New Start Plus: in spaaaaace!

by omaster43

Nick Walters and his merry band of misfits are back with a story about helping Shepard and crew fight giant eldritch robot abominations, most likely through Dumb magic and crazy shenanigans This is a continuation of my previous story, so reading that one first is recommended. but I'm not your nanny you wanna be confused that's your choice. Oc-insert, just came from Dragon age

9. Chapter 9 fathers and sons

Ch. 9

Fathers and sons

-/-

Nick POV

Walking into the War room with Alistair and Dagna, we were greeted with the globe map zoomed in on a city, with Theron, Aeden, Morrigan, Jak, Sky, Astral, Oghren, and Elissa, with the kids sleeping not far away.

"Talk to me, who is Code Yellow for?" I called out, getting their attention. Code Yellow stands for 'missing person', we were using simple Hospital codes.

"We're not sure ourselves," Theron answered. "I'm just happy the boys were already with their mother."

"Allow me to explain," Cailan called out walking into the room with his wife and sleeping boy.

Human King

Cailan Theirin

Age: 29

Lvl: 62

HP: 1500/1500

MP: 25/25

CP: 1200/1200

Cailan Theirin son of King Maric Theirin and Queen Rowan Guerrin, became the King of Ferelden after the sudden disappearance of his father in 9:25 Dragon. Surviving the 5th Blight by the skin of his teeth, Cailan came out a greater man and beloved king.

Cailan considers you to be one of his closest friends and confidants.

"Your majesty," I gave a light bow.

"And here I thought it would be a cold day in Par Vollen before you bowed to anyone~," he teased.

"You're a man worth bowing to, and I hoped it would lower my taxes~."

"That's probably the funniest thing you've ever said Ser Walters," Anora giggled.

"Worth a shot, Cailan, what's going on? Why the code yellow," I asked, normally this would be handled by the city guard or if important the Vanguard.

He waved to the holographic city, "I believe I found my father."

I blinked at him, "Your father? I thought he was dead. I knew I should have read those comics," I tisked.

"I'm guessing you didn't know about that," Cailan asked.

I shook my head, "the comics tend to be wishy-washy with Canon, you can't take it at face value. I remember Celene's Elven lover got control of the eluvian network during some book, but I don't know the details only the aftermath."

"We've already gained control of the passcode of the crossroads," Theron nodded, "There are also at least 2 dozen warriors patrolling the center control tower. I'm not sure what Briala is planning but she's going to have a hard time of it."

"Still, the idea that Celene has an elven lover boggles the mind," Anora sighed.

"I have Elven Lovers, four of them~," I pointed out.

"Yes, but you don't hide it, in fact, you flaunt it, you make sure everyone knows, you don't make a big deal about it, so it doesn't become a big deal, but Orlais is a backwater hellhole that needs masks to express themselves. Even a rumor that might insinuate Celene and Briala being lovers will cause a political shit storm, probably leading to Celene purging alienages throughout Orlais," Anora warned.

"You can't be serious!?" I gawked, "Because of a rumor!? That's crazy!"

"It's Orlais," Anora huffed.

"Yes-yes, Orlais is a wasteland," Cailan interrupted, "But we're not talking about Orlais, we're talking about Antiva." He pressed a few runes on the map's controls showing a glowing area over Antiva. And here I thought he wasn't paying attention when I went over the map's functions. "I was giving the Royal Vanguard a quick overview on the map's functions a few months ago, the one you used to find Fergus back during the blight, using myself as a test subject. Anora thought it was a good idea for my Royal Vanguards to be able to find me if I ever went missing. You can imagine my shock when more than just Alistair, Bryce, and Calenhad showed up on the map." he zoomed out showing a glowing area around Antiva city.

"I'm guessing Maric isn't there on vacation~," I muttered.

"No," Cailan answered. "Call Zevran," he called out, causing the Hologram to beep twice before the head of Zevran appeared.

"You have dramatic timeing my friend~," Zevran teased, he looked out of breath and a little sweaty.

"Zevran, how are you tired?" Cailan asked. That was a good question, not only did I boost him he also used my Gamer's system to detail his build for Constitution and Dexterity, with a splash of Charisma. He was a bloody super ninja.

"Things have gotten complicated, here you talk to him," Zevran's face disappeared, and the face of an older man with a thick golden beard, strong jawline and Cailan and Alistair's hazel eyes.

"What is this?" His voice was rough, wherever the hell he wasn't good for his throat. The more I looked at him I could see his gaunt features, the slightly hollowed cheeks, the bags under his eyes, and the wrinkles all over his face.

"Father!?" Cailan called out, getting Maric's attention.

"Cailan?" he whispered, "What is this Elf!? Explain yourself!? Did you trap my son in a mirror!?" he roared off-screen.

"Father, I'm not trapped, this is just a communication device, I'm in Denerim at the moment. What's going on!? Zevran are you there?"

"I'm here!" Zevran answered with a grunt.

"Maric! ARE YOU ON THE DAMN PHONE!?" Loghain's voice came over the call with the clashing of metal. I guess Loghain is also there~.

"WHAT THE FADE IS GOING ON!?" Cailan roared, "You were supposed to wait for backup!"

"Change of plans," Loghain huffed, "Antiva city is under attack."

"Attack?" I asked. "By who?"

"You name it," Zevran huffed, "Just as the sun set, monsters came running out of the woods attacking the city's walls." Maric's face disappeared before a camera view appeared, giving us a layout of their area. It looked like some kind of Prison, guards were lying all over the place, bleeding out and groaning, before the camera moved over showing a creature.

"That's a Lemure," Jak pointed out. "What in the Underland is a minor devil doing in the material plane? Zevran, you can't kill that thing with normal weapons, you need a holy or magical weapon, otherwise it just going to rise again."

Zevran huffed, "Yeah, we learned that pretty quickly," he pulled out the holy dagger I made him and stabbed it, causing the monster to light up in golden flames, turning it into glowing ash.

"Quickly, combine the ash with water, the remaining holy energy in the ash will create holy water," she ordered.

"I didn't know that~," Zevran huffed, shoving ash into his water skin and giving it a good shake getting the water to give a light glow. "You owe me a new expanded water skin."

"The Holy water can now be used to weaken and kill any demon you come across. The ash should hold the holy energy for about 5 minutes before it fades, the water should last you a few months as long as you pray over them. If you can, kill as many devils as possible and throw their ashes into the sea, it won't make the Sea holy, but it will stop any sea attacks for a while," Jak explained.

"Zevran how many devils are there?" I asked.

"A lot, most of them are these piles of flesh," he kicked the ash. "Some of strange flying monkeys-"

"-Imps," Jak corrected.

"-Some with spikes-"

"-Spine devils-"

"-and some sort of winged woman with glowing horns and hair made of fire was leading them."

"Hair made of fire?" Jak frowned, "AN ERINYES!? What the fuck is someone like that doing in the Material Plane!? Better yet, what is one doing in Thedas? The weak magical pressure would make it impossible for a devil like that to stay in these lands."

"Unless someone is providing the power," I hissed.

"Yuzara," Jak hissed, "He got another Warlock already?"

"That's not all," Zevran interrupted. The camera moved to a window showing Antiva City bathed in the full moon's glow, off at the horizon were thick storm clouds, lightning dancing within the dark. I had no idea where Zevran was, but it was high up thanks to the view, with the splashing of water far below, either he was on an island off the coast or on a cliff somewhere. I could see some fires off in the distance before an earth-shattering roar ripped through the air, as a humongous dragon with glowing horns came down from the sky unleashing a torrent of fire just passed the city's walls.

"Great Dragon," Sky hissed.

"It destroyed my Crow, so I'm not flying out of here," Zevran huffed, "Also you owe me a new golem."

"What's it doing there?" I muttered.

"It's here for me," Maric answered.

"Father?" Cailan asked.

"Back during the war, I met a woman, a witch of the wilds," Maric hissed.

"Let me guess, Flemeth," I sighed, it wouldn't surprise me if she did get involved, a favor from a King would come in handy in the future.

"You know her?"

"My little sister used to be her daughter, but I rescued her."

"You didn't rescue me," Morrigan hissed, "I saved myself by using you as a tool."

"Yeah, isn't that what I said?" I teased; she rolled her eyes. "What was the deal?"

"I... can't say, she placed a curse over me to keep the deal secret."

"Is that why she helped us out of the Forest?" Loghain asked.

"Is Flemeth the dragon?" Jak asked.

"No," Aeden answered, "Flemeth turned into a high dragon."

"Turning into a Great Dragon is nye impossible," Dagna added, "I've thought about it, but the Mana needed is astronomical, shit, turning into a dragon is difficult already, the power to keep a form like that would be beyond any mortal."

"So, you think the Dragon is there for you?" I asked Maric. "Why now? Why not sooner? Why were you kidnapped at all? This isn't adding up."

"She was asleep," Sky answered.

"Asleep?" I asked, "Then who woke her up? And why?"

"It might have been Flemeth herself," Morrigan answered, "I wouldn't put it past her to lock up the king to keep him in one place and use him when the time came."

"Doesn't matter," Alistair answered, "We are wasting time, we need to go."

"He's right," Cailan answered, "Nick how fast can you get to Antiva City?"

I shrugged, "if we push Mother Base, we could get there within the night, an hour, and hour and a half tops, Zev, can you hold out?"

Zevran huffed, "Of course~, but the faster you can get here the better."

"You heard the man, let's move," Cailan ordered.

"Hold on there big boy~," I stopped Cailan, "You're the King of Ferelden in the middle of a landsmeet, you're not going anywhere. You stay here, we will save your father."

"But-"

Alastair grabs his brother's shoulders, "I'll get him back."

Cailan gave his brother a worried look before nodding, "Father, Alistair is heading your way, he'll be there within the night."

"Alistair?" he gave a sigh, "My boy. You got wrapped up in all this? Fiona is going to kill me," he chuckled, "She wanted you to have a normal life."

"I'm coming father, just... hold on."

We heard the dragon's roar in the distance, "Trust me son, I'm not going anywhere."

-/-

Thane POV

I left Ayla at the hospital as I made my way to C-sec HQ in Zakera Ward.

I let down my guard. I didn't believe I was going to survive my fight against Nassana so I left all my belongings to Kolyat, and detailed letter for the reason I became who I was, I didn't want him to be left wondering why I did what I did, I didn't want him to blame himself, but the transfer happened the same time as Nassana's contract.

Arriving at C-sec HQ I found Shepard, Tali'Zorah, and the Geth: Legion, talking with Captain Bailey.

"Bring him in," Shepard ordered.

Bailey rubbed his face, "I'll bring him in but realize that his lawyer will be running after him," he sighed.

Shepard crossed his arms, "It doesn't matter, I'm a spectre and Legion already has proof of his illegal activities. I can lock him up and there is very little he can do."

Bailey shrugged, "I'll make the call, I'll give you 10-20 minutes before a lawyer tries to make your life a living hell."

"Do it," Shepard ordered. Getting Bailey to start making calls. Shepard nodded at me, leading us away so we could have a bit more privacy, "Kolyat is going after someone."

"Krios-Kolyat, was hired by criminal-Elias through a middleman named 'mouse' real name is unknown, the Citadel calls them Duct Rats, many names are lost in the system, we concluded Citadel system operators are lazy and should be fired... out an airlock." we just looked at him, "... Moreau-Lieutenant is trying to teach us... jokes."

"He would~," Tali hissed.

I looked over at Bailey who was rather calm after finding out about an Assassination. "Does Bailey not know what is happening here?"

Shepard shook his head, "No, if C-sec knew they would open an investigation, get in our way, this way if we stop Kolyat in time he wouldn't gain a record."

For the first time in a long time, I looked at the man across from me, really looked at him. Who is this man? Why does he do the things he does? Is it for Money? Power? Prestige? What does he gain from any of this? He doesn't need to help me or protect Kolyat, this should be my mess to clean up, my mistake.

I fell back on my training, with 33 years of assassination skills, I could see every way I could attack Shepard, which wasn't hard, he was completely open. Other than his armor nothing was standing in my way, his body wasn't tense, muscles loose, eyes focused, everything about him was open. I have met many clients who wanted something from me, they tense when I walked into a room, but he didn't, he completely trusted me.

… a flash of someone I used to know overtook Shepard's image, Fitz Carkin, human, back-alley doctor, he would patch me up when I got hurt for very little money.

'One of his days Thane you're going to come in and I'm going to tell you no~,' he would say, as he patched up my wounds, 'Oh, who am I kidding, you're my only friend~," he would huff, tightening my wound a little too tight, passive-aggressively telling me to stop getting hurt.

I found his corpse in his office, the people who killed my beloved Irikah came after my best and only friend.

I took a breath, "Thank you, Shepard."

He shrugged, "I thought if you had something to come back to, you wouldn't do anything stupid, don't think I forgot your suicidal mission against Nassana."

I shrugged, it seems like he was more observant than I thought, "Still, thank you. So how are we going to handle this?"

"Zone of Truth, get answers, arrest Elias, go after Kolyat," he answered nonchalantly.

"You're a bit too calm there," Tali'Zorah huffed, "Are we even needed here? I'm not sure how much help I can be with a Geth strapped to my wrist~," she hissed.

Shepard rolled his eyes, "Tali, I've once seen you hack a ship in orbit and have it crash into a heretic Geth colossus as you killed a Geth hunter with your blade."

"Yeah, when I was using both hands~," she muttered.

"Think of this as a fun challenge, I need you and Legion to find Kolyat, hack through the Citadel's Network if you have to. Legion do you already have a picture?"

"Yes Shepard-Commander," the Geth brought up a picture of Kolyat from a CCTV camera talking with a human man, before taking a piece of paper and walking away. He was wearing one of my older suits, it fit him a bit big, he also had one of my older pistols on his hip.

"Mmm~, I can run a program to find every Drell with a similar skin color to narrow down the search," Tali muttered, her omni-tool flashing through code and images, her new magical omni-tool working at the speed of thought.

"C-sec records all newcomers that visit the Citadel," Legion pointed out.

"I know that~," Tali huffed, "But C-sec has outdated security software, any competent hacker could just erase their presence."

"But not every camera," Legion countered, its main camera opening and closing rapidly. "Elevator, Zakera ward, riding up."

"Got off in the 800th block-," Tali added.

"-Disappeared afterward-," Legion interrupted.

"-It's under repair since Sovereign's attack, many of the cameras flicker on and off, making it difficult to tell if he has a program that cloaks his presence or not," Tali huffed, her omni-tool showing corrupted data. She squinted at one of the pictures. "Son of a Bosh'tet~, I think I found your stupid bot." one of the corrupted camera shots showed a Fenris bot with an N7 symbol on its back walking down a hallway.

"That's nice, focus on this though~," Shepard smirked.

"I know what I'm doing," she hissed.

