I'm pretty sure Miranda knows more about the collectors now than I do. I don't get a lot in terms of specifics."
True? In a sense. I didn't have a lot of specifics or technical analysis, which I knew Miranda now had. I also knew that, if Vega's background checked out, Cerberus was going to be working with the Collectors trying to get some way to control them. I hoped not, and I was sure as fuck going to be giving a hell of a warning to the SA about the upcoming attack on Fehl Prime. Via Shadow Brokerage, if I managed to pull it off. So I was quite happy to stop right there. Until and unless TIM decided to go Reaper on us - which I was going to have to look out for. Sanctuary was one thing, but how the fuck did he build that massive fleet come Mass Effect 3? That was something I really needed the Broker to look into.
"Very well," TIM said. "For the time being, I can assume that you will be willing to work with Miranda."
"All things Shepard," I said, looking at Miranda. She only offered one of her barely noticeable smiles back.
And with that, our conversation was over. I wasn't sure whether TIM would take my advice into consideration, I was pretty sure he was too far along indoctrination to really do a 180 and go the other way, but at the very least it gave me a good foothold to be in there and, more importantly, be close enough to Cerberus that they won't just grab me and turn my head inside out to see what was in there. I mean, they still might, I wasn't naive enough to think otherwise, but as the saying goes, friends close and enemies closer. Miranda stayed behind, probably to discuss what they were going to do about me with Timmy boy, so in the meantime I made like a tree and went straight to the medbay. At the very least Kasumi would watch my back.
"Interesting development," The Illusive Man said, looking at Miranda.
"We always suspected he worked for someone else," she said. "But it's hard to imagine who his handlers are. For one thing, they made a very odd choice with him."
"Fair. I can't imagine he's the only operative this organization of his might have. He may be the decoy."
"Maybe," Miranda said with a nonchalant shrug.
"More importantly, do you believe he was involved in the Omega incident?" he said.
Miranda stopped to think about it. She hadn't told The Illusive Man everything Morgan had told her, and thinking about it, she didn't really need to.
"I don't think so. If he was involved, it was only tangentially." She looked at The Illusive Man as he prompted her to go on with a hand gesture. "He seems to have more information than merely all things Shepard and reaper related, I suspect tidbits of information he can use as leverage if or when necessary. If it was related to us, I don't believe he knew."
"Hmm. What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing important," Miranda said. "Morgan explained the deal she made with Aria in private, and given that, I'd prefer to keep it on a need to know basis. I don't think it had anything to do with us."
"I see. You seem to have established some rapport with him."
"It took some doing. Once he came to me with the Bekenstein request, it became a lot easier. I simply pressed too hard, too early."
"Good. Keep tabs on him, we might find some better use for his contacts than just being a source of trivia on the reapers," he said. "We might have to start working on the Collector problem sooner than anticipated."
"It might be a job for Shepard," Miranda said. "Getting her on our side would also get us Morgan and whoever is behind him."
"We need Shepard as she was, Miranda."
No control chip. She had already objected to that particular gambit, but it looked like The Illusive Man had made his mind up. She just hoped it wouldn't come back to bite them in the ass, Shepard was too much of a wildcard in her opinion. Competent, sure. A good choice for the first human Spectre, granted. But she was far too unpredictable.
"Very well. What about Kai Leng?"
"It would be useful to bring him back as well. He is... he was one of our best operatives."
"He fell straight into a trap," Miranda said, her voice flat and full of contempt. She had never liked him.
"Nobody is perfect," he said. He took a drag of his cigarette and looked at Miranda. "Almost nobody," he added.
With that, the call ended, and she headed back to her office. There was a lot of work to do. Once she sat down and opened her terminal again, the image of that turian's severed head popped up immediately. And with that, the conversation she had had with Morgan came to mind.
Aria's daughter.
What an interesting revelation that had been. She was pretty sure she knew who it was. The name she had found was Liselle, and just as Morgan had said, she had had some scrapes with the Talons and other merc groups regarding drugs distribution in Omega. That was how she had connected with Grayson. Miranda didn't believe in coincidences, but it might not have been Morgan who wanted Cerberus to get that blow. Grayson wasn't important, but Kai Leng had been. Might have been coincidence, might have been a warning by whoever was handling Morgan. They could mess up their operations with just a simple word to their largely clueless agent.
An agent of chaos.
