To say they needed a minute was an understatement. Crow barely got the wobbly 'thank you' past his throat, let alone a request for some time alone. Shepard gives him an understanding smile, while Garrus casts the containment chamber a look, mandibles pressed taut against his jaw and eyes pinned to pinpricks. Crow thinks it's contempt, or something else in the range of anger or dislike; he's not quite a master at reading turian body language yet.
"Take all the time you need." The Commander told them gently. Glint was trembling like a leaf in the wind against his heart, and his Ghost's distress plucked their Link like an anxious bird.
"You should go back to the Normandy." Garrus suggested, before gesturing towards the chamber. "Don't worry about this disgusting thing; I'll take care of it personally."
Crow can only nod mutely, stepping away from them to compose himself and wait until Glint was calm enough to transmat them. He settled against a stack of metal sheets, and a Keeper marched past him as the feeling across the Link became less distressed. Crow kept a steady flame of comforting sol Light flowing from his palms regardless, flaring with each breath as he came down from the adrenaline of the situation.
Eventually, Glint's tremors are under control, and the Ghost looks up at him. "Hello!"
"Hey." Crow smiles down at him. "How are you feeling?"
Glint looks at him for nearly a minute, silent and almost seeming contemplative. Crow is about to reiterate the question when he finally speaks up again. "I feel... better. I feel a lot better."
"That's good." He pulled back his Light slowly, not wanting to cut Glint off from the warmth too suddenly. He didn't know if Ghosts could go into shock, but it felt like Glint had been in the closest approximate state. "Wanna go home?"
"Yes!" Glint perks up at that, and before Crow can even ask if he's up for a transmat, they're back in the med bay. Chakwas is not visible, but he can hear her moving about in the cold storage closet. Not feeling up to talking with others yet, Crow slips into the AI Core and finds himself huddling between the two servers as he usually did when he needed to be... away, from everything else. The similarities to the pipe room at once remind him of a potential safe haven and press down on him with the memory of inevitable unpleasantness.
He settles into the routine of channeling his Light, though this time he's encouraging Glint to synchronize with him instead of the other way around. Eventually, the adrenaline finally fades away, and at some point, so does Glint's distress. He becomes less aware of the servers pressing at his sides. Although he hasn't been channeling a strenuous amount of Light, he has been channeling for a long time, and he starts to feel the strain, but he can't bring himself to care about anything other than the flame he holds in his hands.
It's just him, his Ghost, and the duality of fire. Crow has never been good at meditating on his Light, but right now it's clicking for him, at least with sol Light. How easily it could burn. How easily it could sooth. The way his own breaths could have an effect on its intensity, but only if he let himself feel how alive breathing made him feel. Fire was life.
Then his omni-tool vibrates, breaking his concentration. He opens his eyes and is startled to see Legion kneeling across from him, single eye fixed on the flame Crow was using to meditate and comfort Glint, eye flaps twitching in a way that gave the geth an almost contemplative look. He couldn't believe Legion had slipped his mind coming in here.
"Oh, um, hi?" Crow stuttered as Glint turned to face their observer. "Sorry, I forgot you live in here."
Legion said nothing, continuing to stare at the Hunter's hands. Crow gradually snuffed the flame, Light stretched thin but not horribly so. It felt more like the aftermath of a healthy workout if anything. Legion looked up only after the Light was gone, and Crow wonders if a machine could be entranced. Had EDI been observing as well?
"Did you want to ask something?" Glint inquires of the geth. Legion's parameters were to seek knowledge about organics so that his kind could better understand them and facilitate communications. As such, he was prone to asking plenty of questions when context illuded him.
"Vital functions upon your entry were indicative of distress." Legion stated. "Organic custom indicates it is appropriate to query your emotional state."
Translation; 'Are you okay?'
"I'm fine now, Legion." Crow told him, then glanced down at Glint, who nodded.
"I think I'm good, too." his Ghost affirmed. "We've just had a bit of a day. Did you want to ask about the Light?"
"Sensors indicated temperatures of four point three-hundred and twenty degrees Celsius." the geth told them. "We have also failed to calculate joule output. We do not understand."
"How nothing is burning." Crow verified.
"Yes."
"Well, Light is intuitive." he opened his palm to let little embers drift out of it. Legion's attention is immediately fixed on his hand. "It only burns what I want it to burn. And if I only want it to warm, it warms. Or heals. It's like a limb; it does what I tell it to."