"You think this is funny Bailey!?" a human screeched as he was dragged deeper into the building, "Bailey!? Where are you, you bastard!? I'll have your head for this! You hear me!?"

"I'm guessing that's Elias~," Shepard huffed.

"Correct," Legion nodded.

Bailey came around the corner as Elias was moved deeper into the building.

"You got 5 minutes, Kelham has some kind of warning system that automatically called his lawyer," Bailey huffed, "I'll stall him, but I recommend you work fast."

"You heard the man," Shepard ordered walking into the room after Kelham. I left the tech experts to their work as I followed Shepard.

"I'm going to make this quick, make sure everything is recorded," Shepard ordered to the Guard at the doorway.

Kelham was strapped to a chair, why C-sec had something like that I would never know, "Who the hell- WHOA!?" Kelham yelped as Shepard took out his holy weapon and aimed right into his chest.

"ZONE OF TRUTH!" Shepard called out, as he pulled the trigger causing Kelham to scream, thinking he was going to get shot. I felt the magic washed over me, Dagna taught me to feel my magic, to understand its pathways that travel throughout my body, to feel the magic around me, and how to create a shield to block incoming magic. Shepard's spell was almost calming, like an unknown weight was lifted off my shoulder, making me feel like everything was going to be okay, to just let go of my secrets, my years of torture training kept my feet firmly planted on the ground. Unlike me, Kelham didn't have the skills to shake off the effects.

"You hired an assassin recently who did you send him after?" Shepard demanded.

I saw Kelham ground his teeth, his neck muscles straining to keep his mouth shut, "J-J-JORAM T-TALID!" he gasped, breathing heavily as if someone was raking hot coals over his back.

"What other crimes are you doing in the citadel?" Shepard continued, wanting to nail Kelham to the wall, assassination was already a hefty prison sentence, but he didn't want him to try and wiggle out of it.

This time Kelham was turning blue at how hard he was trying to keep his mouth shut, but in the end, he couldn't keep his mouth shut, spilling out his secrets, from his drug trafficking, to illegal weapon trade, to his money laundering, to his prostitution ring, Kelham couldn't stop spilling out his illegal activities. Shepard then went after his partners and associates. Watching Kelham wiggle and squirm was both interesting and terrifying, it looked like someone was reaching down his throat and pulling out the truth, it was so bloodless, I wish I had this power when I had to do this my first time. I... wasn't very good, I didn't get any information and my target got away, it took me another 6 months to find them.

"What the hell is-" a man opened the door coming into Kelham screaming out his accomplices.

"Is he part of your group?" Shepard asked.

"Y-Yes!"

"Great," he turned to the lawyer, "Spectre Shepard, and you're under arrest," he gave a whistle getting the guards to return to the room, "Book him, and find everyone in Kelham's little possie and arrest them too. Spectre orders. Use the room's recordings to throw them into the worst prison you can find," he ordered walking out of the room.

"Wait! You can't! I'm willing to make a deal!" the lawyer screamed but Shepard wasn't listening. I followed close behind. "Bailey, we are looking for Joram Talid."

Bailey blinked before looking up the name in his computer, "Let's see here~. Joram Talid, Talid, Tallliiidd~. He lives right here in Zakera ward... in the 800 blocks," he tsked, "politician. He's been campaigning on an anti-human platform."

"Anti-human? really? after we saved the council? Doesn't seem like the best platform," Shepard pointed out.

Bailey just shook his head, "Many people still see us as the bullies of the galaxy, it took thousands of years for some species to gain a council seat, we did it under 50. People don't like how humans just bulldozed through their 'waiting game'."

"That hardly seems like our fault," Shepard huffed, "They chose to wait for respect, we earned it. I'm not going to lie and say we were saints, but we aren't going to wait generations for the council to think about it." he shook his head, "none of that matters, Tali, Legion, get me Joram's location."

"On it!" Tali called out.

"Confirmed," Legion nodded.

"Bailey, I need a car."

"A C-sec shuttle is already waiting for you," he jutted his thumb to a sky car parked outside.

"He's campaigning in the 800th block," Tali called out.

"The cameras are flickering too often for it to be normal we believe... our target should be close by," the Geth kept Kolyat's name to himself.

"Then let's move people!"

-/-

Laurien Montilyet, the oldest son of House Montilyet POV

Join the city guard Father said, it's a good way to gain contacts he said, helps build muscle and friendships he said, good income he said. Do you know what else comes with being a guard father? FIGHTING MONSTERS FROM BEYOND THE FUCKING VOID!

It all started at sunset, it was all a normal night, I got the lucky station by the king's palace, nothing ever happened up there, the Crows made a good job of that, King Natale was well-liked by the people, and by that, I meant no one cared about him so he was left alone, the Merchant Princes used him as a pawn, the Crows enjoyed the freedom he gave them, and he hasn't raised taxes, so... that made him a good king, I guess.

The palace was heavily guarded, there were at least 30 city guards along with 30 more royal guards, all we did was stand around most of the shift, but not tonight. It was the screams that got our attention. At first, we didn't think much of it, it wasn't near the palace, so other guards would handle it, but after the alarm bells rang, we knew something was wrong.

We rushed to the northern gate to fight monsters I'd never seen before. At first, I thought they were some kind of Demon but the templars that were brought to the gates had never seen them before, most of them were easy to kill, exploding into black dust after taking enough damage, it was the disgusting lumps of flesh that were the real danger. They were easy to put down, a good swing of a sword would deform them into nothing, but sooner or later they would rise back up. No matter how many times we killed them, they would rise back up, it wasn't until the mages were allowed to join the battle that we made any leeway, but the monsters were endless.

And if that wasn't enough a dragon decided that now was a good time to visit. It was huge, I'd never seen a dragon before, I like to think most people haven't, but I didn't think they were this big, the storm, fat and heavy with water that refused to rain, was already overhead making it impossible for me to see far over the wall, but I could hear the monsters screeching and moans, occasionally the Dragon would appear with a blinding fire, burning a large zone outside the gate illuminating the monsters. Their screams will haunt my dreams for as long as I live, and by the way they just walked over their fellow monsters and ignored the fire, I fear tonight might be my last night.

"You!" I turned to see a rather large elf, his armor made him look like a crow, with him was a Grey Warden, and about half a dozen men who just seemed to have escaped a prison, all of them holding some kind of magic weapon glowing a bright gold. I pointed to myself, "YES YOU! Get as much water as you can!"

"I-" was cut off as the elf blitzed towards me his glowing blade flashing out. For a moment I thought he was going to kill me, only to find him stabbing one of the monsters made of flesh that managed to crawl over the wall. Unlike before when it would just lump over dead, it burst into golden flames, the elf used his strength to lob the monster over the edge, as it turned to glowing dust on the way down. Unlike the dragon's fire, the monsters ran from the dust, one wasn't fast enough and was covered in glowing ash causing it to scream and ignited into golden flames before it exploded into black dust. Just for a moment, the monsters froze at what had just happened, backing away in fear.

"BOY!" the Grey Warden snapped me back to my senses. "WATER! GO!"

I didn't talk back, just ran to the nearest bucket and water source.

-/-

Nick POV

It's been some time since I pushed Mother Base to its full speed, we weren't breaking the sound barrier, but we weren't playing around either, Antiva City was around 550 miles from Denerim by sea, and Mother Base was pushing 400 mph, all 4 of her Mk. 4 Badassium massive arc reactor engines launching us forward.

I turned to the Vanguard on the cargo bay, "Listen up! We are racing to Antiva City! We found King Maric, that's right that King Maric, held in an Antivian prison. He is your VIP, your job is to get him out of the city and back to Denerim! If you have to leave me or any of my group, you do so! We can handle ourselves, King Maric is not at 100%, he has been locked up in a prison for years, I will provide first aid, afterwards he will be under your care, do I make myself clear!?"

"SIR YES SIR!" the vanguards saluted. Mother Base only had about 200 Vanguard, when I let Cailan borrow the ship, I expanded it to house over 1000 people, from the staff to the Vanguard that lived here, but it never reach full capacity, only about 500 people worked on the ship, the extra space was more for emergencies and quick troop movement. No doubt Cailan is giving a quick explanation of why their mobile home just took off.

"Dismissed," I waved them away.

"Are you okay?" Jak asked patting my back.

I took a deep breath, "Yeah, I guess, I really wish I read those comics, I'm flying blind. Why are Minor Devils attacking Antiva? What is Yuzara planning? Why now? Does he know that our Holy warriors are off planet? Why was Maric locked away? How is Flemeth involved in all this? Why Maric at all, kidnapping a King isn't a very smart or subtle move, and that Great Dragon~. Where the hell did that thing come from? I have so many questions and no answers," I huffed.

"We'll take it one step at a time~," Jak smiled, "Whatever Flemeth or Yuzara or whoever is planning, they have to get through us first." She gave me a flex of her muscles, she was nowhere as buff as Sky, she had a slimmer build made for speed and dexterity, only battle mages got up close and personal.

I gave a bit of a chuckle before bringing her in for a kiss, "Thank you~." Gamer's Mind might keep me from panicking, but she kept me calm.

"humph~, of course, as Love Commander it is my job to keep my lovers from losing their minds," she teased.

"Love Commander~," I laughed, "Where am I on this military ranking~?"

She cupped my face and gave me a smile that sent my heart a flutter, "Private first class."

"Private!?" I gasped. "I'll have you know I work very hard to keep you ladies happy~."

"And that's why you're a private~," she giggled, bringing me in for another kiss, "You take all the orders~."

I huffed in indignation, "I'll have you know that my will is made of forged steel~," I hissed.

"oh~, and if I order you to make love to me up against that wall?"

I gulped and coughed, "I, well..."

"As rough as you can~," she whispered into my ear.

I started vibrating, my muscles fighting my will. My god, my will is made of warm chocolate.

"STILL IN THE ROOM!" Morrigan roared, giving me the willpower to overcome Jak's order.

I gasped, "See..." I wheezed, "Pure will~."

Jak just patted my cheek, "I'm super impressed," she teased.

"You have no control over yourself do you," Morrigan hissed.

I huffed, "I have plenty of control~, I just never use it, so I'm rusty." I coughed, "Anyways, Alistair you're in charge of the Vanguard, get to your father, get him out of there, and get back home."

"Yes, I just heard your speech," Alistair huffed.

"No, Alistair," I shook my head, "I know you, if one of us is hurt you would run back for us, you think with your heart, so Morrigan is going with you."

"WHAT!?" they both screamed.

"I'm not sticking with this idiot," Morrigan huffed.

"Like wise~," Alistair huffed.

"Enough," I ordered. "I would have had Elissa go with you because she is just as bloodthirsty as Morrigan, but you stuffed her with another boxy headed baby. Morrigan... Maric is Alistair's father, and I'm 92% confident 'heroism' is part of their bloodline, I need someone to bring them both in if things are looking bad. We are not here to save Antiva City, Zevran might get annoyed at me, but Antiva kidnapped a foreign king for nearly a decade and kept him locked up in a prison, I wouldn't be surprised if we go to war over this." That got their attention, so focused on the Great Dragon and Devil threat that the kidnapping and imprisonment of a king slipped their minds. "No doubt they will try and spin it like they had no idea, but you can't keep someone like Maric Theirin imprisoned for a decade and pretend not to know anything. Anora has already grounded any train going to Antiva. This is real."

"But the Antivian people," Alistair asked, "They didn't do anything to deserve this."

"No, they didn't, that's why the rest of us are going to try and help, but that's not our goal, Maric is. You need to get to your pregnant wife and child, Morrigan you need to get back to Joyce, and Oghren has his boy waiting for him, I've already upgraded your armor, the only real threat should be the Great Dragon." I turned to Sky and Astral, "I don't know who she is, or if she is all there but if she tries anything it will be up to you to stop her."

Sky and Astral huffed and nodded.

"Dagna, Mother base is yours," I walked over to a large sphere floating overhead, pressing a few runes and providing a DNA sample, it began to glow giving off a low hum.

"Kyber cannon activated" a synthesized voice called out, "Safety is off."

I turned back to Dagna, "She's yours, just give us a heads up."

Dagna nodded, rushing up to the controls.

"As for the rest of us," I created an illusion of the Erinyes, "This is our target."

Jak took charge, "Erinyes are fierce and disciplined warriors. Like dragons they don't really land, they use their wings for aerial combat, using both spells and weapons to attack at a distance."

"Why are we going after her?" Aeden asked.

"The Underland has a strict hierarchy," Jak answered, "You have a better chance at moving up in the Dwarven Caste system than moving up in the ranks of devil society. This Erinyes is probably in charge of the minor devils, we kill her, and the Devils lose whatever power is keeping them here banishing them back to the Underland, most of them anyway, Lemures are so weak that they might survive the weak magical pressure, at least for a while."

"So, all we have to do is take down this Cloud sniffer?" Oghren huffed.

"More or less," Jak shrugged. "She is a medium, she provides the Power for the Devils to stay in this realm."

"After the Devils are beaten back, we need to worry about the Great Dragon," a small illusion of a metallic blue dragon with glowing blue horns appeared beside the Erinyes, "I have no idea where she came from, but Maric believes she is after him, if we can secure Maric, she might come after us."

Sky tsked, "I can take her."

"I believe you, but I still want you and Astral to fight her together, better safe than sorry," I ordered, pulling out a polishing rag and giving her horns a bit of a clean, getting them to shine. She still huffed at me; no dragon enjoys being told they might need help; their pride wouldn't allow it. They are fine with helping us, after all, they are Dragons, the strongest beings, and it is only natural for weaker beings to come to them for help. "Any questions?"

"How are we entering the battle?" Aeden asked.

I just looked at him, before shrugging, "The old-fashioned way."

-/-

Maric Theirin POV

"WHERE'S THAT WATER!?" I roared at the group of men in the bucket line.

"We are running out of Water sources!" yelled a young man, clearly scared out of his mind.

"Boy, look me in the eyes and tell me that the ocean is out of water," I growled, annoyed at pausing of water. Thanks to the elf's, Zevran, expanded water skin, we created a small glowing moat outside the northern gate causing a lull to the fighting, but it wasn't going to last, the water was just sinking into the ground and the earth was eating away at whatever holy energy the water had. I blame the 4th Blight, this place was drenched in Darkspawn blood.

"We are on the Northern Wall! We don't have enough people," he whimpered.

I felt a growl rising in my throat, this city was about to be overrun by monsters and the people weren't jumping to help. I understand that it's not their job but if we fail everyone dies! "Have runners sprint to the Docks, conscript everyone in this damn city, grab every pot and pan you can get your hands on, I don't care how you do it, GET ME THAT WATER! AND GET ME SOME MAKER DAMNED ARMOR!" I ordered. The young man saluted before taking off.

"Haven't lost your touch, have you Maric~," Log teased, patting me on the back.

"You still have to tell me how you became a Grey Warden," I pointed out.

