The sun of Nova shined down as Shepard and her team exited the Normandy. Nova was one of the first join colonisation efforts done by both humans and asari. Being around 20 years old, the colony was relatively young when compared to others. But there was one thing that surprised the rest of the galaxy as this world was where the first asari with demi-human DNA was born.

Demi-human DNA wasn't as straight forward as people like to think. It adapts very quickly thanks to the virus that turned them. This meant, that when it meets new DNA it binds and changes them trying to adapt to the new biology. As it turns out, the asari who have demi-human DNA gain the traits of their demi-human 'father'. Ears, tail, scales and more could be transferred to the asari child with the right father.

This caused a mix of reactions from both the asari and humans. While humans were surprised but accepting, the asari however had a different view. Just like with the humans, they saw genetic diversity as a good thing but given that effected their physical appearance that caused some problems. Normally all asari are female and have a similar appearance, but with the demi-human DNA that was turned on its head. Several matriarchs didn't like this as they saw it as defiling the asari body.

The asari split, most of them found the changes to be good while the rest didn't. Similar to the human anti-demi-human groups, the anti-demi-asari groups became a thing. But much like the human views on them, anyone associated with these anti groups were considered to be a criminal act even if the animal features did weird them out a bit. Humans were used to it, so it didn't affect them as much.

Either way, these anti-demi-human groups needed to be stopped and quickly before they had a chance to create chimeras. Zenna, despite being one, didn't want children to go though what she did. Being part of the exclusive chimera club was fun and all, but the process wasn't something she would wish on her worst enemy. As she exited the Normandy, one of the port authority workers walked up to her.

"Commander Shepard?" he asked, his dog tail twitching.

"That's me," she nodded in response.

"Good, I need you to come with me there's been an incident," he said as he turned and began to walk with the commander and her team following.

"What's happened?" Liara asked.

"A group of demi-asari children got kidnapped while on a school trip. One of them being the Chiefs daughter," he said making the group fall silent as they followed him.

It didn't take them long to get to the police station which was in chaos as they tried to find the missing children. The Chief was in his office going over the video footage of the kidnapping with mounting frustration. As Zenna and her team walked in, her eyes fell on the hu-hound who had his head in his hands.

"God fucking damn it!" he yelled as he pushed his computer off the table before looking up. "Commander Shepard," he said as he stood then looked down at his computer. "Sorry about the state of my office,"

"Given the situation, I understand completely," Zenna said as a demi-asari walked in.

The team just shared in surprise at the asari. The three didn't know what to expect with demi-asari, as they weren't too common outside of Nova. But they never expected to see an asari-lamia slither into the room. Unlike human lamia, who had different coloured tails that tended to match their hair, asari-lamia just had either blue or purple scales matching their skin tone. Zenna just shook her head and trembled slightly as she remembered the experiments she went though. Some of the other chimera's had worse problems. As she thought about them, she made a note to send them all an email to how they were doing.

"Chief, I got the latest reports," she said as she handed him a tablet before leaving.

"Thanks Lena," he said as he took them and looked at the report with a sigh. "Damn it," he muttered.

"Let me guess, not trace?" Zenna asked with the Chief nodding. "Yeah, you're not going to find much," she added making the hu-hound look up. "The one thing that anti-demi-human groups are good at are covering their tracks. Even the remotest piece of evidence is placed to throw you off. Not to mention the sent hiders,"

"You think you can find them?" he asked to which the commander nodded.

"When I was younger, I helped police groups look for demi-human-groups. I know what to look for, even if the kidnappers are asari," she said with a smile.

The Chief nodded in response. "So, I'll assume you want to go to the crime scene?" he asked and the commander nodded once again. "I'll tell one of my men to take you, and you are going to need this," he said as he handed her a tablet. "Good luck,"

"I'll find you daughter," Zenna said as she left the office and began to read the report. "We are going to have a problem," she muttered to herself.

OOOOO

One of the officers, Talia, brought the group over to the back of a local museum where the children got kidnapped. The area had been sealed off for the past few days. Normally, the area would have been cleared but given the situation the area had been untouched to allow for a very thorough investigation. They were about to clear it up when Zenna arrived and used her Spectre privileges to keep it there for a while.

Before Zenna joined the military, she was with special unit that looked and took down several anti-demi-human groups. During that investigation she learned quite a few things about their tactics. Most of the groups tend to be protest groups which was fine, but the ones who took people and tried to remove the virus from their genes were the dangerous ones. They mostly consisted of geneticists and doctors. People who thought that they could remove the virus and create a cure for it.

Both groups also tended to have a major religious element to it with very few having a racial element to them. Those elements made them easy to predict as that would normally mean that they some religious people covering their tracks. They would hide the group in warehouses, old hospitals or on star ships. Given how you the Nova colony was, it was unlikely that they had any abandoned hospitals or spare warehouses.

Zenna looked down at the reports again seeing if she missed something. No matter how careful you are, you'll always miss something. A hair, cells, a foot print. Sometimes, the smallest thing will point to the criminal if you look hard enough. Staning she then turned to one of the officers.

"Excuse me," she said as she approached him. "Was there any evidence that was removed from the crime scene?"

The turian nodded. "Yeah, it should be in the evidence office,"

"How many pieces?"

"Not my department," the turian shrugged. "Ask Talia, she was the one in charge of removing the evidence,"

Shepard nodded and walked over to Talia. "Officer," she said calmly. "You were the one who removed evidence from the scene right?"

The human nodded in response. "Yeah, we removed several,"

"Can you give me a number?" Zenna asked as she looked at the report again/

"About 10 to 14 pieces of evidence," Talia shrugged.