Miranda chuckled and closed the messages, getting back to her work. For now, she merely filed the information away. It could have been just a coincidence, after all. And there was a lot to do ahead of her.
It took us five days before we left the station. It may not sound like much, but with 22nd century medical tech, that's about five dog years. Keiji had already been up and about by the time we arrived, and Tela had started her recovery from surgery. The rest of the Normandy crew were going to be the last ones to leave, together with the Hibiscus, apparently, so before that, the rest of us were taking our leave. And since it wasn't like the Hibiscus was a regular bus service, we were simply going to be dumped where everything and everyone went to get dumped.
Omega.
The shuttle was quite full, that with me, Kasumi and Keiji, Jack, Tela, Tasha, and Zaeed. And for some reason, they all had a buttload of gear with them.
"What the hell do you have in here?" I said, hauling another one of Tela's boxes inside. "A dead body?"
"Maybe," she said, smirking.
I dropped the crate on top of the pile and went for the next. "No, seriously. I mean, guns, armor, I barely filled my locker and look at - umph - look at you."
She watched me carry the next box in with amusement, arms crossed and leaning against the wall. I had a feeling she could have been doing more to help, injuries or not, but it's not like I was in a hurry. Never been afraid of hard labor.
"And where did you get your guns, kid?" Zaeed said from inside, where he was sorting his own gear.
"Well, the armory back there," I said.
"And who fixed your hardsuit last time?"
"Err, Jacob." I dropped the box and pushed to the back. "Wait, are you telling me you have a whole armory and everything in here?"
"Pff, 'course we do," Zaeed said. "We ain't here for a nice stroll, we're here to get the job done. And you got to be ready for whatever comes your way."
"What he said," Tela added.
"I... see."
"They're right you know," Kasumi said, speaking from the inside of the shuttle.
She was sitting on one of the seats, with Keiji laying down with his head on her lap. And call me heartless, but I was completely convinced he was definitely overplaying his wounded self act. And I was sure Kasumi knew it too, and didn't mind one bit. Somehow, the two of them always acted ridiculously over the top, heads-over-heels with each other, but never overplaying it. They had it down to an art.
Mind you, the tears on Kasumi's face when she got to Keiji and he was up and about were very real.
"You didn't have a lot of gear," I said.
"Not by choice," she said. "You caught me with what I had on me. I would have definitely taken a different loadout if Cerby had had what I wanted."
"Definitely more explosives," Keiji said without opening his eyes.
"Shush you," Kasumi said, which made Keiji smile.
I guess they had a point. When I had come to the Normandy for the Great Heretic Cleanup™, I had been carrying quite a load with me. I guess that a seasoned one-man-army mercenary and a Spectre would have even more shit to carry with them. I grabbed the last crate, and carried it inside as Tela joined me.
"That's the last one," I said.
"All right everyone, fasten your seatbelts and girdle your loins. Next stop, Omega," Joker called from the cockpit.
"You sure you want to drive this thing, Joker? It's one hell of a step down from the old ride," I called.
"Yeah, yeah, rub it in. Next I'll be flying commercial," he replied.
"You know, we could steal the Hibiscus for you," Kasumi said, and I wasn't entirely sure whether she meant it or not.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Tela added, to numerous peals of laughter.
"If I wanted it stolen I could do that myself," Joker said from the cockpit. "Nobody would be able to catch me with that beauty."
"Well, let me know if you need to lay low, I'll cover for ya," I said.
To be honest, the flight to Omega was a lot more lively than I thought it would be. I was starting to come around to the fact that, while dead right now, Shepard was sure to come back. Maybe it was because I had already hit rock bottom while we were returning from the Collector ship assault. My absolute, miserable failure. I looked at Kasumi, and she gave me a smile while running her fingers through Keiji's hair, who seemed perfectly content to lay down with his head on her lap for as long as the Universe existed. She had been there for me when I crashed and burned.
There was a lot more to my favorite thief than a playful, kleptomaniac thrill seeker.
The only one out of place there was Tasha. She and Tela had taken seats on opposite sides of the main cabin, and from time to time they kept shooting glances at each other. But it looked like it wasn't going to escalate this time either. And thank goodness for that. Even Jack was there with the rest of us instead of inside one of the two cabins. Not that she was trading banter with the rest of us, but at least she was there, mostly looking bored and annoyed. Not even drinking this time.