"Why didn't you tell me you had another child?" he countered before sighing, "How did I not check Antiva for you?"

"You need to let that go, you still found me, 9 years late but you found me," I teased, grabbing a bucket of water and throwing it into the face of a fleshy monster we tide up, the moment it turned to glowing ash the guards on the wall quickly mixed the ashes into a water barrel, causing it to glow.

Zevran then dipped a bundle of arrows into the Barrel and passed it over to a young woman who looked like she should be in an art salon or maybe working for the king as an ambassador, but here she was, fancy dress torn, covered in black dust, hair wild... and a look that would make any lazy fool curl into a ball.

"Focus~," Log growled, dumping more arrows into a barrel of holy water.

"What are you talking about?" I huffed.

"Strong independent woman, who can be both fancy, and get her hands dirty?" he tsked, "You always had a type, Rowan, Katriel, Fiona, you always get that stupid look on your face when you talk about them."

"I never told you about Katriel."

"What am I, blind!?" he huffed, "You idiots couldn't stop touching each other!"

"...The same way you and Rowan looked at each other?" I smirked and Loghain almost tripped over nothing, giving me a startled deer look.

"What? Who, me? WHAT!? NO, I, NEVER!" I just gave him a blank look, "... When?" he muttered.

"Rowan told me a long time ago," I waved it off, "I felt really bad about marrying Rowan after that, brothers shouldn't sleep with their brothers' exes, it was Celia who snapped me out of my funk."

"Celia?" Loghain whispered his wife's name. The look he had, was the same look I had when Rowan died.

"Loghain..." I placed my hand on his shoulder, "...I am so sorry my friend."

"It's been 6 years, I had my time to grief," he huffed, dumping more arrows into the barrel.

"If it helps, she slapped me across the face and told me to get over it, 'an unmarried Fereldan woman can fuck whoever she likes'," I mimicked her bossy know-it-all voice, he smirked at the idea of his late wife slapping the stupid out of me, "She also told me that your dick had a weird angle and that I shouldn't be too jealous," I added.

He covered his face and gave one of his legendary long groans, "Celia~!? 6 years dead and you still find ways to embarrass me~."

"...Maker blessed," I sighed, "Look at us Log, two lonely idiotic bachelors back in the middle of a warzone with nothing but our wits and luck to get us through."

"Yeah, I wish I was 35 years younger," he hissed dumping more arrows into the water.

"Baa~, with age, comes experience," I laughed, knocking back an arrow and letting it fly. It was an ugly shot, but it didn't really matter, there were so many monsters it still managed to hit something as one of the monsters lit up into white flames, before exploding onto its friends causing them to go up in black smoke.

"You were imprisoned for 9 years," Log pointed out.

"I know, where do you think I got all these muscles? There isn't a lot to do in a cell. The guards kept me well fed, Flemeth probably wanted me strong for what is going to happen next." I felt a slight burning at the back of my throat reminding me not to talk about the deal I made.

"I see you two are having fun," Zevran spoke up grabbing a handful of arrows and launching them in quick succession, each one hitting something. My back hurt just watching him do it, Maker~, have I reached that age where watching someone do things hurts me? Suddenly he went ramrod straight staring out into the dark, before nodding and letting out a deep breath of relief, before he frowned and tsked, "I've leveled up more than that~," he muttered.

"Son, are you possessed?" I asked.

"No-no, just got some good news, reinforcements have arrived," he smirked at us before a loud deep rumbling came from the sky, for a moment I thought it was going to rain, Maker please let it rain.

"PREPARE FOR TITAN FALL!" the heavens roared.

"BRACE!" Zevran roared. Loghain grabbed my shoulders and dropped me into a crouch. I had no idea what was going on. Out of the clouds came what I thought was a bolt of blue lightning, I even spotted what looked like a flying palace silhouetted in the clouds.

Then... the world exploded.

The explosion was so loud and bright that it lit up the night for a moment. The shock wave and rumbling threaten to knock me on my ass even though I was already bracing. Some men were knocked on their back, completely thrown for a loop.

"WHAT WAS THAT!?" I roared, my ears still ringing. Getting to my feet I stared out at the massive amount of destruction the single beam caused. Log shoved another healing potion down my throat, my ears popping back to normal.

Zevran laughed, "It's Ferelden!" he answered. A roar broke the awe as two more Dragons joined the battle, unleashing magic into the monsters' ranks. One was pure white with her horns glowing a bright blue and the other was nearly darker than the night with glowing red horns. Suddenly a bright light came from the sky, illuminating the battlefield over the wall. There were more monsters than I thought there were. Of course, that was quickly countered by a floating island bursting from the clouds and unleashing a turret of fireballs into the monsters' ranks. "That's our ride," Zevran called out, pulling out some sort of stick and pointing it toward the sky before some kind of fireball launched itself out of the top and into the sky, where it floated.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's a flare," he answered, "My friend made it, a good way to signal rescue, and there's our pickup."

Looking at what he was pointing at I spotted dozens of flying objects coming out of the Island and flying all over the wall and off over the ocean, it looked like an angry wasp nest. Something that looked like a flying cart came straight for us. The cart hovered 10 feet over us before armored warriors jumped out of the cart and landed around us.

"Father!" one of the warriors called out, before removing his helmet. Maker~, he looked just like me at that age, he even had the classic Theirin square face.

"Alistair!?" I called out.

He rushed me, checking me over like I was a Mabari.

"Move over," another young man shoved Alistair to the side.

"Hot damn old man, you are made of something else. Here!" he shoved a slab of jerky into my mouth. It was the greatest meat I have ever tasted. I've been eating stale bread and grog for the last 9 years, this simple piece of meat nearly brought me to tears.

"Who are you, young man?" I asked through a mouthful of jerky.

"Names Nick Walters, Healer, Bann of Ferelden, and your ride out of here, now hold still," his hand gave a light golden glow as he used his magic.

I tried backing away, but Alistair held me in place. "Relax, Nick may not have a filter and can be a bit crazy, but I trust him with my life, he is probably the best healer in the world."

True to his words, any injury I had quickly closed, bruises faded, and even my fatigue lost its grip on my old bones. "Well-" I flexed my muscles, I didn't feel any creaking or grinding of bones, "-I'll be damned."

"Here," Nickolas tossed me what looked like a piece of chest armor.

The moment I caught it, it molded around my body, and before I got the chance to let it go it finished molding into a full suit of armor covering me head to toe. For a moment I felt claustrophobic, and the helmet retracted off my face allowing me to breathe fresh air, but I should wear it for protection, and the helmet returned. Oh, that was interesting? Off, the helmet retracted, on, it appeared, off, retracted, on, off, on, off. It worked off thoughts.

"Do all you Theirin men play with yourselves in dangerous situations?" Nickolas huffed.

"What, I, no, I wasn't playing with myself," I hissed.

"Oh, look at that, you all have the same excuse," he teased.

"Nick, knock it off," Alistair hissed, "Father, we're leaving." He began pulling me toward the flying cart as a group of warriors guarded me in a diamond formation.

"Hold!" I ordered getting everyone to freeze, "I'm not going anywhere while monsters are attacking this city, there are thousands of innocent people living here, and I will not be going anywhere while they are still in danger."

"Good lord, it is genetic~," Nickolas muttered.

"Father, you were trapped here for 9 years, these people are not friends, they are not your allies, and they will try and trap you back in a prison the second they get the chance!" Alistair growled.

"No son, those in charge locked me away," I point out into the city, "The people in this city did nothing wrong, they shouldn't be punished for the actions of those on top."

"No," a young woman, with the glare of a hawk and a frown that sent a shiver down my spine, hissed. "You, stupid man, are a king," she growled. "These are not your people. Your people, your sons, your grandchildren, need you to get back to Ferelden. If the people of this city can't group together to save their lives, they chose death. Let them die."

"Morrigan," Alistair tried to interrupt.

"No, Alistair, your son, and my daughter are back in Denerim being watched over by your pregnant wife, and the only thing stopping us from racing back to them is this old fossil, who thinks it's his job to save every stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing in this city." she gave me a look that would strip the paint off a barn. "You need to reevaluate your priorities. You see the men and women around you; they are Fereldan, they are your people, you are now putting them at risk for the people who locked you away, who forced Cailan onto the throne before he was ready, and threw your homeland into a panic when they needed you most," she lowered her magical staff tapping me on the chest, "Grow up. You are not a hero of legend, you are not unkillable, you are not stronger than any other man on this wall, and they don't need a 50-year-old man getting in their way. We, are, leaving." she growled, shoving me towards the cart.

"Uhh, Mory," Nickolas called out.

"What?" she hissed.

"We might need to hold off on that." He nodded to the sky where another dragon with a pair of glowing green horns, came down from the clouds, nearly twice the size of the other dragons. "That's a great elder Dragon."

Well... shit

-/-

Julia 'Julee' Hope POV

"Why are we here?" I asked. As my little group floated through a market district.

"Guns," Zaeed answered, "Why did you buy those things?" he asked.

"The hoverboards?" I asked, looking down at the hoverboards I bought for Lia, Zura, Lyna, and myself, "Don't be jealous Zaeed, I asked if you wanted one, but you wanted to be the big strong man who didn't need a cool flying board."

"It barely goes 20 miles per hour."

"It's not about the speed, it's about the fun! Do you know what fun is Zaeed~," I teased.

"Yes, I know what fun is," he pointed to Lia and Zura, "They don't look like they are having any~."

Oh, my precious ladies~. Lia and Zura were having a tough time getting their balance, needing Lyna 'Help' them keep their balance. They were wearing female Hogwarts uniforms, which I slightly modified, making the skirt, just that little bit smaller and shirt that little bit tighter, it of course was missing the top two buttons, going me a good amount of cleavage. "Oh, Zaeed, some people need a little help."

"The only person you helped was yourself, don't think I didn't see what you were doing," he huffed, "It's the oldest trick in the book."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I was just helping them with their... balance~."

"Uh-huh~."

I was helping them... a little bit, kind of. So what if I needed to hold on to their hips, and every time the board would jerk, they would smother me in their chest in fear of falling, so what if I left a kiss mark on their breasts to tell any idiot that they are taken and to back off, it's called an 'accident' and the girls didn't seem to mind~.

"Hush, you old man! Don't anger a witch, we are vindictive and make our revenge ridiculous and over the top~!" I warned, making phony baloney hand gestures. He rolled his eyes. "Besides I wasn't asking about 'what' we were buying, I was asking why we were here? This place doesn't even have a good black market." It had way too many guards. Anything under the table would have to be small.

He gave a little chuckle and raised an eyebrow at me, "Black market~," he teased.

"Don't tell Ayla... or Sereda, but I wasn't always this paragon of love and chastity you see before you," he slowly blinked at me, "It's true, Runes aren't just dangerous, they guarded, and some people don't like to share."

"And here I thought you Hopes were law-abiding citizens~," he drawled.

I gave a chuckle, "You can say that, while it's true that most of the J-Familia tends to stick with the confines of the law, but we both know that the law can be molded and twisted to suit your needs, trust me my older sister Rose is a lawyer. The J-Familia is widespread, from saints to villains, my uncle Josh is a... Legitimate Businessman in the... food market."

"When you say, 'food market'."

"Real food, just something you can't find in stores, some rich people are crazy, who eats hydra testicles when Hydra neck is delicious and tender, so weird."

"Yep, that's the weird part~."

"My cousin Joel is a hero that is well known throughout my country, while my cousin Jamie is a cutthroat business mogul that I'm 90% positive whacked his competition, my Aunt Josie is a magical advisor to the King of Roost, my cousin Jeremy is a cleric like Ayla who helps the innocent, we are a big family, but when we come together we put all that stuff aside."

"So, you never fight?"

I scoffed, "Of course we fight, we're family. Auntie Jade once hired a group of professional thieves to steal a secret cookie recipe my mother stole from my great grandma's secret underground tomb. None of them made it out of my house alive."

"That can't be true."

I nodded, "True story, it's still locked up in our underground vault. Nick wasn't lying when he said we take our sweets seriously. We even take it to the grave. Everyone's grave."

"... You people are crazy," he drawled.

"Yeah, but we're the kind of crazy that tends to be successful. People call that being 'eccentric', and you should be careful with calling people crazy, aren't you that crazy merc trying to save the galaxy with a space zombie?"

"-For lots of money, you need to add that part, or I just sound like your average do-gooder."

"Yep, that's the crazy part~," I teased, getting him to chuckle.

"Anyway," he huffed, "I have a contact that lives and works around here, I ordered an omni-crossbow, and they told me it just came in."

"Gasp~, Zaeed Massani, are you going to get us some contacts, you softy~."

"Okay~, calm down, he's not even that good, but I thought you should start somewhere."

"You do love us," I teased.

"Like a heart attack."

"I didn't hear a-" I didn't get to finish as a burst of magic slammed into me.

"... I've been around you long enough to know that was magic, but it was way too rough," Zaeed growled.

"Wild Magic," I answered, "Something is going on. Ladies! Come here," I brought Lia close.

"Oops!" Zura yelped her hoverboard shooting out under her but was caught by Lyna, who brought her close. "Oh no, the board!"

Lyna patted her on the head and gave her a kiss on the forehead, "It's okay love, it was just a board, I'll get you a new one. Cycle your magic through your system, make sure there isn't anything in your core. Zaeed you too," she ordered.

"I don't have any magic."

"Doesn't matter, just go over the breathing exercises we do every other day. Wild magic drenches everything with a magical residue that can stick to you for days if you don't process it, if you are good enough you might be able to absorb some of it," I explained.

Wild Magic is... ugly at the best of times, usually, it only happens to young students whose magical core is very small so any damage it might cause is minimal, but whoever unleashed this spell was rather powerful... or enhanced with armor.

"We need to investigate what caused that power spike," I answered.

"What are we looking at?" Zaeed asked.

"No idea, it could be anything," I answered.

"What the hell!?" someone screamed as they bounced past us. They were a ball, not like a ball, they were a ball. "Help me!"

We watched them bounce by.

"God damn magic," Zaeed huffed. "This is why I only want super strength, and that eye laser Walters promised."

-/-

15 minutes ago

Kasumi POV

It should be in this block somewhere. It wasn't too hard to create a system to find and mark every Fenris Bot within Zakera ward. Creating a filter that removed every bot without the N7 symbol took some time, but nothing a master thief with a master's in computer science, and an Associate's in theater, couldn't create. Tsk, take that Tali. Don't let Tali's good girl attitude fool you, she can be rather stuck up when it comes to anything mechanical, 'we Quarians are masters of technology' I once saw you bang two cans together because you couldn't find a can opener.

Taking a few steps forward my cuff activated and dragged me back to Grunt, the damn thing had a distance of about 10 feet before they forced us back together.

"We're close... I can sense it~," Grunt huffed, sniffing the air.

"You said that 15 minutes ago when I told you that I found it in the 800 blocks."