"We do not understand." Crow sighed and put the embers out. Legion's attention returned to his face.
"It's bit difficult to explain to a non-Lightbearer." Crow admitted. "Paracausality as a rule breaks all rules. The best way I can describe the nature of sol Light is that fire is life. A Lightbearer channeling sol Light is simply... in control of which aspects of life are presented."
"Clarify; you have killed with sol Light." the geth's head flaps were really waving now.
"Death is a part of life." Crow told him. "The most important part, since it's the end. Well, second most important part. I guess the most important part is existing in the first place."
"We are still unable measure joule output." Legion stated.
"Can't help you there, buddy." Crow shrugged. "Like I said, paracausality breaks all the rules by nature."
His omni-tool vibrated again. "Sorry, someone wants me. Talk later?"
"Yes. We have more inquiries." Legion stood and stepped back to his bench while Crow opened up his omni-tool. Joker had been trying to contact him through the chat room reserved for people who knew about the bomb. One text asked if he was good. The second one threatened to send Thane after him.
Crow quickly fired a message back to let him know everything was fine. Then he spent a few moments debating with himself, remembering Chakwas' earlier suggestion.
"Glint, would you mind going out so soon? With Joker and the others?" he asked his Ghost. Crow found he hoped the answer was no; he had never gone 'out' with other people before Illium, and that had ended rather disastrously.
"Nope!" Glint chirped, to his relief. "Let's go!"
"You sure?" he did want to go, but if Glint was just putting on a brave face-
"Let's go!" his Ghost insisted excitedly. Crow steeled himself and sent a message asking if he could join whatever outing the others had planned. It was answered immediately and enthusiastically with a request to meet outside the grill pub they had gone to for their meeting with Anderson in ten minutes.
Crow let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and stood, stretching. He ought to wash up a little, he can imagine he still looks like a disaster, and there was no need to worry Ken and Gabby with what had happened. With that in mind, he leaves the AI Core behind him, and a twisty feeling in his gut, which he had not noticed before now, loosens when he stepped back into the med bay.
Chakwas is done with whatever she had been doing but is no longer present. When he leaves, he makes his way to the men's room with haste, hoping to avoid being noticed by anyone else. He found, when he reached his destination and looked in a mirror, that although the stress and tears were long gone, he still looked like someone had murdered his puppy. Yeah, don't need anyone to see this. He washed his face thoroughly and hoped that the lighting of the ward would hide anything that water couldn't wash away.
When he leaves, he still has a few minutes, and decides to check in with Thane. He sticks his head into Life Support to find the drell putting up one of his weapons carefully. The assassin regards him, and nods, indicating with one hand that he is free to enter. One of things Crow likes about Thane is that one is never obligated to speak in his presence. The drell was someone with whom you could enjoy companionable silence, in which neither did anything more than think.
He was also a good meditation partner. Despite not being a Nightstalker, he'd helped Crow several times through his void roadblocks. Focusing on sol Light, like earlier, was far easier for him. The void was colder. Emptier. Harder to focus on, especially for a Hunter, and even more so one who wasn't that great at Light meditation to begin with. Perhaps being an outsider was why Thane was good at it; he was able to look at the void with fresh eyes and no preconceptions. His perceptions had been invaluable.
Enough so that Crow wishes, sometimes, that Thane was a Hunter. He had always wondered what it was like, for those Guardians who had mentors. Not the Vanguard reps who were in charge of their general training, but dedicated mentors. Crow had never met any Hunter older than a decade who didn't kill him on sight. The only Guardian who ever treated him with human dignity was Osiris, a Warlock who didn't even have Light anymore and wouldn't have made a good teacher for a Hunter in the first place due to mindset differences between classes when channeling. No Hunter would ever willingly teach him something.
"The bomb is out." Crow finds that saying it out loud is intoxicating. "The bomb is out."
"That is good to hear." Thane dips his head, smiling. "How are you and Glint handling it?"
"It's great!" Glint interjects before Crow can. He can't help but wonder if the cheer is forced, if his Ghost is trying to push the last few hours away as expediently as possible. "We're going out with the others!"
"Joker and the engineering team, I presume?" at Crow's nod, the drell smirks. "Try not to let them get you into trouble."
"As long as we don't get in any skycar chases or end things with a terrorist bombing this time, I'll be happy." the Hunter tells him.