All in all, the flight to Omega passed without incident, which I was almost surprised about. We took a rather roundabout flight, which Joker told us was at Miranda's request. Which made following the route we were taking to the Minuteman Station a lot harder to follow. And which made me think Joker was already on board for the SR2. He was more animated than the rest of the crew, and we had had a moment back at the station where, without words, he more or less had let me know that he knew. And he knew that I knew, and that now I knew that he knew, and that he knew that I knew that he knew.
For him, it had been a hell of a success. Sure, the Normandy had been lost, and we were down two people, who never made it to the escape pods. But he had been the one to pilot the Hibiscus during our counterattack and get the crew back. If you add the fact that he knew Miranda thought she could bring Shepard back, well, he had every right to feel like he got them back one hundred percent.
And good for him, because he fucking did it.
Also? Talitha was there, too, acting as co-pilot. Would have hardly noticed other than the fact that she was acting really off. I thought she was avoiding me, in fact. I thought of asking her about it, but despite the fact that the kodiak was pretty comfortably furnished, it was pretty cramped in there, so not like there was a lot of privacy.
"Next stop, Omega," Joker announced over the PA. "Fasten your seat belts and tuck your legs in, we don't expect any turbulence but you never know when some pirates will come trying to shoot you down."
"Freaking..." I muttered as I laughed. "Joker, you're never be hired by any commercial airline with announcements like that!"
"Am I being too truthful for your delicate sensibilities? You don't have to worry, you have the best damn pilot in the galaxy at the helm!"
Man, he could really lay it on thick when he wanted to. We were all chuckling as the shuttle made its way into the dock, and soon it settled down at a dock. We got out of our respective seats, stretching and whatnot, and when the shuttle's door opened, we were hit by the smell of Omega.
Only it wasn't too bad this time.
"Did we park high up this time?" I said.
"I'm not paying for it, so yeah," Joker replied from the cockpit.
I wasn't too sure what was going to come next. I was planning on heading off to Hagalaz, even though I really could have used a break. Gee was still running the Shadow Broker ops by himself, and if his exchange of info with the Collectors was anything to go by, still doing it from a let's optimize information exchange point of view. Getting there from Omega would probably not be much of a problem. Just get a shuttle and take an uncomfortably long trip back there.
"So what's your plan?" Kasumi said.
"I think," Zaeed replied, slamming his hand on my shoulder before I could answer, and giving me a very penetrating look, "we should go drinking. And I know who should be paying."
Did he...
I looked at Kasumi, but she was nowhere to be found. Son of a bitch, I bet Zaeed had figured out by now who had gotten that bottle of liquor out of his locker. Given how everyone was looking at me, including Joker, who had come out of the cockpit, I decided what the hell.
"I guess I am," I said. "Where to? And don't say Afterlife, we'll go deaf if we go up there."
To my surprise, it was Jack who started laughing.
The place Jack had chosen for us looked a lot like the place she had said she'd like to run herself. It was low in the station, which meant it was closer to the shitty bottom of it than most people were comfortable with. The music was loud, the air hard to breathe, and the atmosphere unbearable. Jack thought it was perfect. Zaeed seemed to take to it quite well too. Kasumi and Keiji could've been anywhere. Tela... seemed surprisingly at ease in that place. Joker seemed just fine, surprisingly enough. And Tasha had disappeared the second we had landed, so I assumed we'd never see her again.
And then there was Talitha.
"You okay?" I yelled at her over the ridiculously loud music.
"I'm fine!" she yelled back. Despite that, it didn't look like it was her kind of place.
I nodded at her and went to the bar. The bartender was a turian, with a bedside manner that would have made a krogan blush. He didn't even acknowledge me, he just looked at me up and down and seemed to hesitate between sneering at me, or just leaving and going to check on other customers. Well, screw it, it's not like I needed my credits. I took my credit chit out, waved him closer, and passed the chit over the reader while leaving what, by all counts, would be a ridiculous tip in any place in the Universe.
"Need a good space and your good shit for me and my friends!" I yelled over the music.
Well, it did the trick. It wasn't even five minutes before we were in a surprisingly spacious booth at the back, with three waitresses looking after all our needs (two asari, one human), and with a rather sizeable assortment of drinks at our disposal. Joker was loving it, the drinks and the company. Kasumi was... apparently chatting up the human waitress, and clearly discussing Keiji at that. I was pretty sure that was just Kasumi teasing him. Zaeed seemed quite content with the drinks, and so did Tela.