"Yes, and now we are closer, my statement rang true both times," he huffed.

"I feel like you're just making general statements that always come true to make yourself seem more mysterious and intellectual," Nick has asked us to use big words around Grunt, something about this 600-pound walking tank, not wanting him to feel like a child. Nick is crazy.

"That's because my gut is leading me, you people with your fancy-schmancy technology do not understand the simple process of using clues to find your target," he sadly shook his head at me.

"Alright calm down there Nancy Drew, if you're so good at this where in this entire block is the dog, huh master detective?" I teased.

"First of all, I have been reading Nancy Drew, I enjoy the ending wrap-up, and second, it's right over there," he pointed to a Fenris bot with the N7 symbol on its back, just sitting there.

"...Bork," it... barked?

"I am the greatest detective that has ever lived." I looked up at Grunt who was now wearing a Deerstalker cap and holding a Pipe to his lips that blew out bubbles, "I've also been reading Sherlock Homes."

"... I'm happy you're expanding your literary intake, but why~?"

He squinted his eyes and looked off into the horizon, "Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last." he puffed more bubbles.

"... Can we get the dumb bot~?"

"Hell yeah! I want a giant robot!" he cheered, rushing forward like a child. You can only be so serious before the idea of owning a giant robot overrides your adult thoughts. As we ran toward the bot, I could picture my beautiful vacation home overlooking Sky City, it doesn't take a genius to see where this mission is heading. Cerberus isn't just going to let us go after this, the Illusive man is too much of a control freak to just let us go, especially now that I had magic, so a safe house somewhere Cerberus can't touch, was at the top of my to-do list.

I know Nick would happily make me a house, but I knew him well enough to know he'd make a large nude statue of Sky in the main garden for me to see every day, that butt-face... I wonder what pose he would put her in~.

Danger!

My gut twisted to the left, as my magic sent a signal straight to my brain, "Dodge! Left!" I ordered, jumping out of the way as a trail of ice froze the floor we were running on. Quickly getting to our feet I followed the ice to Neria and Samara, the people around us spooked by the magic on display.

"I knew following you would lead me straight to the bot," Neria smirked. "I was going to follow Tali, but she got trapped in C-sec, so I thought, 'Who, out of my friends can find anything' and here we are. Thank you Grunt, thank you Kasumi, I'll make sure to put you in my winning speech."

"Aren't you a little too cocky~, you haven't even gotten the damn thing?" I muttered.

"It's called teamwork," she smirked, as Samara's biotics came to life. For a second, I thought she was going to attack us, only to see the Fenris bot slide across the ice toward Neria.

"Bork," it barked as it slid past me.

"Oh no you don't! Grunt toss me!" I ordered, the Krogan didn't hesitate using me as a bowling ball, sliding me toward the uncaring bot. I almost had it too, but it suddenly made a hard right, towards a smirking Jenny and Miranda.

My cuff activated and dragged me back to Grunt.

"Hehehehe, Thanks a lot suckers~," Jenny laughed grabbing the Fenris bot.

"You followed me too?" I huffed as Grunt brought me up to my feet.

"No, we followed Grunt," Miranda answered, "He can't exactly blend in."

Danger!

I spotted the flash grenade fall from the catwalk overhead, "COVER!" my armor reacted by bringing my helmet up and protecting me from the flash and noise.

"BITCH!?" Jenny screamed, covering her eyes.

The 2 Council spectres jumped down from the Catwalk still in their dock workers outfit clearly not having time to change, "The Council appreciates your donation," the turian spectre laughed as they scooped up the robot and ran.

"Slow~," a glowing arrow struck her on the rump.

"Whhhhhhaaaaaatttttt, ttttttthhhhheeeee, hhheeeeeeeellllll!?" she slowly came to a stop, looking at the arrow in her butt.

Following the arrow's trajectory I found Ava in full hero armor, bow in hand, not gonna lie, she looked kind of cool.

"I'll be taking that~," Jacob smirked, using his biotics to rip the bot from the turian's fingers.

"Bork," it barked as it flew through the air at Jacob.

"Don't mind if I do!" Nat laughed appearing out of nowhere with Mordin right behind her.

"Good to see my STG stealth training isn't out of date," Mordin cheered, unleashing another flash bang that would have gotten me if my helmet wasn't still on.

"It's more 'rusty' than 'out-of-date'~," countered one of Shepard's N7 buddies, Rosie I think, as she came out of stealth, grabbed Mordin, and judo-tossed him across the ice, getting Nat to drop the dog and flew after Mordin. "Jorge!" she called out as the other N7 soldier rounded the corner.

"I got him!" cried the human giant as he raced towards the robot, only for Pancake to body slam the robot away from his reach causing it to slide across the ice. "Wrong dog!" he cried holding Pancake, "Oof, your hefty, what kind of breed are you?"

"The noble Mabari," she answered.

"Bork." the robot barked, sitting in the middle of the ice patch.

"We're late," Sereda huffed joining the party.

"It was on SALE~!" Garrus huffed holding a sniper rifle.

"Alright~, let's all just calm down~," I softly spoke to the 23 people, who were all looking ready to punch each other in the face.

"MOVE YOU FREAKS!" screamed a panicked Turian running right into the ice patch and slipping right into the Fenris bot, not stopping for anything.

"Stop him!" ordered Shepard, running after a blue Drell with a gun, with Thane, followed by a flood of people.

The Fenris bot was quickly forgotten as we all turned to the blue Drell, who had a really confused look on his face but still pulled his gun to fire.

"SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES!" Thane screamed, arms outstretched, and the world exploded into light.

-/-

20 minutes ago

Thane POV

"Thane, quick question, how dangerous are the Keepers?" Shepard asked over the comms.

That was a weird question, looked up at the rafters where Shepard was shadowing after Talid "Why?"

"There's a Keeper walking away from, what I hope, an unconscious Krogan."

"Mmm, I would suggest not running into any of them."

"Good advice, Tali, Legion, you got eyes on Talid?" Shepard called.

"Affirmative."

"I got cameras on him," Tali added, "Which just went dead, I would suggest you get to him!"

"Shit!" Shepard cursed over the Comms.

I took a deep breath, "Amonkira. Lord of Hunters. Grant that my hands be steady, my aim be true, and my feet swift. And should the worst come to pass, grant me forgiveness." Before, my prayers were a way for me to calm my nerves and ease my soul, but now, it felt different, everything felt sharper, I felt the shadows covering me, hiding me from everyone's sight, and I could feel Kolyat's presence all around me. He was here, but something was blocking me from spotting him. Amonkira~, he does not discriminate, Kolyat must have prayed to him. A hunter hunting another hunter trying to stop them from killing their prey. Godly entertainment~.

I kinda understand Nickolas's dislike for the gods now.

"Thane, I have Talid, he's schmoozing up some potential voters. He's really heavy-handed on his human hate. He has a blood pack Krogan as a guard," Shepard called over the radio.

"I see him," I whispered. I enjoyed my new armor's ability to mute me to the outside world. Spotting a shadow with a better view, it almost seemed to highlight itself to me. Without thinking I released some of my magic causing the world to bend around me for a moment before I appeared in the shadow at the far end of the room I was just looking at.

That was... strange, it almost felt like the Fade Steptechnique Dagna was teaching me, but it was less of a push and more of a leap, I felt a large dip in my Mana reserves, my armor was working on recovering what I spent but I should keep this new skill usage to a minimum.

I watched him talk to some citizens. I could see the anger on his face when he talked about humans. It's a woman. It's always a woman. The question was, is she a human or did she leave him for a human?

I watched as he waved goodbye to his constituents as he walked down the street with his guard, highlighting a new shadow, I noticed some people's shadows also highlighted, allowing mana to cover me, the world bent again, but unlike before where I just took a single leap, I skipped across the darkness landing in my desired shadow, and unlike before, my mana was far less depleted.

Mmm, this is interesting. Skipping through shadows is easier than a single jump. Looking around I couldn't find Talid. "Shepard I can't see Talid from this angle, what's he doing?"

"He's having his Krogan guard shake down a store, have it all on camera. This guy is a special type of stupid, who orders their guard to shake down a store in public and then just stand outside like nothing is happening? Isn't he going on and on about cleaning up the streets of criminal scum... huh, how politician of him~."

It took me a second, but I spotted Talid leaning back against a store, pretending not to notice his Krogan guard mugging the human worker inside the store. And people call assassins monsters, we only stab you in the back, politicians stab you in the back for your money, then heal you, for more of your money, then stab you in the back again just for fun, and your money.

The second the Krogan walked out of the shop Talid took off running down the street, a confused Krogan hot on his heels.

"We got a runner~," Shepard muttered.

Using the shadows, I was able to keep close to him. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I spotted Kolyat moving through the crew of pedestrians. It's one of the first skills I learned, becoming one with the people around you. I followed Talid, I could storm the crowd, but he'll just run. I need to catch him when he leaves the crowd.

"Nick was right, people really need to look up sometimes," Shepard huffed, "Think he saw one of us?"

"Doubtful, running out into the open without cover is a good way to get yourself killed. He's more than likely escaping the scene of the crime."

"By running down the middle of the street with no cover gaining as much attention as possible?" he asked.

"I never said it was a good way to escape."

"Heads up, the whole street just went dark," Tali called over the comms.

"All cameras down," Legion added.

"I just said that!" Tali hissed.

"Get along children~," Shepard ordered. "Mmm, looks like he was meeting up with more guards. seems like a guard change."

I watched the 3 guards and Talid talking in low murmurs, using their shadows, I leaped to the darkest corner near them.

"-I'm telling you someone is watching us!" Talid hissed.

"No shit," one of the guards growled, "you're shit-talking the race that saved your precious space station. A lot of people like Humans for saving their lives. Smack-talking someone that saved your life tends to make you angry."

"Take this seriously, humans are a bunch of vermin."

"So are wild Varren but people love them," the krogan sighed, "I'll call Regas, he's up in the rafters, so you can shut up." The krogan stepped away to make the call. Talid was getting more and more jumpy, looking around trying to spot something that wasn't there. "He's not picking up."

"I knew it! We got to go!"

"Calm down! People aren't allowed up there, there is a chance that he might not be able to answer."

"You're not taking this seriously!"

"There are three of us, no assassin will be stupid enough to attack you head-on."

That's why I would use a sniper from the rafters, or poison the food in his house, or just pretend to be a voter and blow his brains out when he gets close. "... Shepard, is Kolyat up in the rafters?"

"... Nope, he's leaning against a wall like a common hoodlum, wearing a suit too big for him, He's just missing a backward cap."

I looked down the street spotting my wayward son with his arms crossed trying not to attract attention to himself... across a very well-lit street. Something inside me hurt more than it should have, maybe because this was the first time I had seen my son in nearly 12 years, or maybe it was the fact that he looked so much like me at that age, or... maybe it was because I looked that dumb when I was that age, sweet Arashu, did I look that nervous on my first mission?

Talid groaned at his guards, "Just, take me back to my house, can you do that without getting me killed?"

"Relax." his guard huffed, "Go find Regas, and kick his ass if he's sleeping again," he orders the other guards, "and keep away from those damn Keepers!"

I took a deep breath, activated my cloak, and stepped right behind the krogan. I never liked doing this, especially with krogans. Krogans had an almost supernatural ability to feel people when they get close. Without warning the Krogan swung around, his fist out to clock me, but I was already bent out of the way.

"What!?" Talid hissed, ducking on instinct.

The krogan didn't answer just looked around the area, taking deep sniffs, "Mmm, it's nothing, thought I heard something."

"Ugh, I can't take this, keep up with me!" Talid took off running again, leaving his guard behind.

"Stop you idiot!" the guard screamed but it was too late as Kolyat walked out to intercept Talid, one of my old guns shoved an inch from Talid's head. For a second, I believed it was too late, my son lost to himself, only for the gun to explode.

"Too close!" Shepard called out over the comms. I quickly glance to the rafters spotting Shepard holding his sniper.

Everyone was frozen, for a split second, I could see everything. Kolyat was looking at his shattered gun in confusion, Talid just looked at Kolyat, confused at the Drell and not human trying to kill him, the krogan guard tensing to rush, and the crowd of civilians turning at the gunshot.

And then... Pandemonium.

Someone screamed, causing time to move, the krogan moved to sprint, no doubt to crush my son, causing me to swipe the legs under him, my armor doing the heavy lifting, dropping him to the floor. Talid took off running into the crowd of people causing everyone to stampede, only to panic some more as Tali and Legion came around the corner. The sight of the Geth caused more screaming and running the other way. I sprinted forward using people's heads as skipping stones trying to catch up to Kolyat, I allowed my Biotics to flood my muscles as I pulled on Kolyat, trying to pull him out of the mob.

Kolyat unleashed his own biotic pulse, breaking my hold, and knocking back the mob. It wasn't going to last long, of course, there was an angry Quarian and Geth 'chasing' them. Not wasting my momentum, I leaped over the confused crowd and rushed after my son, who was still chasing Talid. I know I shouldn't be proud, but it was good to see Kolyat had his eye on the prize. I made the mistake of fighting the guards my first time, letting my target escape.

Kolyat pulled out a second gun, because no assassin worth their salt had only a single weapon, and aimed it at Talid's head. He made the mistake of running and gunning. Shooting guns isn't like the vids, shooting a moving target takes practice and hard work dashed with a little luck, and that's when you are standing still, add the fact that you are also running, and being chased, and you have a better chance of hitting your target if you throw your weapon at them.

But I wasn't going to leave it to chance, I allowed dark energy to flood my system only to have to change my Pull into a Shield blocking his own Push, leaving him wide open to Shepard's flying tackle. It didn't stop Kolyat from shooting him point blank forcing Shepard to let him go before biotically pushing him away and quickly racing after Talid.

"Maker damn it," Shepard cursed getting up and racing after him, "Thane, that kid of yours is tenacious."

"He gets it from his mother." We followed him around the corner, where we came across a rather strange sight with most of the ground crew, N7 soldiers, and... Dock workers? Circling a Fenris bot.

"STOP HIM!" ordered Shepard pointing at Kolyat, and to the crew's credit they immediately stopped what they were doing and focused completely on Kolyat.

But my son was stubborn to the end, pulling out his gun to fire.

This time I dug deep, feeling my magic core ignite, power flooding my system.

"Magic isn't a toy... at first~," Nickolas teased. "But after some training and a bit of control, it gets pretty fun. But you need to be careful when you start out. Most mages gain their magic at a young age, growing with them as they get older, you are starting a bit older in life, meaning you have to be extra cautious when using spells in duress. Magic under stress is like having a guard dog that acts on your emotions, if you act without thinking-"

"SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES!" I roared shoving my hand out to my son. He can't turn out like me, he can't. I don't want him to be lost or as lonely as me. I want him to be safe. No matter the cost.