"Then why does the report say that only 4 pieces were handed in," she asked raising her brow at the officer.

"What?" Talia asked as she took the report from the commander's hand and looked at it. "This isn't right…"

Shepard looked over to Kadain who tapped his nose and shook his head. Zenna nodded, she smelt nothing but honesty which only meant one thing.

OOOOO

A young asari with hu-hound features just watched as her mother strapped her into a chair.

"Mummy, what are you doing?" she asked calmly.

"Mummy is going to make you better little wing," the asari said.

"Better?" the young asari questioned. "But I don't feel ill,"

Her mother then locked the final strap and touched the young asari's face. "But you are," she said before standing up and walking to the door.

A human doctor in a white coat then approached the young asari with a syringe in hand making her struggle and begged her mother to do something. But her mother did nothing as the doctor injected a yellow liquid into the asari's arm. As soon as she did, she cried out in pain and began to toss and turn in her bindings.

"It hurts!" she cried before begging her mother to stop the pain.

Just then two lumps began to grow on her head and her skin broke. Two small horns appeared on her forehead and her eyes became more serpentine along with parts of her legs developing scales. Soon the pain stopped, but her eyes betrayed the sadness as she looked to her mother who shared an angry expression.

"Why didn't it work?" she asked in outrage.

"The virus has a nasty habit of adapting and it attacks anything that tries to remove it," the doctor said. "This makes it very hard to remove if not outright destroying it. We have been trying for years to try and remove it, we have never come close,"

The mother sighed as she looked at her daughter with a disappointed look. "I'd rather have a dead child then a demi-asari," she said as she drew her pistol and aimed it at her daughter.

Before she could do anything, a minotaur burst though and pinned the mother to the wall while a hu-hound pinned down the doctor.

"H…how…" the asari muttered.

"It's a pity that you tried to stop the investigation from the inside," the minotaur said as she bared her fangs. "It made it easy to pin you down you pureblood bitch,"

She the slammed her fist into the asari's gut forcing her to drop the pistol and fall to the ground. "Turing your daughter into a chimera, and trying to kill her when you don't like what she has become. You have on right to call yourself a mother,"

"Screw you, you impure bitch," was all the asari managed to say before the minotaur slammed her fist into the asari's head knocking her out.

OOOOO a day later.

With the whole situation over, Zenna decided to go visit the young asari who got injected. It didn't take much digging, as her father was the Chief of police. Yali, as she was called, was in one of the local hospitals who were dealing with the other demi-humans and demi-asari children who had been taken. Thankfully, only a three of them became chimera's while the others just needed some food.

But Yali was different, she had heard her mother dislike her for the fact she was demi-asari and wanted to kill her. That had a very bad mental effect on her along with the changes she suffered. Zenna, wanted to try and give her the comfort of someone who had been in a similar situation to her had. She soon found the room and walked in.

"Hello," she said with a smile and Yali looked up.

She had been crying for a good while evidenced by the puffed-up eyes and marks around them.

"Hello miss Shepard," she said with an upset tone.

"Please," the commander said as she pulled up a chair next to the bed. "Call me Zenna, calling me miss just makes me feel old. How are you doing?"

"It doesn't hurt anymore," Yali said as she looked down at her legs.

Shepard followed her eyes and saw the purple scales along the sides of her legs. "I can see why,"

"The doctors say that they are lamia scales," she said with a slight sniffle. "I'm a chimera,"

"So am I," Zenna said as she indicated her eye. "Originally, I was a minotaur but now I have several demi-human traits. Just like you. We are a rare and special breed of demi-humans Yali, we are not born but have these new abilities forced on us by people who don't understand us,"

"But mummy didn't like me this way," the young asari moaned.

"Your father loves you no matter what," the commander said as she tried to comfort her. "Your mother only cared about your looks, not the fact that you are her daughter. She sounds like a bully to me, only caring about what you are, not who you are,"

"But I still love mummy," she replied.

"I know, but she did something to hurt you,"

"I know," she then started to cry again making Zenna pull her close into a tight embrace.

"It's ok, it's ok," she said letting the girl having a good cry, that's all she could do for now.

OOOOO a few days later.

Zenna and Yali waited at the restaurant Nebula. She managed to get in contact with the other chimera's who she grew up with. The only people who ever came close to family, and with what Yali went though she needed support. They didn't need to wait long as three people entered and smiled as soon as they saw Zenna.

"Well look who it is, Miss I'm the first human Spectre," a harpy said.

Yali looked at the three newcomers, a lamia, harpy and nekomata. While they did have their normal demi-human features, they did have features not normal to their namesake. The lamia had cat ears on her head and fathers along her arms. The harpy supported a pair of horns on his head along with an elongated tongue, while the nekomata had multiple tails and a pair of fox ears to go with his nekomata ears.

Zenna smiled as she got up and hugged each one of them. "Zach, Alexia, Jann, It's good to see you guy's again," she said. "Sorry for the lack of contact,"

"It's ok," the nekomata said waving his hand. "When you joined the military, we expected a lack of contact," he said before looking over at Yali. "Is that the girl you were talking about?"

Zenna nodded. "Yeah Zach, but be careful she's a little jumpy,"

Zach nodded and was the first to approach. "Hey there," he said as he got down to eye level with her. "Your Yali right?" she nodded and he produced a blue wrapped present for her. "I got this for you, to make you feel better,"

Yali took it and opened it to find a small bear inside. "Ahh," she smiled. "It's so cute! Thank you, mister,"

"It's fine," Zach said, "It's to welcome you into a very special club,"

Zenna watched as Zach played around with Yali. "Well, I guess fatherhood mellowed him out,"

"Your not wrong about that," Jann, the lamia, said with a smile.