"Hey," I said, coming to sit next to Talitha.
"Oh, hi!" she replied, somewhat surprised by my presence there? Weird.
"Are you okay? You look a bit.,.. off."
"I'm fine!" she replied, with what appeared to be some very fake cheer. "How... How are you? I mean, with everything. I haven't really..."
"I'm all right," I said, taking a deep breath. "You know, all things considered."
"Ah, right. I mean..." she hesitated, and looked behind me for a moment. It was weird, like she had suddenly seen something she didn't like, but before I could say anything, she just continued. "Yeah! It's been crazy, huh? We managed to pull it off, except for... Yeah."
"Yeah," I said.
"But everyone's alive! That's great, you managed to pull it off," she said, and gave me a weak punch on the arm. "Anyway! I'll be right back."
She stood up and made for the restrooms, which left me a bit confused. I looked behind me in the way I thought she had been looking, and all I could see was... Well, there was Keiji there, laying down on the seat, while Kasumi was giving him a foot massage and one of the asari waitresses giving him a massage on his shoulders. I guess that had every reason to be distracting. I chuckled lightly when Kasumi made eye contact with me, and doubly so when she made a gesture with her head to go over. Comfy as that seemed to be, all I really wanted was to poke Keiji for the cheeky bastard he was absolutely being right there.
All in all, it was a pretty good night. Expensive, but hey, worth it.
Joker and Talitha were the first ones to excuse themselves, having a long flight back to the station and they had to fly the Normandy crew back home. Zaeed followed soon, and before he left, he pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it towards me.
"What the hell?" I said, catching the somewhat shiny thing. It was... "A ration bar?"
"Yeah, had it with my gear. How old are you? Ten?"
"I'm-"
"So that thing's probably older than you," Zaeed said, quite unconcerned about hearing my answer. "Should give you plenty of luck."
I laughed at that and pocketed the foil packet, offering my hand to him. "Thanks. And thanks for saving our asses back there," I added.
He took my hand and shook it with a tight grip. "Don't pull shit like that too often, it's bound to get you killed one day."
Zaeed Massani. He nodded at me, at the ones still around, and took off towards the bowels of Omega, probably already planning for his next job. And hell if he didn't make me feel like a million bucks right there. I mean, his last advice was to stop being an idiot, only somewhat more friendly than that, but what the hell, I'll take every win I can get.
And while I was musing, a hand grabbed me by my shirt, and pulled me along, which made me find myself face to face with Tela Vasir. Before I could say boo she leaned forward and planted a bit, sloppy, wet kiss on my lips.
And a meld.
What the hell!
It never gets old, Tela said, or rather shared through the meld. Watch this.
She shared an image, very vivid in my head. A... some sort of meeting place, in the Citadel. I got an address, and a date. When I seemed confused about it, Tela all but started laughing through the meld.
That's a month from now you dolt, don't you even know what day you live in?
I... don't, really.
Well, one month. We need to talk. Be there.
I could even feel her stressing the last words there. The meld - and the kiss - came to an end, and I could hear Kasumi laughing while Keiji was hooting loudly at that. Smartass.
"Be seeing you, handsome," Tela said, pure velvet in her voice and running a finger over my cheek.
I probably would have stood there, dumbfounded, for an eternity if Kasumi hadn't broken me out of my confused reverie with a laugh and a yell.
"Well done Roy!" Kasumi was saying, laughing out loud too. "Heck of a catch!"
"I'd say, I'm jealous!" Keiji replied. "Ow, OW! I'm sorry!" he yelled, as Kasumi applied some extra pressure on the foot she was massaging.
"She's just having fun at my expense," I said.
"Doesn't mean you can't have fun too!" Keiji added. "OW! I meant for him!"
Kasumi laughed in response, and our conversation was interrupted by a voice I had already come to recognize anywhere.
"Oi dumbass!" Jack yelled. "Get your ass up here!"
She had actually split from the group about two hours ago, and I had no idea where she had gone. But apparently she was on the upper level of the obnoxiously loud place we had chosen to spend our time in. I looked up, looked at Kasumi and Keiji, they looked at me, and a moment later the three of us had made our way up there. I wasn't sure what to expect, but still, what I found was a bit of a surprise. Jack had taken off her top - small as it was - and was laying down while a turian was leaning over her with a tool and running it over the shoulderblade where I had given her that hideous burn. On the table next to her, there was a datapad with a scribble that looked a lot like the face of a collector.