"-it can cause something people call, Wild Magic~."

-/-

Nick POV

Elder Great Dragon

Ella, Queen of Dragons

Age: 5,442

Lvl:?

HP: 20,000/20,000

MP: 40,000/40,000

CP: 20,000/20,000

She is actively blocking your observation skills.

She finds your attempt to read her... adorable.

"We need to go," I ordered. Shoving everyone toward the car. Love me tenderly, what the hell is someone like that doing in Thedas!?

"You expect us to fly with that thing in the air!" Loghain asked.

"No you idiot! We're diving underwater." Nat wanted to make love underwater once, kind of, she wanted to learn to swim, the lovemaking came later... alright the car was just an afterthought, don't have sex at the beach kids, Anakin was right, sand gets everywhere.

Our quick escape was interrupted by Ella unleashing a roar so loud that the vibration alone nearly dropped me to my knees.

Gamer's mind has blocked Ella's Skill: Lord of the Sky

Everyone else wasn't as lucky. Half the guards fell on their backs and the other half froze in fear, getting front-row seats to Ella unleashing a breath of green fire so hot that it nearly melted my eyebrows. Everything outside the gates was instantly vaporized, any Devil out there was turned to slag. No doubt there were more, but Dagna pulled away Mother Base as Ella appeared.

"GUYS!?" Dagna cried.

"WE'RE HERE!" I answered, "Keep mother base trained on that Dragon. If she tries anything, blast her. Jak! Start gathering energy!" I'm not sure if the Kyber Cannon can take her down but it sure as hell won't feel good, and I would be a stupid kind of moron if I didn't have a Lightning Mage not use the storm to her advantage. "We are-"

"ABOMINATION!"

Danger! Above!

I activated my omni-shield and poured mana into my Shimmering Shieldskill, blocking the Erinyes's spear.

Outer shield damaged! 248/250 Durability

Devil human

Sophia

Lvl: 32

HP 400/400

MP 800/800

Weakness:

Holy

Water

Silver

Cold Iron

Madness

Tunnel vision

Immunity:

Fire

She hates you

"The Maker shines upon-" she was cut off by my fist hitting her right between the eyes.

Haki + Fisticuffs + Jeet Kune Do + Quivering palm strike + Max Str = 2,552 points of bludgeoning damage!

Her head snapped back, teeth shattered, horns broken, flaming hair snuffed out, face caved in, but still alive. Killing her without a holy weapon would only send her back to the Underland.

"Gah!?" was all she could say before she was drenched in holy water thanks to Zevran. "AHHHHHHHH!"

"Shut up," ordered Morrigan as she unleashed a fully powered Primal Lightning right to her faceturning her to glowing dust.

"Good-"

"FREAK!" a ghostly apparition of the Erinyes appeared.

Chained soul

Sophia

Lvl: 0

HP: 0/0

She hates you.

I was taken aback. "What the hell?"

"You have not seen the last of me you vermin!" she then gained a look of ecstasy as unholy rusty chains launched out of the floor and wrapped around her. "Maker! Please punish your failed disciple, I will do better next time!" the Chains dragged her into the earth.

"What, the hell, was that?" I asked. No one got to answer as a screaming Imp turned to dust mid-flight. Followed by a spine devil that got over the wall, it quickly became a wave of Devils turning to dust, and most of the Lemures also disappeared. All and all, it was rather anticlimactic, for us anyway, I was fully expecting a long-drawn-out battle with the Erinyes in the back ranks. Who was she? Why does she hate me? And why was she praying to the Maker?

The war zone became silent.

"RAAAAAARRR!" only for Ella to shatter the calm as she came down, landing on the wall, and sending off a shock wave that knocked me back.

"Son of a bitch~," I groaned, how in the living hell did I forget about her!? I quickly jumped back to my feet, coming face to face with a dragon bigger than Sky, easily standing at 120 feet and over 400 feet from nose to tail, beating Sky by about 20 feet in height and 160 in length. "My oh my, you dragon ladies sure are big~," I teased, Gamer's Mind keeping me from losing my cool.

She blinked at me, "You can speak the Mighty language?" I could feel the capital 'M' in Mighty. Much to my surprise her voice wasn't booming and deafening, in fact, it was gentle and breathy.

… roll with it! "Of course, my lady! To speak anything less to someone as beautiful as you would be a crime."

"Mmm~, yessss. I think I'll keep you as a-" she was cut off as Sky landed across from her, sandwiching our little group between them. I spotted Astral flying overhead with the blue dragon, just waiting for someone to make a move.

"He belongs to me~," She growled.

The elder narrowed her eyes. "You dare~, you, a child. Barely a Great and you dare tell me what to do!?" she roared extending her wings, she was massive, how she got off the ground had to be a miracle in and of itself.

Sky, not intimidated, did the same. "Return to your tomb, you fossil!"

"Your majesty! We did not come here to fight other dragons!" came a voice from the dragon's feet. As the dust settled from the dragons' landing, a woman wearing some kind of animal skull helmet and dressed in a Corset-loincloth combo with a red cape came into view. Was she wearing fishnet stockings with High heels, in this rocky terrain, in this weather? Fashion loves pain, I guess.

Human sorcerer

Yavana 'Beast of the Tellari Wilds'

Lvl: 43

Age: 62

HP 320/320

MP 1200/1200

Str: noodle arms

Vit: daily exercises

Dex: can touch her toes

Int: thinks she knows best

Wis: greatness means doing, no matter what

Cha: keeping it tight

Luk: Ella has taken a liking to her

Weakness:

feeble body

Yavana is an infamous Antivan Witch of the Wilds known as the "Beast of the Tellari swamps". She was raised by Flemeth but was passed over due to her weak body. She was given to Ella by Flemeth to help save the sleeping dragons of the Silent Grove. She is the one who released some Dragons at the beginning of the age, unknowingly signaling all other dragons within Thedas to wake from their slumber.

She thinks you are a fool

The dragons didn't stop growling at each other, looking ready to tear each other apart, but they did back away... very slowly.

"Why are you here Yavana?" I asked, smirking at her confused look. Sweet mercy her eyes are as yellow as Morrigan and Flemeth, maybe they are Flemeth's kids, Flemeth must have taught her the magic for eternal youth, because... damn, she kept it tight.

"How-"

"Nick Walters~, Role model, older brother, Castle owner. Why are you and Lady Ella here? And why aren't you wearing a coat, it is freezing out here, at least wear some armor, you're in the middle of a battlefield."

She gave me a confused look before Morrigan elbowed me. "Stop, adopting, strangers," she hissed.

"Sorry, still have that big brother energy," I muttered rubbing my ribs. "Yavana, you haven't answered my question."

"... I don't have to answer anything you ask."

"No~, you don't," I agreed," but we both know if this comes to blows, you're not walking out of here." I nodded to my friends getting ready for battle, then to the hundreds of guards and Vanguards that were rushing to the wall, then to Mother Base charging up another attack. "You're outnumbered and outmatched. So, I'll ask you once more, why are you and Lady Ella doing here."

Ella looked down at me, narrowing her eyes, "You're spunky for a landwalker, I like that."

"MINE!" Sky growled, allowing some sub-zero steam to escape between her teeth.

Ella returned her growl, super-heated vapor billowing out her mouth.

"Ladies~, please~, both your scales shine like stars in the dark, and I would hate for them to get dirty." I tried to defuse the situation, if we didn't have to fight, I wouldn't, especially if I could avoid war with a secret society of dragons.

"Mine shine like jewels, Her's look like ugly dirt," Sky hissed.

"Your horns are stupid."

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

"LADIES!" I called out, "God damn." It's Godpeak all over again. The one time I visited the Dragon village, Sky was huffy at every dragon that got in her way, I had to 'apology polish' every dragon Sky bumped out of the way. That only made it worse as every Dragon would purposely get in Sky's way so I would have to polish their horns. I was treated like a servant most of the day, they used to have slaves, but one Dragon said something catty about how some Dragons not being able to afford to pay their scale polishers and suddenly every dragon was throwing around gold. It's a lucrative job but you have to be on it 24/7, Dragons are such Divas sometimes. "Goodness, Lady Ella you're so beautiful-"

"Of course~."

"-but you're so large and powerful that I can't see your entire beauty~," I finished.

She narrowed her eyes at me, her hesitation allowed Sky to polymorph back into a human. She didn't stop glaring at Ella.

"By all that is beautiful!?" I proclaimed with enough ham to set a Christmas dinner, quickly dashing over to Sky, polishing her horns, adding a simple Light spell to her horns to make them glow extra bright, and draping Jewelry all over her, from golden horn caps to golden necklaces with opal inlays. Man~, that was some of my best work, it was going to be her birthday present, I even added runes that would clean her horns every 30 minutes, now I have to think of something better, Sky doesn't do repeats. Such a drama queen, she once walked around naked because Lyna and I accidentally gifted her two earrings that kinda looked the same. It was a long night of me and Lyna working together to get back in her good graces. Part of me still thinks she played us; she looked extra smug the next morning.

Ella gave a hiss at Sky's smug look. She exploded into light and shrank down, and down, and down, until she was a little shorter than Sky, taking up more of an elfish look, a very filled out elven look... very filled out elf. A very filled-out naked elfish look. She had short black hair with an emerald sheen, glowing green eyes, and stood with extreme confidence, her nudity not bothering her in the slightest, but was still glaring at Sky and her clothes.

"Yavana, dress me~," she ordered.

Yavana blinked at her, "... With what? Do you think I walk around with an extra pair of clothing?"

I dashed over, head low, "Lady Ella, my lady Sky Skipper, Protector of Ferelden, hero of the land, with scales whiter than the snow, has asked me to produce clothes for her... fellow Great Dragon." Sky said none of that malarkey, she found it funny that Ella didn't have magical clothes that could appear and disappear at will, even Morrigan had clothes that could do that when she beast shift. I just wanted to keep the peace and get the hell out of here.

Ella narrowed her eyes at me. "I expect jewels."

"Of course, Madam~," I answered still bowing.

She gave me a huff and threw her hands out. Finding an outfit for Ella wasn't difficult, she had a 'mob boss' attitude, but was still a dragon, too much clothing would hide her scales and a hat would hide her horns, so I got her a slick black sleeveless dress with open sides with enough space for her tail, and a black and red trench cloak the hung off her shoulders, with a simple dragon symbol etched in gold. I also gave her some silver horn caps and a necklace with emerald inlays to match her eyes and glowing horns. I would have gone with gold, but Sky would have killed me, it was bad enough I was giving her something, if I dressed her in gold, she wouldn't talk to me for at least a week, just had her way with my body, eat my food, and sleep on my gold, it would be the same as right now, but she wouldn't smile, or use her tail to tease me or laugh at my crappy jokes... it would kill me.

The second she was dressed, I backed off returning to Sky's side, "Now that we're properly dressed, can you tell us why you are here Lady Ella?"

Ella gave a huff and motioned Yavana to step forward.

"Her Majesty Ella and my mother, Flemeth, made a deal long ago to bring a child of Calenhad to Ella, Queen of Dragons."

Okay~, so Flemeth was involved in this. "Why an Heir of Calenhad?"

"A deal was struck," Ella answered this time, "400 years ago the human fighter by the name of Calenhad was brought to my cave by the witch, Flemeth. A deal was made, my blood for his body."

"Body?" I asked.

"Yes, Calenhad needed power to unite his lands, so I gave him my power."

"Calenhad became a Reaver~," I muttered. "That would explain Maric and Cailan's larger-than-average mana core, I chalked Alistair's large mana core to his mother, but Cailan was always a mystery. "But why? What would you want from his body?"

"An experiment," she eyed Maric, before slowly looking over to Alistair, "My sisters lay sleeping, resting from the God War, they require magic to awaken but my power is too great. My sisters would fight my foreign power with whatever they had left, killing them. So, I made a gamble, I gave Calenhad my blood, making him powerful, but with each one of his children, my power eased, bit by bit, child by child, to the point where my sisters could overpower my magic and absorb the mana. Waking once more."

"... okay, that's a lot. How many dragons are we talking about?" I asked. This just got very dangerous, well, more dangerous. A single high dragon could cause serious damage if threatened, what would a group of Great Dragons with a bunch of High Dragon underlings do? What if they are allies~? More and more dragons keep appearing, would a council of Great dragons be able to keep the peace? It would be better than just hunting them down.

"Including myself and my youngest sister-," she motioned to the blue dragon flying overhead, "6, we protected a Thunder of 47 other dragons, but most are asleep."

That is a lot of dragons, "So, out of pure curiosity, if we were to run~?"

"I would hunt you to the ends of the earth, killing everything in my way," she answered with a terrifying calmness.

"Uh-huh, uh-huh, just making sure," I turn to my group, "we might have to make a detour." I turned back to Ella, "Lady Ella, I understand that you would need King Maric to awaken your sisters, but would he be free afterward?"

"Mmm, I would no longer need him, and I already have my own adorable servant~." she squished Yavana's face.

"Your majesty, please~," Yavana growled knocking away her hands.

"I understand," I squished Morrigan's face, "I have my own."

"Release me you fool!" Morrigan hissed, slapping my hands away.

"How about we make a deal, Lady Ella, we help you awaken your sisters, and in return, you join in alliance with Ferelden, more and more high dragons are appearing, and we need someone to help us."

Ella turned to Yavana and started muttering to one another.

"Nick~," Alistair hissed.

"Shush! I'm making a deal~," I hissed back.

"I don't think you are allowed to do that."

"It's either this, or we fight our way through them, and make enemies with 50 other dragons, and let's face it, we tend to have rather shitty luck, I can practically guarantee those other great dragons are going to be awakened, probably through convoluted means, and come looking for us."

"... Fine but when Anora gets that angry look, I'm going to blame you."

"She going to raise my taxes~." Telsa's going to kill me.

"Not enough," Ella called out turning to us. "The trade is not in my favor."

I crossed my arms, "It's called negotiations my lady, no one gets what they want, at first. You are indeed powerful and have scales that make forests around the world envious, but we do not know you, we cannot trust you. We must start somewhere. What would you need for this deal to happen?"

"Mmm, I demand a Cave for my sisters and Thunder."

"Understandable." I'm going to have to push for those mountains Telsa wanted.

"We also require food. 80 of your... cows~, a week."

"We are open to trade, we can get you your cows, but you would have to pay for them." There has been an uptick in ranchers in the last 3 years, since it was easier to raise livestock than farm the blighted fields, I can use the Gamer's store to provide the rest if necessary.

She huffed, "We have a good hoard. You Landwalkers still like shiny things, correct?"

"Many of us do my lady."

"I also need servants to tend to our needs."

"Okay~, I could put up some job listings, but don't expect people to come running. Fereldan is a free country, meaning no slaves." I warned.

She waved away my warning, "You landwalkers hate each other, I have no doubt there will be plenty who would work for us." I wanna say that's not true, but dragon cults pop up all the time.