"I need to conduct some business on the station myself." Thane tells him. "Would you mind If I accompanied you, at least until the others arrive? Commander Shepard doesn't want anyone leaving the ship alone. I will be going to C-Sec afterwards, she and Garrus may meet me there."
"Sure." Crow checks the time on his omni-tool. "They might be there now."
"Glint, it you please?" Thane asked politely. The Ghost chirped, and the rush of transmat leaves them in an alleyway near Mac's Authentic Earth Grill. Almost immediately, Crow can smell food within, and his body decides that he might have an appetite after all. Thane seems to give the air a cursory sniff. "Ah, I've been here. If you haven't eaten already, perhaps you should convince the others to grab something."
"I might." he shrugged. Suddenly the sound of Ken and Gabby arguing becomes audible. Crow pulls the hood of his jacket up and sticks his head out of the alleyway to see them and Tali walking down the street. He waves at them, and to his shock, Tali reaches over and knocks the two engineer's heads together before pointing at Crow. He fails at keeping a straight face and has to cover his mouth with his hand so as not to laugh and attract the wrong sort of attention from anyone else in the area.
It feels good to laugh, though, even if he couldn't do it out loud.
"Is Joker with you?" Tali asks as they approach, Ken and Gabby still rubbing their heads and glaring at the quarian.
"No." he indicated Thane. "Just Thane. I though he was with you guys already?"
There was a flash of transmat further back in the alley, and Joker stumbled slightly as he landed. "Hey guys!"
"What the bloody hell are you wearing?" Ken demanded. The pilot was dressed in a bright yellow button-down shirt with a background of green palm leaves and bright orange, red, and blue flowers scattered all over it. It was... really brilliant, actually. He'd never seen clothes with that many colors on one article before, not in a way that looked fun. Sure, he'd seen Guardians in colorful armor before.
But nothing like this.
"It's a Hawiian shirt!" Joker defended as Crow took the shirt in. It somehow made Joker look both festive and ready for business at any moment.
"Who would even wear that on a space station?" Ken scoffed. "Who would wear that period? That's so damn bright."
"I want one." Crow decided, the words spilling out almost by accident. Joker waved an arm in his direction triumphantly.
"See? Crow would." the pilot touted his victory. "This is for casual parties. And we are casually partying. I'm not going plain today. I've been wearing the same three things for almost five months."
"Where did you even find that?" Gabby asked. "I didn't think traditional cloths like that would leave Earth."
Joker pointed behind her. They all looked to see a thrift store. "You'd be surprised what you can find on a station thrift store. Used to find all kinds of weird things on Arcturus."
"Arcturus has a thrift store?" Tali inquired. They couldn't see her raised eyebrow, but it was certainly present in her voice.
"Uh, yeah? It's a major hub." Joker tells her while Thane tips his head in Crow's direction before slipping past the others. He thinks he's the only one to notice the drell take his leave. "Lets go."
With that, he gives Crow's shoulder a light push in the direction of the thrift store.
"To the bloody thrift store?" Ken complains. "But regulations-"
"If you want, I can ask Glint if he'd hide some things." Crow tells them, coaxing his Ghost out of his hood.
"Oh, sure!" Glint agrees. "Not too much, mind you, but if you're all having fun I don't mind."
Gabby's eyes seem to shine, and Crow feels a sudden wave of dread wash over him. She grabs him by the wrist and starts pulling him after her towards the store.
"It's about time you got a wardrobe. I mean, Shepard was nice and all, but you need more." she declared as the others caught on and followed after. He could feel Glint's excitement rising through their Link. Oh, Traveller, what have I done.
Despite Crow's protests, he found himself demoted to living mannequin fairly quickly while Gabby and Joker(Et tu, Joker?) foist random clothes into his arms with way more excitement than he thinks is necessary. Was shopping for clothes supposed to be fun?
According to Gabby, yes. It was. According to Joker, it depended. Ken was nowhere to be found for his opinion, and Tali just shrugged.
"I only get to wear normal clothes in the clean room, where nobody can see me. What do I have to worry about looking good for?" she said.
"We're getting you," Gabby pointed at her, "Something nice then. You need something nice."
"Why?" the quarian protested as the other engineer dragged her off to the women's section.
"I'm not sure about this 'whole wardrobe' thing. I don't have a lot of credits." Crow would rather hoard his money, if he could. He still didn't know what would happen after the Collectors were taken care of, after all.