"Ooh, new tattoo?" Kasumi said, leaning closer to inspect the work in progress.
"Had to fix my ink after this dumbass ruined it," Jack said.
"Well I'm very fucking sorry," I said, with as much sarcasm as the alcohol in my system allowed me to muster.
"You better be, because it's payback time."
"What?"
"Pants down," Jack said. "Now."
I don't know what I should have expected, but Kasumi being on my side was one thing I thought I would be able to count on. Only she thought it was a great idea too. And so did Keiji. And so did the krogan bouncer hanging around. And to be honest, I decided to surrender myself to my destiny and let her do as she pleased before they really hurt me.
And what she pleased meant I ended up with a tattoo on my ass. Which one I hear you ask?
The Jack of Diamonds.
Son of a b-
Author's Notes: First of all, I've screwed around with the timeline a bit. Kai Leng going after Grayson was supposed to happen three years after the incident with his daughter Gillian and the Migrant Fleet (going by the comics), but that puts it too far into the future - after ME2 even - and makes the next steps a lot less fun, so screw it. How did it happen? Well, I don't think there's going to be a good place to explain it in the future, so let's go with the explanation I came up with right here and now in the Author's notes: Aria leaking the location of Grayson to Cerberus (he should have messaged TIM about leaving Cerberus by then going by the strict timeline, and I'm playing with it not being exactly clear when he got his ass to Omega), and taking on whoever they sent after him, just like the warning she got had said. Two birds, one stone, and a hearty "fuck you, and stay off my backyard" to Cerberus. Totally Aria's style.
However!
I am not simply trying to get rid of Kai Leng. I mean, there's a lot I don't like about the character and how he was handled in the game, but that's not the solution. I do understand what the intention was, and to a point I agree: ME3 needed an antagonist, and despite the memes, Harbinger in ME2 didn't quite make the cut IMO. But he didn't quite jive with me thematically, and most definitely not mechanically (you cheating motherf-er, you!). Soooo... I am doing something else with him. It's not so much a spoiler as a reassurance that I'm not simply going to cheaply write him off, and off-screen at that. No. He will be an antagonist. Later. MUAGHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*Cough*
Sorry about that.
(As an aside, I am told by friends that my evil laughter is so good I should become a super villain, so there's that).
Anyway, I'm still having fun (more fun than I expected, I didn't think this chapter would go on for this long), but next chapter I'm going to definitely take the final form for the intermission scenes I'm planning on. It'll be individual scenes, from different points of view, and with one particular entry giving it time and progress context as things move along. People will be doing things over the break. Not everything will go as expected. And the narrative will come to a point where I hope some of you see the plot twist coming, but not everyone (that's how I measure if I've done a good job, usually if you have a "plot twist" that absolutely nobody sees coming, it means you've done a shitty job at foreshadowing, much like if everyone sees it coming you've really oversold it).
Anyway, as mentioned earlier, if you want to support me and my works, you can do so here:
tinyurl (period) com (slash) y2q9cop6
(Still think FFnet sucks at hyperlinks).
Thanks to those who already have! Still, appreciate the follows, reviews, favorites, etc. too, so thanks a lot!
Reviews!
maesde: Well, the Ice Queen didn't melt in one day. Patience! :D
RIOSHO: I was really, really tempted to go Tim or Timmy to TIM's face, but I decided that discretion was the best part of valor and Roy kept his smartass remarks to himself. This time LOL
fan-rei: That's how Miranda does it, never misses a chance to put the screws on people!
Guest: Regarding Mika, she's most definitely gone herself. Her legacy, however, is not! That'll come later.
Uemei: Heh. Hehehehehe. You'll have to wait, do I have something planned. BWAHAHAHAGAHAGA*cough*
Rainsfere: Got it in one with Tela. Roy and Miranda and Cerberus, they'll still hang around during the intermission. Not spoilers, because it's coming soon :) And Miranda won't easily admit to herself if she's warming up to Roy. Tsundere all the way, but with emphasis on the Tsun- LOL
MystiYew, A man that comments nice, BJ Hanssen, Firehelper, thanks for the comments!
Next time, on My Effect: Convergence! A date, an auction, and the start of a very long, long road. Until then, thanks everyone!