"You do understand that living in Ferelden makes you a Ferelden citizen, correct? That means you get all the benefits of being Fereldan, but that also means you live under its laws. Meaning you have to listen to the king."

That made her frown a little, before scoffing, "That means very little to me, you landwalkers barely live a hundred years, I'll just seduce a future king and have him do what I wish."

"And I have no doubt that will be the luckiest king in the world, but until then~."

"Calm yourself Walters, I am in no rush to enter a Dance, my Thunder needs to be safe first."

"I just want to make sure there aren't any misunderstandings." I stuck out my hand to make the deal.

Ella stared at my hand for a moment before completing the shake.

A DEAL HAS BEEN STRUCK!

Deal: help Ella, Queen of Dragons, wake her sisters and relocate her Thunder to Ferelden

Reward: Neutral with the Dragons of Thedas

If broken: enemies with Ella, Queen of Dragons, and her Thunder

New Quest: When I was a boy, there were Dragons.

Ella Queen of Dragons has made a deal with you to save her Thunder from the long sleep.

Reward: 40,000 XP, 100 gold, 1 gold loot box, Friendly with Ella and her Thunder

"Well, now that that's out of the way how about I give you a lift to your Thunder?" motioning to Mother Base.

"Ah yes, your flying cave, I have not seen one of those in a long time." she gave a loud whistle getting the other great dragon's attention. She broke her circling and flew towards us Polymorphing at the last second into a human landing next to Ella, Astral next to me, both glaring daggers at each other.

Looks like we are starting on a good step.

And then the clouds released their payload.

-/-

Kasumi POV

"Kasumi~, Dinners ready~."

It took me a moment to realize who was talking.

"Honey?" Keiji called out, appearing at the doorway, wearing nothing but an apron. Nick was right, that's one hell of a uniform~.

"I... yeah sorry, got something on my mind."

"Well, come on, we have guests coming." Tsk, he was wearing underwear~. it's my Birthday damn it, I demand butts! Getting out of bed I walked out to the balcony in my three-story mansion overlooking Sky City with Skyhold off in the distance. Down below in my courtyard was a very detailed sculpture of Sky doing a pose that showed off her muscles... her very sweaty detailed muscles~.

"Kasumi!?" I jumped as Julee barged into the room. "Nice~," she gave me a thumbs up at my naked body.

"Julee!?" I reached over and pulled my blanket over my nudity. I sleep in the nude, when you buy magical long-staple cotton sheets, you make sure you feel them with your entire body~. "It's called knocking~," I huffed throwing a pillow at her head.

Dodging my pillow she gave the room a good look over, before standing next to me on the balcony, "This is a nice spot~."

"Yeah, I know, you helped me pick it~." Why was she acting so weird?

She frowned, "Don't worry, I will," she gave me a small smirk, "I'll sneak up your balcony for some nighttime fun~."

"I'm pretty sure Keiji will have some complaints about that~," I teased back.

She looked back at the door for a moment, "So that was Keiji huh? He looked like a good man."

"Julee you've known Keiji for... for, uhm." I felt a headache coming on.

"Kasy," Julee whispered to me gently cupping my face, she looked so sad, "We can't stay here Kasy."

"wha-what are you talking about, Nick gave me the land, he even made me sign a 50-page contract," I tried to sound nonchalant, but my head was getting worse.

She gently brought our foreheads together, bringing me some relief, "Relax~, you have to let it go~, only look at me, only me, feel me, hear me, see me, smell me-"

"Julee?" Everything felt... floaty.

"-Taste me~," she whispered as our lips connected, she tasted of chocolate, that magic chocolate Nick had in his vault. "There~," she pulled me away revealing the Citadel, but... not. It almost felt like the artificial gravity wasn't working right, I felt like if I jumped, I would hit the ceiling.

"Julee? What's going on?"

"You were hit with Wild Magic, it knocked your consciousness into the Realm of Magic," she explained helping me to my feet. "Me and Ayla had to connect our minds to reach you guys, Shepard, Ava, and Sereda are in here somewhere, having a godly patron pays off in this place because it is usually closer to the Celestial Realm, making it easier to block any kind of mind manipulation. Unfortunately, it seems like Ayla and I got split up somewhere."

"So... none of that was real?"

"Not exactly, what did you feel about the dream you were in?"

"I... I was... happy? I'm not sure, the mansion was a place I thought of as a safe house, no one in this galaxy could get to me... it was a haven. I... I'm not sure why Keiji was there."

"The spirits might have thought that Keiji was making the dream better, we could be dealing with a Spirit of Joy or maybe Desire."

"Is that why you kissed me? To snap me out of the dream?" My lips were still tingling.

She smiled at me, "Nope~, I saw my shot and took it."

"Classic Julee~. So, what do we do? How do we get out of here?"

"Usually, you would have woken up by now but whatever spirit brought us here must have been strong. We either have to find the spirit so it can release us, or leave its area of control, but I'm not sure what else is out there, we might be jumping out of the pan and into the fire. We should find everyone else first before making any power moves," she shrugged.

"Okay, where should we start?"

She pointed down the hall, "We only got one way, stay close, nothing here makes sense and it's easy to get lost."

"Is that your excuse to put your hand around my hips~?"

She smirked at me, "It's called multitasking."

"Watch those hands, Hope~."

"Oh, don't worry~, I know exactly where they are."

What a perv~.

-/-

The realm of magic was... strange, it looked like the citadel, but... not. The glowing signs that would advertise made no sense, written in some unknown language or just scribbles, on occasion we would encounter a spirit that was just passing through, it was interesting, as we passed, it morphed into Julee's father and then into my grandmother. Julee explained that it was a spirit of Authority, morphing into someone I respected, I kinda understood, my grandmother was a stern taskmaster but not unloving, she had to keep my Grandpop in line.

We passed other spirits, like Joy, who turned into Keiji before turning into Nick, then Shepard, Jacob, Sky, Julee, Nat, and most of the Normandy crew, it gave a wave goodbye before it turned into a glowing orb and floated away, changing forms as it turned the corner. Then there was Honor, it turned into Anderson, Shepard, then into my grandfather giving me a sneaky smirk like every time he got away with something behind my grandmother's back.

We continued walking through what I was calling the 'upside down', mostly because at some point we were walking on the ceiling, until we reached a group of spirits crowding a shining doorway, only for a spirit to come flying out knocking back a large enough space for us to pass by. The doorway looked a lot like one of Nick's portals, but instead of a black abyss that led to the unknown, this one was bright white.

"Come on." Julee took charge, walking into the portal. Does magic make you fearless or is this just old hat to her? Walking into the portal, the Citadel morphed into... Tuchanka? It was all green with pyramids off in the distance, we were standing on what seemed like a campsite.

"RAR!" We turn to see a bare-chested Grunt lift a krogan and slam him into the ground. "You call yourselves warriors! Pathetic, you have no courage, no drive, no insight! You've rushed me four times now, and you haven't seen the obvious opening I've given you. You shame me, how am I supposed to send you against Shepard and Walters with your piss poor battle skills? Walters would return you with a slap on the wrist!"

"SORRY BATTLEMASTER!" the Krogans bowed, well it was more of a nod thanks to their humps.

"Sorry isn't enough! Laps, run them until I say stop!"

"Sir!" They started running.

"Looks like someone is having fun~," Julee called out. Grunt snapped his eyes toward us.

"HOPE!?" Grunt cheered, arms stretched out to bring Julee into a hug, only for Julee to grab his wrist and toss him over her shoulder, slamming Grunt onto the floor.

"Please~, my father taught me well enough to see a sad grapple like that a mile away~."

"HA!" Grunt laughed, "You see that you piss ants!? That's a real warrior! Learn from her! Learn right now!"

"Sir yes sir!" stopping to write on their omni-tools.

"Who told you to stop!?"

"Sorry, Sir!" The krogans continued to run and write at the same time.

"Hope, Goto, I see you've come to see my troops," Grunt said, dusting off the dirt. Now that I got a closer look, I noticed that Grunt was bigger, and his head scalp was fully formed.

"No, just you, we need to get going." Julee didn't waste words.

"Going? Is there another Galaxy-ending threat the Krogan League doesn't know about?"

The krogan league? I guess the Krogan got their shit together.

"Not another threat, the same threat, The Reapers are still coming," Julee answered.

"Reapers? But we... mmm? No, we didn't fight the Reapers." He started blinking rapidly, stretching out his muscles. "Where are we?" the world around us began to melt.

"The Magic realm," Julee shrugged, "We're kinda having the same dream."

Tuchanka finally faded away leaving us in an empty room with the spirits at the doorway running off.

"This place feels weird," Grunt huffed, sniffing the air. "Even the air smells wrong." I took a sniff but didn't smell anything.

"I don't smell anything," I said.

"Exactly, the Citadel is filled with thousands of people and food, there is always a smell, but not here."

I took another sniff, "You're right."

"I'm always right, I am krogan."

"Being Krogan doesn't make you right~."

"And yet I've never been wrong," he smugly answered. I rolled my eyes.

"We got another room!" Julee called out from ahead of us, but before we got to do anything the doorway faded as Ayla, Nat, and Jacob came out of the room. Ayla had a light golden glow to her and holding her huge fuck off mace. "Ayla~!" Julee waved.

"There you are!" Ayla huffed, "You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"Ahh~, my holy cleric~." she peppered Ayla in kisses. "I'm so sorry I made you worry~. And you, my sneaky Dwarf ninja~." she reached over and peppered Nat with kisses.

"I'm fine, you kiss monster," Nat laughed pushing Julee away. Around them, tiny red spirits floated around before running away. Love most likely.

"Good, you have no idea how scared I was when I found you idiots in the middle of a wild magic spell."

This time it was Nat who brought her into a kiss, "I'm sorry for worrying you, but in my defense, I had no idea what happened, one second, I was about to punch some punk Drell and the next I woke up in Skyhold by a very sexy Nick wearing that Cowboy hat I like and Sky in ass-less chaps, only to be interrupted by these two," she huffed jutting her thumb at a sheepish Jacob and shrugging Ayla.

"I saw more of Nick and Sky than I ever feared seeing," Jacob muttered. "OH, FOR THE LOVE OF~." He covered his eyes and looked away.

Turning around I spotted a very naked Sky in ass-less chaps, only ass-less chaps.

"Yeah, she was also wearing a Flannel shirt that was two sizes too small kept together by a knot that showed off her muscles," Nat added.

I tried to not imagine it, but I couldn't. She looked very... folksy; I could feel something awaken within me. She threw me a smirk that made me weak to my knees.

"Hey!" Ayla hissed, "Get out of here! Get! Get!" she shooed shaking her mace at it, getting the spirit to run off. "Come on we have more people to find."

My face was melting. "The shirt was red and blue~," Nat whispered.

"ugh~," I groaned, covering my face. "You're never going to let me live this down, are you?"

She smiled up at me, "I have the shirt~, I'll have her wear it when she gets back~."

I peeked at her through my fingers, "... you're a bad person... thank you~."

We continued through the upside down.

-/-

Nick POV

Great Dragon

Vozi, Champion of Dragons

Age: 437

Lvl: 62

HP: 3,300/3,300

MP: 5,000/5,000

CP: 1,500/1,500

Str: She's a great dragon

Vit: she's been asleep for the last 200 years

Dex: Master in the air

Int: She's a dragon, bow or be eaten

Wis: dragons are the strongest

Cha: beautiful Azure scales

Luk: she was chosen to become a Great

Weakness:

Groggy

Tired

Hungry

Stiff muscles

Vozi being the Youngest Great dragon in her Thunder, was given the title of Champion, making her the first line of defense. Being the youngest Great dragon in her Thunder she feels like she has a lot to prove.

She's annoyed that Astral and Sky are already a Great Dragons even though they're under 200 years old

"Order up!" I called out from behind the kitchen before a maid bot grabbed the heavy plate of super Nachos, Vozi was addicted to cheese. At the moment she was dressed up in Sky's old Cave woman outfit and eating enough food to feed the Vanguard for a week.

"Is it okay for us to just leave like that?" Alistair asked, sitting at the counter with his father and Loghain.

"We don't owe Antiva anything," Loghain grunted through his steak.

"I left a note with that... uh, I wanna say, ambassador, you know, that one with the wild hair and golden blouse," Maric replied, waving away any worries, also scarfing down a steak.

Loghain slowly stopped chewing, before gulping and looking over to Maric who was making it his job not to look at him. "Maker please~," Loghain groaned, "... Maric, please tell me it was an official letter and not more of your shitty poetry."

"... of course it was an official letter, I'm a King, aren't I?" Maric huffed but still didn't look at Loghain.

"You do understand that if she is an ambassador, she won't open your letter and deliver it straight to the King of Antiva, right?" Loghain drawled.

Maric just looked at his food for a moment, "... Yeah~," he sounded very uncomfortable, "On some unrelated terms, I should send a backup letter explaining some things."

"Should I contact Fiona?" I teased, "Tell her you're not on the market."

"Fiona," Maric whispered, "She's going to kill me~. Last I checked she left the wardens and was brought back to the circles, she was furious, not at you son!" he quickly reassured Alistair, "At me, I got myself kidnapped on my way to visit her."

"You were going to make an alliance with the Free Marches," Loghain growled.

"Ha, please, we both know that would have never happened, the Free Marches have never been on the same page, I would have gone to their meeting, it would have fallen through on the first night, and I would have snuck into the Mage Tower in Starkhaven, where she was stationed at the time, and have loud passionate love all night," he shrugged like it was no big deal.

Poor Alistair looked like he was never going to touch Elissa ever again. "I didn't need to know that," he whined.

"I can only imagine how angry she was, which would have made the sex crazy good~."

"STOP TALKING!" Alistair ordered.

"We were aiming for a girl this time," Maric continued.

"Maker~."

"Don't bother," Loghain huffed, "Look at his stupid face, he's gone. Just try and tune him out."

"For an elf, she had a strong grip~, I think it was because she was a warden. Sometimes I was the small spoon-" Alistair looked like he was about to start crying, "-let me tell you, it's nice to be the small spoon sometimes, it makes you feel protected."

"You think all that time in prison may have knocked something loose?" I asked.

"No, he's always been like this," Loghain answered. "No matter how many times I've asked him to keep it to himself."

"Loghain, has Rowan ever spanked you, she was rather ruthless with my behind."

"Alright, I've had enough." Loghain grabbed his plate and walked off.

"Wait, I need to know if it was just something I liked!" Maric followed.

"I learned too much today," Alistair shivered. "Are you sure he's all there?"

"He was trapped in a cell for 9 years," I shrugged. "He's free and just wants to talk to his friend about anything, just give him some time to regroup, if nothing else we can kidnap Fiona and have her fix him."

"Can we not call it kidnapping," Alistair asked.