"We're using the bosses credit card, don't worry." Joker waves him off.
"Shepards?" he asks, horrified.
"What? No, the Illusive Man's." Joker assured him. "But she did get a sweet discount for us."
"Discount?"
"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel!" The pilot points up to the speakers as the Commander's voice projected itself cheerfully throughout the store. Crow snorts a laugh.
"No way."
"She did it for twelve others in this ward alone." Joker grinned, passing him a brown jacket. "Same exact message, too."
"No." The Hunter laughed. "I've got to see that."
Crow spots something that had been carelessly tossed aside, under a rack of jackets; a light scarf the same color the void pretended to be, dark whorls and all. The material is light, but tough, and it had obviously come from the women's section. It was a nice bit of fabric, if simple, and not the first thing that he's seen wind up on the floor in this establishment.
For some reason, the scarf brings Tali to mind.
"How did this even end up here?" he commented, shaking his head.
"People are lazy, Crow." Joker told him, looking over the jackets. "Hey, check this one out."
It was a simple, brown leather jacket padded with black fabric on the inside, cuffs, and collar, with blue and red patterned rings around the cuffs. Crow... doesn't hate it. He takes it from the pilot's hands, setting the void-patterned scarf aside, and shrugs the jacket on. It fits like a glove, and when he looks in the mirror, he actually likes what he sees.
Okay, maybe shopping for clothes is fun.
"Crow!" Glint hissed, flying up to him.
"Glint, what did we tell you!" Joker exclaimed, both men looking around to ensure nobody had seen the Ghost who wasn't meant to.
"I was careful, don't worry." Glint assures them both. "But Crow, look what I found!"
At the wordless prompt to open his hand, Crow did so, and Glint dropped something he'd had pinched between his nodes. Now, sitting in Crow's palm, was a tiny glass snake, blue with a white belly, and droplets of black for eyes.
"It's like the one we left behind." Glint said. "I thought you'd like another. It's even got the Hunter colors on it."
"Thanks, Glint." Crow gets out, throat tight. The original was probably gathering dust or mold in their hidey hole, along with the rest of their tiny treasures. He hadn't really thought about their stuff in a while.
"Do you miss it often?" Joker askes, face more serious than Crow's seen it yet. He flicks the rim of the fedora he'd put on with no intention of buying. "Your reality?"
"I..." Crow chews his lip. It was a surprisingly difficult question. "For some things. Like, I'll never learn from another Hunter. The closest I've gotten to having a mentor is Thane, and he's good, but he can't teach me how to summon an arc staff or dispose of Ahamkara remains properly. But if I were to go back, there's no way I'll ever find a Hunter mentor anyway."
"What, because your past life capped their boss?" the pilot makes a face. "Other Hunters sound like assholes, that wasn't you."
"Grief makes people do things they shouldn't." he says, remembering Shepard and Garrus' spat. He still didn't know the full story of what had happened there, but there had been a lot of pain and grief in their faces. "But that aside, I've found more and more things that I don't miss compared to the things that I do."
"Same." Glint added. "I'll miss talking to other Ghosts when we see them, but I definitely don't miss patching you up so often."
"I don't miss Spider, running from other Guardians, being alone, or going hungry." his stomach made an unfortunately audible noise as if to agree with him. "Speaking of. Macs?"
"Yeah sure." Joker shrugged, replacing the fedora with his Normandy hat. "I'm going to go see if there's anything weird laying around. Might find something to give the Commander."
The pilot shuffles away just as Tali comes back at a speed walk, with the air of someone escaping a cruel and unusual punishment. The purple scarf comes back to mind.
"Keelah, I think she thinks I'm still with her." the quarian sighed. "Where's Joker off to?"
"He said he wanted to find something weird to give to Commander Shepard." he shrugged.
"That's a little worrying." she commented, looking off in the direction Joker had gone. Crow decides to gather his courage, and picks up the scarf, holding it out to her.
"You could wear it on your suit. I mean, if you wanted. It goes with what you normally wear, kind of. And maybe Gabby would leave you alone, since it's technically something you can wear outside the clean room" He felt like he was trying to stare down an ogre rather than make a fashion suggestion. He knew she still didn't 'like' him, per se.
"Thanks." she said a little awkwardly, taking the fabric in her hands, perhaps trying to determine its durability. "I'll think about it."