"Uh, Woman-napping? Surprise rescuing? Damsel retrieval? Stop me when you hear one you like. Lady... pick up squad?"

"No, and can you take this seriously? We're heading to some sort of Dragon Village-"

"It's more of a hamlet."

"Nick!?"

"Sorry-sorry. Relax, we just have to take this one step at a time, if Ella made her move to pick up Maric that means she already has a way to wake up her sisters, meaning all I have to do is help with that and relocate them to Ferelden."

"And where would you put them?" he asked.

"Near Sky Valley in the Frostbacks, Telsa's already looking to buy some more lands from Orlais and EdgeHall, I'll just build a large temple for them to live in."

"And the cows?"

"We can buy from local freeholders, and I make up the rest in the gamer's store, I've already had a Druffalo ranch, I'll buy a few thousand cows and hire some ranchers to handle the animals. Denerim's new outer districts are filled with men and women looking for work."

"You think they will stay on their mountain?"

"Gods no~, but that's what I'm hoping for, if I can get Ella's Thunder to spread out and join Ferelden society, through the Vanguard, or merchants, Shit, I would love for them to be Bankers. Telsa and Anora have been wanting to build a banking system after reading 'Banking and Money Lending for Dummies'. A strong economy makes a strong country; money needs to flow. Dragons love wealth but don't like to go out and collect it themselves, that's why they have Drakes and servants, and trust me Banks are nothing if not money magnets."

"Can they even count? You had to teach Sky and Astral about wealth."

"Please~." I pulled out a bag with a random number of coins, "Lady Vozi? Can you tell me the number of coins in this bag?" I tossed the bag at her, who caught it without looking.

"1 yellow, 40 silver, 81 brown," she answered without hesitation or looking into the bag as she continued to eat, "This is mine," she huffed, putting the coins into her Bag of Holding I made her.

"That is why you don't steal from a dragon's hoard, they will know, and they will hunt you down," I warned.

"I'll take your word for it~. Any idea what caused the dragon to go into a deep sleep?"

I passed another plate of food to my Maid bot, "Hard to tell, Sky and Astral had me to push the transformation from High dragon to Great dragon. I theorize that they gather energy from the fade but thanks to the Veil it takes a long time for them to reach this state, they also have to unlock their Chi to hold all their power, but I'm not sure if they unlock it first then become a Great, or their Chi unlocks on its own as they grow in power."

"So, what are the chances there will be more Great dragons?"

"Like out in nature or if more of Ella's Thunder will become Great?"

He shrugged, "Both."

"Hard to tell, they can join the Vanguard and unlock their Chi, but they would still have to grow their magic, and who knows how long that would take. There might also be Great Dragons out there in Thedas, sleeping or just bidding their time."

"Are there Great Dragons outside of Thedas?"

"A few, Godpeak had 12 but they didn't really stay in the village, I helped Lora, Jak and Julee's sister-in-law become a Great Dragon, but other than them I didn't really find any, but to be fair I wasn't really looking for any. Go looking for trouble and you'll find it." I passed the maid bot some more food.

"Walters!" Ella called out strutting into the kitchen with Yavana right next to her, "We near my Cave, land your flying toy," she ordered.

"Good-good~, Here's your super superior supreme all beef mega burgers." I passed her 5 hamburgers the size of my head, each one clearly meant for a group of 5 to 8 people. Ella just tore into them in a very inhuman way. "Yavana, here is your lobster~." I passed her a lobster with some sauce, nothing too extreme, Yavana has been on that Dragon carnivore diet for some time, so I was slowly adding outside food. "I'll go check on Dagna~. Alistair keep the ladies entertained." I snapped my fingers getting the maid bot to look after the food, as I walked out of the kitchen.

What used to be my living room was now a command center, some computers kept readings on the weather outside, ship conditions, satellite network, other flying objects, ground conditions, location, and of course a holographic globe map. There were a few Vanguard at some of the computers checking things out. Most of them were watching over Maric.

"Hey sweety," I came up behind Dagna, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey Honey Bear," Theron replied from the driver's seat.

"What the!? You're not my hot dwarven apprentice! Give me back my kiss," I huffed.

"Nah, you shouldn't be so loose with those."

"How dare you, I'm calling your baby mama right now, tell her you are accepting kisses from other men."

He shrugged, "It's fine, she knows you, and it's only thanks to you she has the boys, so she'll let a kiss or two go, but no more than that. She made the rules very clear, we only have threesomes with her neighbor Dela, and Dela scares me. She's too rough and doesn't cuddle. I'm not having any more of that nonsense! I demand to be held with love!"

.

.

.

"... I feel like you've been bottling that up for some time." I patted him on the back.

He released a deep sigh, "A bit... yeah. Dela's a nice girl, but I feel like she's trying to prove something."

I shrugged, "I mean you are a Hero of Ferelden and a Warden-Commander. Shianni is working for Elven Rights. What does she do for a living?"

"She's working at Pizza Time, as a chief but she doesn't feel filled, she doesn't say anything, but I can see it when she comes home from work, she's tired, she doesn't like taking orders, she enjoys control. I wanna help but she isn't going to take any handouts, even from her lovers."

"... you're a good guy Theron."

"How good am I? I wanna help but I can't think of anything."

"It sounds like she doesn't want to work at a restaurant but work at her own restaurant."

"Mmm, true, but Denerim, no matter its progression to a more open system, is swamped in tradition, old shops rule the place, and anyone new is usually butted out. Pizza Time did so well because it was in Revasan, where the rest of Denerim couldn't touch."

"Well, if Denerim isn't working, move to greener pastures, Sky Valley is still growing and is more than happy to have more people to set up shop. The council has been thinking of setting up an 11th district, meaning the land is cheap and taxes are low."

"You think she would go for it?"

I gave another shrug, "It's possible she is ready, but is scared of taking that leap, especially alone."

"Are you using one of my lovers to get me to move to Sky Valley so you can use me as a regent whenever you wanna go on your fantastical adventures?"

"... is it working?"

"... A little bit, yeah," he nodded.

"Great, Shianni will love it, probably, lots of Elves needing someone to help them understand their rights. I'm also trying to create a class on Law and need a teacher."

"I think she would like that."

"Awesome, also you should probably land, I was supposed to tell you that like 5 minutes ago," I quickly added.

"Aww, you chose to listen to my relationship trouble instead of telling me to land the ship with two extremely dangerous Dragons on board that might consider this a breach of contract and kill us. You're a good friend."

"And don't you ever forget it," I smirked patting him on the back.

-/-

The landing was fine, Ella didn't seem to care, mostly because the Silent Grove was deep in the Tellari Swamps, and we were at the edge. Not wanting to march across a swamp for who knows how long, a small group of 30 used the ship's flying cars and flew after Vozi as she led us deeper into the marsh, it took us two hours, but we reached what Yavana called the Silent Grove. It was a single temple sticking out of the swamp's trees, in all honesty it didn't really look like much, but I'm pretty sure that was by design, what kind of safe haven makes it easy for others to find.

The inside was vastly different though, sculptures, reliefs, gold, deep underground caverns lit up with Glowstones, there were even mushroom farms for the Nugs the dragons probably ate, and smaller temples where high dragons slept. Most of them didn't move looking to be in a deep sleep.

High Dragon

Mountain Shaker

Age: 403

Lvl: 52

HP: 300/2000

MP: 500/4000

CP: 10/50

ailments:

Magical hibernation (7,500 MP and 1,000 CP)

Starvation (food and water)

Muscle atrophy (800 MP)

mental degradation (900 MP)

She is sleeping

Do dragons gain a different name after they become Great or is that just something Ella's Thunder did? And the cost to awaken her from her hibernation is insane! Even with my Medic skill and Healing Hand dropping the price by 75% it was still above my enhanced Armored base; I would have to use my doctor outfit. And that was just one High Dragon, looking around the temple I found others who were asleep for longer causing the MP cost to increase.

I walked up to Mountain Shaker and topped off her HP, healed her Muscle Atrophy and Mental Degradation, she looked better, her Brass scales looking a bit shinier. She was still starving and asleep, but that wasn't my goal to wake her up, it was to see if the cost of her Magical Sleep would reduce, which it did by 2,000 MP, but the CP didn't budge. Maybe feeding her might further lower the cost.

"Yavana, how do you feed them?" I asked.

"Even asleep a dragon can feed, but not chew, they must eat slowly and in small portions less they choke, and I'm not walking into a Dragon's mouth."

"Fair. How much do you feed them?"

"Getting food and supplies out to the swamps is not an easy thing, I sometimes go into villages to trade or hunt my own prey, the Swamps and wetlands are home to many beasts, crocodiles, wyverns, capybara, Jaguars, Boars, on occasion there are hippopotamuses and water Buffalos."

Good lord~! Who lives out here!? Dragons, I guess, anything is food to a dragon. "Zev, I love you but your home country is a little... dangerous."

"This coming from a man whose country's largest export is Brown Bears," Zev huffed.

"Delicious brown bears," I corrected. "Now toss this jerky into her mouth." I passed him a bag of handmade emergency jerky, I made this jerky by hand meaning it was magically delicious and, well... magical, I made it after Sky tried going on a diet because she got it in her mind that she was too big to fly, I blame those damn schoolgirls, they're monsters. she lasted 10 hours before she bit me when I was making dinner, and it wasn't a sexy bite, it was a dragon bite, and it hurt. So now, Master-Ranked jerky for everyone. "Ready?" he nodded, as I pried open her mouth, and like every dragon before her, she had a row of bone-crunching, meat-tearing, carnivorous teeth. Her breath had my hair standing on its end as I felt static dance across my body.

Zev, quickly launched some jerky down her throat, on instinct, her jaw snapping down to chew but I was already long gone by then. Mountain Shaker gave a slight growl and shook back and forth trying to break the neck of some imaginary creature before swallowing.

Her Starvation Ailment went down to Malnourished, and her Magical Sleep lowered by 300 MP.

We did it again lowering the cost by another 300 MP but the CP stayed the same.

"Alright let me take a crack at this, but first~." I earthbent the Dragon up to her neck, summoned a table and placed a truck load of food, "an ounce of prevention and all that~." I placed my hand on the back of her head.

Do you wish to heal Mountain Shaker Magical Sleep?

Y/N

Yes

I felt most of my MP and CP drain. I felt like I was holding back a wild horse by the mane as it tried to buck me off. It took a moment, but the healing came to an end as Jak pulled me back. Love me tenderly that was exhausting, I don't think I've ever healed something needing Chi.

"Mmm," Mountain Shaker groaned groggily opening her eyes, "Mmm? Buried? Not dead."

"Are you awake Sister," Ella called out.

Shaker stared down at Ella, "Elder Ella? Why you landwalker?"

"It's a long story, worry not, everything will be explained, turn into one of these silly little landwalkers, our Thunder," Ella ordered. "Walters release her."

.

.

.

She gave me an all-teeth smile, "Please~," she gritted through her teeth.

"... You're lucky Dragons are beautiful, and I'm strangely attracted to dangerous women," I huffed, Earthbending her out of the ground. She gave herself a single look over before eyeballing me. "I'll clean off the dirt~."

She huffed, polymorphing into a human, no, smaller than a human, a dwarf? A very naked Dwarf, with a tail, scales, and horns. I know Dragons can Polymorph into just about anything, Sky likes being big and tall, so a Kossith made some sense, Astral and Storm were more human, Ella and Vozi were elves, and Shaker was a Dwarf, was it just preference? Or was a Dwarf the first race she ever saw? I'll ask later.

Turns out I had a lot of work ahead of me.

So, as the sun rose, I got to work, kind of.

A few of the dragons were beyond my power without using my Doctor or Prime suit and I didn't want to use either, both were more of a trump card used for dangerous enemies. So, I just healed their easy-to-heal ailments and moved on, I had Alistair and his father Donate blood in a very medical way, baggies and everything, they were in constant talks with Cailan in Denerim, while Yavana and Morrigan worked on whatever spell or potion was supposed to help awaken the other Dragons. The rest of the Vanguard were patrolling the area or guarding Alistair and Maric.

"It is time," Yavana called out.

"Really? Already?" I asked, giving out as much food as inhumanly possible, the Dragons I woke up were starving, and I'd had my golems out in the Swamps bringing me all the animals they could get their hands on. Gods am I happy boars breed like crazy.

"Flemeth already had a potion that could theoretically awaken the dragon but didn't have the missing piece," Morrigan pointed to Alistair and Maric.

"That seems... convenient. Can we trust it? I wouldn't put it past Flemeth to gain something out of this, maybe it's some kind of mind control juice, or maybe some kind of poison that only she has a cure to having the Dragon do what she wants, or maybe she's just crazy, and anyone who drinks that will explode."

"Good to see your paranoia is keeping you sharp, and stupid," Morrigan drawled. "I've double-checked the ingredients, none of them alone or combined will cause any mind control or equally stupid outcome. It's some kind of power mana potion." She passed me the Golden Potion.

Great Dragon Ambrosia – taste the greatness in every drop.

Max HP, MP, and CP

Heals all ailments

50% Permanent increase to MP

WARNING!

This potion is dangerous and can cause mutations in non-draconic individuals.

This can include but is not limited to:

Growing a tail

Growing horns

Growing Scales

Growing Wings

Madness

Cancer

Mood swings

Sterility

Super fertility

Tiredness

This potion was created by Flemeth

Made by Yavana and Morrigan Cousland

I passed it back, "mmm, it is meant for Dragons~. Marc, how did Calenhad die?"

"No one knows, from what I remember from my early family studies, Calenhad married Mairyn Myrddin, but was then seduced by his close friend and legendary warrior Lady Shayna, but according to Lady Mairyn's journals, she didn't really care, apparently her and Lady Shayna became close friends on their adventures to unite Ferelden. When Lady Shayna learned Mauryn was pregnant with future King Weylan the First, her father discovered the three-way affair, things got ugly, Lord Myrddin didn't want a royal bastard to loom in the shadows of his grandchild, when Lady Shayna tried to explain that she couldn't have children, Myrddin killed her, telling people she was going to attack him, King Calenhad then killed him in a duel, but Lord Myrddin had allies, nearly plunging Ferelden into a civil war, Calenhad, knowing that Ferelden wouldn't survive a civil war, gave up the throne to his future son to appease the other nobles, and disappeared not long after. No one knows where he went, but there were rumors that he was looking for one of his old friends, A mage by the name of Marterel. They had a falling out because Calenhad invited the Chantry to Ferelden."

"Enslaving the Mages~," I sighed. "Well, give me a moment, I need to make more food."

It didn't take long for the First Great Dragon to be awakened.

Great Dragon

Nemen, the Gentlehearted

Age: 3,039

Lvl:?

HP: 16,800/16,800

MP: 30,500/30,500

CP:16,800/16,800

Her level is too high for you to observe.