To his surprise, she actually bought it in the end. The illusive Hawiian shirt is never found, but he walks out with two pairs of shoes, three pants, four new shirts, and the glass snake. He relents when Joker handed him a pair of sunglasses; they looked nice and might help hide his otherness a bit more. He knew a few people on board found his eyes a bit unsettling and can imagine it might be the same in public.
Gabby didn't get herself anything; she was too busy trying to dress the rest of them up. Ken got some shirt for an ancient band called KISS. Joker found himself a new hat and a pair of aviator sunglasses... as well as actual, antique aviation goggles from which he refused to be parted. There were no solid guesses as to how they wound up in a Citadel thrift store.
After they walked out, they ducked into the alley Crow and Thane had come in from, and Glint made it all disappear. The follow-up trip into Mac's was not debated nearly as heavily as the thrift store, and in Crow's humble opinion, much less stressful. He had never eaten out with a group before, unless he counted the meeting with Anderson, and that had been business.
And this time, he didn't have to hold back when it came to portions; he ordered and extra-large of everything he could have an extra-large of. They were all hungry enough that the meal was spent in relative silence, and he feels a little bad that Tali can't eat with the rest of them; she spends her mealtime sucking down some kind of nutrient paste from a tube she slotted into a hidden port on her helmet.
By the end, there are still plenty of leftovers, which they manage to get to-go boxes for. Crow takes charge of the fries and even though he's full, finds the temptation not to save any for the others very strong. He busies himself with a soda refill, choosing a cherry-flavored brand this time that Grunt has been insisting he try. He has no idea what the others have planned next, and having something like the soda to busy himself with feels like a good idea.
Joker's omni-tool goes off just as they're leaving.
"Shepard wants us at C-Sec." he told them.
"But we haven't done anything yet." Ken groaned.
"Kenneth, you're being a baby." Gabby chided. "Are we allowed to transmat?"
"She said, and I quote, 'feel free to scare Bailey'." Joker said. I wonder if this has anything to do with Thane's business. Or the bomb? "Beam us up, Glint!"
"Do you have to-" Ken's protest is cut off as they all disappear. But where they end up is ostensibly not C-Sec. It's the docking ramp leading to the Normandy, Shepard Garrus, and Thane lined up in front with the former two looking like they had a dirty little secret and the latter seeming amused. Crow glances at his companions and they're all suspiciously okay with this not being C-Sec.
"Okay, so what's the prank?" he asks Joker, because this definitely looks like it has him or Shepard behind it and he has to choose which one to look at.
"What? No prank." he gives the Hunter a look of mock hurt, before clearing his throat and speaking solemnly with one hand over his heart. "We are gathered here today to burn that piece of trash you call a cloak."
"Look, I know it's garbage," he tries to protest, but Glint excitedly phases the bundle of fabric into his hands; he has to lung a bit to catch it, his Ghost caught him off-guard, and he hastily hands Ken his soda, "but a Hunter just doesn't run around without a... cloak..."
This... wasn't his cloak.
The fabric was black, thick, tough and felt like someone had woven smooth glass together. Not an unpleasant texture, and it wasn't too stiff despite what it felt like. There were rich, dark blue lines somewhere in the bundle, and as he turns it over in his hands, trying to figure out what his Ghost had just dropped into them, it slips and falls into a dark curtain, barely making a sound.
He has to clap a hand to his mouth to stifle a sob as it hits him.
This was his cloak.
"Suprise!" Glint doesn't necessarily 'shriek' but it's a close thing. "We've been planning it for weeks and weeks and I thought it wouldn't be done before we fought the Collectors but then Joker got Liara to do a thing, I think he blackmailed her-"
"There was no blackmailing!" Joker protested. "I just suggested pinstriping! Everything looks better with pinstriping!"
"It's a cape not a bloody starship!" Ken facepalms.
"He's not wrong, though." Shepard commented, glancing up at the Normandy. "I mean, I hate the yellow, but she'd look worse without it."
"I..." He isn't sure he can find the words. "You... I can't believe that you..."
"Can't have you running around in something that doesn't represent you, can we?" Garrus pointed out. "Unless we made a huge cultural insult by making you one instead of you making it yourself."
"No." he chokes out. "No, this is fine. I just... it's unexpected, is all. I didn't even think compatible materials existed."
Any thoughts about getting a new cloak had been far flung into the future, likely after the Collectors and probably following an extensive search for suitable things to combine his meager amount of sapphire wire with.
"It is a combination of layered polyethylene and the sapphire wire Glint stripped from your old cloak." Thane explained. "With small amounts of graphene between the layers. It should be able to withstand most of your usual activities."
"Go, on, try it on!" Glint insisted eagerly. Crow nodded, and his armor wrapped around him almost instantly. Without the familiar weight of a cloak across his back, he feels... exposed. Like he walked out of the airlock without a helmet.
He holds the cloak up for a moment, examining it. Its design is very similar to the cloak he was initially rezzed with, but without the Reefborn patterning or gold stitching. Instead, there are silver pinstripes very reminiscent of the designs on the Normandy edging the piece that wraps around from his front. There are thicker, similar blue stripes running down the actual cloak piece (and they really did look like they belonged on a ship, but he's had this thing for all of a minute and he loves them) and lining his collar. The Hunter triple chevron was stitched on the back of the cloak in a stylized stitching that was also wouldn't look out of place on a vehicle.
Joker was right; everything did look better with pinstriping.
It took him a moment to find the clasps on the new cloak, but once he slipped it over his head, he felt much less like a piece of himself is missing. It doesn't go down to his ankles, like the original cloak it's based off of, just the knees, but it's longer than the one Spider made him wear, and he feels more secure for it. He hadn't even realized that having a short cloak had bothered him until now.
"Well?" Shepard asked. " How does it feel?"
"Really good." He's tempted to hug a few people. He's never initiated something like that though, so doubt keeps him in place. He never thought he would shed tears so much in one day for emotions that weren't of the negative variety. "I... I don't have the words. 'Thank you' is insufficient."
"It's more than enough." The Commander told him. "You threw yourself into the deep end of our fight without really knowing what you were getting into. And you've stuck with us; you've even saved our asses a few times. You deserve better than rags."
"Speaking of..." Joker made a 'go ahead and get on with it' sort of gesture. Glint made his old cloak appear this time, and it nearly fall apart in his hands. Stripped of sapphire wire, it's a threadbare mess held together only by stubbornness. Crow glances at the now barely visible symbol on the back.
New cloak. No bomb. Neither of them belonged to Spider anymore, and now...
Crow commands his Light to burn. Sol Light eats up the cloak in a flash, leaving embers drifting from where it used to exist, and no other sign that the cloak had ever been there.
Now, there was nothing physical trying them to that past at all. No chain, bomb, or leash. Even if they found a way back, they weren't Spider's anymore.
Truly, fully, they were free. And as Ken clapped him on the back, and Glint ducked into the hood of his new cloak, clicking and chirping happily, Crow resolved to grasp that freedom with both hands and never let go.
He loved this. He loved all of this. The cloak, his Ghost being bomb-free, the people around him inviting him into their lives. No, he was never letting go, and if the Collectors or the Reapers had anything to say about it, well...
Might as well show them the Light.
I could come up with a lot of excuses. Like, I've been reading an over million and a half word Mass Effect novelization and it draws me in like a magnet whenever I log on. Or work keeping me busy. Laziness. But really, it was writers block. I couldn't decide if Crow should get the cloak in this chapter or the next.
JGThorncross: I'm glad it didn't come off as clunky. As I stated before, it went through several iterations, I don't think I've edited a single chapter more than that one.
Knightwolf1875: Thank you! I almost did do that, but then I remembered something from me3.
NotLeviathan: Yes, unfortunately TIM will get his paws on transmat tech. I want to make Kei Leng into an actual Avengers Level Threat instead of a weeb with plot armor, this is the first step.
kataang00: I'm glad I managed to capture Glint's trauma in a way that's realistic; one of the things I was afraid of was failing to do so, because that kind of thing is no joke. I am neither well researched, nor do I have personal experience; I just wanted to drum up as much Spider hate as possible, bc he got off WAY too easy in canon. Sorry for scaring you, but thanks for the compliment!
BiazarKaiser: Thane and Shepard wouldn't get a turn; Joker has the power to blast things from orbit. Splat goes the Spider.
Welp, this series is two years old now. Maybe I'll even finish this fic within the decade, who knows. I certainly don't know if I even have an update schedule anymore, but thanks to everyone who's sticking through it regardless.
Fare Thee Well!