Ailment:

Malnourished

Confused

She's hungry

"I'm so hungry, I could eat a cow, y'all got any vittles?" Why did she have a Southern accent? How does that make any kind of sense!? "I reckon y'all the fella Ella mentioned fixin' grub. I'm hankerin' for some buffalo, with a side of Croc." She had an elfish form, wearing one of Astral's armor bikinis, the only kind of armor Astral liked, allowing her to show off her red scales and glowing horns.

"Darn tootin~." I passed her a large plate of food.

"You're a dang ol' good and kind boy, if yer lady wasn't givin' me the side eye, I reckon I'd snatch ya up for myself." She pointed to Sky, who was Eyeballing her, she gave me a pinch to my cheek, took her food, and ran off."

Behind came another Great dragon in human form, Maigi, The Wise, with purple scales and one of Telsa's power dresses meant to intimidate those weaker than her... which was everyone. "Excuse me, young lad. I require sustenance. I desire a freshly prepared meal, procured within the last hour, specifically consisting of succulent red meat. Additionally, I am desirous of crisp apples, plucked directly from an orchard, selecting only those of a vivid crimson hue. You may convert these ingredients, if you will, into a delicacy known amongst your kind as 'pie.' Please be aware that I do not wish for my victuals to touch on the plate; however, given the challenging times we find ourselves in, I am willing to entertain exceptions, limited to this occasion." Why she sounded like she just came out of Oxford, I will never know.

"Jist tak whit he gies ye, ye fussy bampot. Get me whit a want, big lad, an' dae it wi' no shirt... an' nae breeks. By the great Elder Yins, A've been sleepin' for tae lang, ye daein' onythin' efter this?" Lady Diza, The Strong, with the Scottish accent, you really need to hear it, it would suck to have to read anything she was saying. She was wearing a yellow sundress that matched her scales.

"Diza, darling, thou shall not converse with the help as if they are ordinary folk, lest they start forming ideas. Remember darling, red meat, refrain from excessive seasoning, and a delightful crimson elixir 'might' render thee a small favor." she danced her eyebrows at me.

"That's... a very kind offer Lady Maigi, but I have my Lady Sky for that kind of 'favor' I do have your meat, Druffalo, and wine, but the pie may take some time, I do have apples for your immediate consumption." I passed her a large plate of food and a bottle of Wine. "If the wine isn't to your taste, I also have this Apple Brandy." I placed the bottle next to her plate. She just looked at me then at her food, then back to me. I let out a sigh and snapped my fingers, summoning one of my Golem knights to carry her food.

"Much obliged, sweetheart," she fainted care having the golem follow her to her private table where Yavana draped a blanket.

"Sorry aboot her, she used tae hae ower a thoosand servants that worshiped her like a god afore she entered deep sleep, I dinnae think she's fully aware maist o them are lang gone yet," Diza shrugged.

"It's okay Lady Diza, I'm just happy you're awake, here, some freshly killed black bear."

"Oh, ye're a wee peach, I'll gie Lady Sky a trade tae hae ye fur a nicht, I like my lads tae be able tae feed me." Her toothy smile sent a shiver up my spine.

"That's... very nice." Sky, please say no.

"Pardon me, do you still have any boar?" and last but not least, Lady Syva, the Shy, the second youngest in the group. She had a dwarfish form, wearing one of Julee's cute maid outfits she made for Dagna, and had a Midwestern drawl to her, it wasn't like Nemen, I dare say it was homey. Her scales were light pink, and by Sky and Astral's jealous faces, I was guessing that was rare.

"Of course, Lady Syva." I passed her a plate of meat twice her height and probably weight.

"Oh, and can ya make sure my glass stays full?" she slammed an empty barrel of beer on the counter. I simply swapped the empty barrel for a fresh one. "Thanks a bunch!" She took her food and barrel and walked away.

I was exhausted, it took the entire day and most of the animals in the Swamp, but I finally put them down, most of them falling into a food coma.

Telsa was able to call me, informing me that she was able to get some land south of Sky Valley into the Frostbacks, Family DuRellion, was looking to get some money after their poor choices in the past few years, they just had to make sure everything was in order with Empress Celene. Edgehall was also willing to sell some of their mountainous territories in the frostbacks because it was dangerous terrain and had multiple Avvar Clans living there, meaning there had to be a Hold somewhere in the mountains, probably Frosthold.

Avvar society is a rather interesting and free-flowing culture, they have a similar culture to the Dalish elves. Holds are kind of like moving capitals, Stonehold, as the name suggests, is a Hold, but is made up of dozens of different clans numbering between 50 to 300 people each, if a clan gets too big, it tends to split into smaller Clans to balance out numbers, but they are all part of the same Hold. Stonehold has about 4,000 people, split into about 34 different clans, each with their own Cultures and Gods, all connected through the Hold.

All this being said, I can't just walk in there and say I own the place, that would be insane, I need to work with the Holds to make a level of understanding. I need a mountain, people can live on the mountain, but I would own it, meaning I make the rules but will need the Hold's permission to have the mountain, it will probably require me to make some kind of Alliance with the Hold, and the Alliance won't last forever, maybe 5 to 10 years if things work out. If nothing else Rirvia is smitten with one of the Avvar smiths from the Bear Clan of Stonehold, I might be able to spin that into an alliance.

Rirvia's going to give me such a thrashing. In her own words 'I am a grown-ass woman, if I want to fuck you tall folk, I can do it on my own!' I saw them holding hands two days later, her cheeks were redder than a tomato when I caught them, she then dragon-kicked me when she heard me laughing.

My knights are crazy~.

I spotted Maric and Ella talking and shaking hands before Ella walked over to me. "I'm guessing Maric delivered his end of the bargain?"

"Yes, your old King is free of his debt, but you are not. Don't forget our deal, I doubt my sisters would want to live somewhere without servants."

"Yeah, Maigi seems like the kind of woman who doesn't make her own food," I teased.

"No, my sister has been spoiled rotten, but she will have to put up with it for a while as we get more servants."

"Which might take some time~." I pointed out." I'm not sure how Dragons were treated before you fell asleep, but nowadays everyone is rather fearful of you."

"Mmm, yes you did mention that before. Come, follow me." She led me deep into the Temple, the temple slowly eroded to look more like a normal cave finally ending at a dead end. With a single hand, she ripped a large boulder from the cave wall, which I could have sworn was part of the cave wall, revealing the motherload. Nearly the size of a football field, the cave had Gold, Silver, Copper, jewels, armor, and weapons from end to end, if it could shine it was in here, she could buy and sell Ferelden twice over and not feel it in the slightest.

"Woah." This was thousands of years of group hoarding.

"This is our hidden safe, our smaller public one is upstairs, the moment you silly 'adventurer' see the tiny pile upstairs you freeze, making you easy prey." I would be offended at that if I didn't just look out into the sea of wealth 5 seconds ago and freeze in place.

"Wha-what do you even do with this stuff?" I once asked Sky and Astral, they just used it as a bed cause gold was soft.

"Power," she shrugged, "You Landwalker can't live without it, you crave more than your own lives, if we have it, you will do what we demand. Before it was weapons, before that was food, but that tended to spoil, before that were females. Ahhh~, those were the good old days, I used to kidnap at least 50 females and have them polish my scales every day, but eventually, they fell out of fashion, magic is making a comeback though. I'll probably have a look out for powerful tombs of power or runic artifacts, you know how it is~."

"Got to keep up with the times~, so do you want me to collect this stuff?"

"Can you?"

"Sure... for a price."

Ella rolled her eyes, reaching into the pile and pulling out a scroll. "and Landwalkers call us greedy~."

Scroll of Dragonrage – unleash the beast!

Though the caster's appearance does not change, they gained access to the selected dragon's entire range of abilities including flight, breath weapon, fear aura, etc. The caster also gained the normal personality traits of a dragon. This spell lasted for several hours depending on the skill of the caster.

What the hell is this!? Why would she even have this? And she's willing to give this up?

"Uh, Lady Ella, this scroll... it's, uh, very powerful."

She gave the Scroll a sad look. "I no longer need it. The spell was crafted when I was young, when the elven gods were killing everyone, the elders created this spell in the hopes that our servant could fight back, they fought bravely, to the end." That was all she said before she left the room.

Dude... the elven gods suck.

-/-

Ayla POV

"SMITE!" I roared, swinging Face-Musher, my beloved mace, into the face of a rage demon, dissipating it back into Fade, its will to be recycled into a new being. Face-Musher was a bit off, the Fade was never a good place to apply physics, making her balance all wacky. "You all okay?"

The group got a bit bigger, as we recovered Garrus, who was having a dream much like Grunt. it looked like some time after the Reaper War, sitting at a beach with Shepard laughing at something, his old crew in the distance enjoying a lifetime of relaxation in a single afternoon. A bit of divine energy and the dream faded much to Garrus's confusion.

After Garrus we ran into Legion... kinda. It was a piece of Legion, a single Geth unit in the shape of a floating glowing cube, which was interesting. Geometrical shapes aren't something you see in the Fade; its abstract nature almost fights against the idea of uniformity. The single Geth unit locked on to us and floated close, clearly not understanding what was going on. It didn't take long to find another and then another and another, and the Geth seemed to find themselves faster and faster as more grouped together, it didn't take long before a Cube the size of a stove was floating around us. Legion was still very confused at what was happening but at least he could talk, better yet he told us that some of the others had some of his missing units and had their general location.

We nearly tripped over Jenny as we traveled the fade, apparently, Jenny had the mental fortitude to break whatever dream she had, unfortunately, she kept running into Rage demons and not knowing how to use her powers in the fade, she's been running from foxhole to foxhole.

Which led to this to me getting in a fight.

"FUCK! What are those things!? Why can't I use my Biotics!? What is this place!?" Jenny jumped to her feet as the action ended.

"We're in the Fade, it's the Realm of magic, I'm not sure what's happening with your biotics but I'm guessing Biotics is a more physical power, a bit like Chi, and as you can see, we aren't in the Material Realm, no doubt dampening your powers."

"ENGLISH YOU DORK!"

I sighed, "You need a body to use biotics, you do not have a body~."

"I'M DEAD!?"

"Maker give me strength, no, we are having a group dream. all of you are sleeping on the Citadel floor, we need to wake you up. And NO!" I cut off Jenny's question, "You can't just pinch yourself awake," I gestured to myself, "This is your astral form, if you die here, you go brain dead, and then I have to heal you. Trust me, you don't want that. The feeling doesn't go away."

Jenny took a deep breath. "Right, no dying. What are we supposed to do? Hide behind your dress?"

"If you have any magic, now would be the time to use it, the cost of casting spells here is dirt cheap," I suggested.

"I don't know any-"

She was interrupted by a stream of fire in the shape of a Dragon ripping through the hallway before dissipating, revealing an annoyed Neria. Oh my, she looked rather fierce~.

"Stop running," she hissed at Jenny. "Three times I have to chase after you. What are you? Deaf?"

"Neria~," Julee cheered running over to her, peppering her with kisses, "You come to save me~."

Neria rolled her eyes but smirked anyway, "Of course~, and my Cleric?" She gave me a kiss on the lips, I know that taste of Chocolate anywhere.

"Thank you for saving me," I teased. Small love spirits danced around us before running away.

"And my thief?"

"Aren't we moving a bit too fast? We've only been on one date~," Kasumi joked as Neria gave Nat a kiss.

Neria matched Kasumi's smirk, "You'll get yours Goto~, don't for a second think Julee doesn't have a plan for you."

"... What kind of plan?" she looked over to a smirking Julee. "Is this part of the plan? That's impossible, you couldn't have planned this. This is all random. Impossible I say!"

Julee gently cupped her face, "Relax, Kasy, this isn't part of my plan." she softly dragged her finger down Kasumi's lip tattoo. "You're already neck deep in my machinations, I would suggest you just accept your fate and join me tonight, you've been so stressed lately. Allow me to... ease your worries~."

Kasumi seemed to sway back and forth, like a snake dancing to a song before her eyes sharpened and stood up straight. "Begone temptress!" she roared, causing Julee to jump back in shock.

"H-how!?"

Kasumi was breathing heavily, like she just run a marathon, "Dagna is a good teacher. She knew without Nick and Jak to temper your lust, you would take that moment to go hog wild, so she trained me to resist your powers."

"That... sexy dwarf!" Julee growled in mock anger, "When I get my hands on her~."

"Are you idiots finished," Jenny huffed at their tomfoolery.

Julee sighed, "Jenny, look around you, by now you should have come to the logical conclusion that this place works off emotions~, Love, hate, lust, bravery, pride, honor, blah, blah, blah, you get the point. So, you have to ask yourself, do you want to attract things that want to kill you or something that will help us?"

"... I don't like this place," Jenny hissed.

"Is it because every rage demon in this make-believe citadel wants to possess you?" Grunt asked.

"Possess?"

Grunt shrugged, "Yeah, Nick warned me about this, Spirits and Demons aren't your friends. They are beings made of emotions, Nick told me they kinda eat our emotions or are created from our emotions, I wasn't really paying attention, it didn't involve any cool explosions or laser beams."

Yeah, Nick tends to ramble on and on in some of his lessons, I may or may not have fallen asleep during some of his classes. He's lucky I found his professor's outfit kinda naughty, or I would have definitely ditched some of my lectures. I made use of that tweed jacket.

"Why hello there professor~," Nat teased.

I blinked at her before I turned around and spotted a spirit transformed into a smirking Nick sitting on his desk, his jacket wide open showing off his unbuttoned shirt and muscles, his denim jeans already unbuttoned. I pointed Face-Musher at it causing the spirit to spook and run.

The hallway grew quiet.

"I am a grown-ass woman, if I want to role-play in the bedroom, I will."

.

.

.

"I once had him dress as a naughty maid." Nat patted my thigh. I remembered that~, I found him making dinner in a dress meant to show off his hips. "I wouldn't recommend it, I'm not saying I didn't have my way with him, it just took forever to get it off~, it was my fault, wanting to go authentic, but I'm definitely doing that teacher thing~."

"Can we go!?" Jacob sighed. "I don't need to know about any of this."

"Yeah, we probably should~."

That was a bit embarrassing.

-/-

Shepard POV

"GAME OVER MAN! GAME OVER!" Talid panicked

"Get a hold of yourself man!" Jorge slapped him.

"Hey!" Visia, the female turian spectre, pushed Jorge away.

"T-than-" Talid was cut off as Visia slapped him.

"When you slap someone back to their senses, you have to be gentler~." she continued to backhand Talid. "Or you'll knock them out."

I wanna say they were being unnecessarily violent, but Talid's dream was... not great. He was sitting on a throne with a bunch of women of all species pawing at his pants. It took a single slap from Visia for his dream to turn to dust, she'd been slapping him every time a spirit of lust got close. He had to have the memory of a goldfish, cuz every time it showed up, he would fall for its illusion, I finally had to scare it off with my holy pistol.

At the moment my team consists of Myself, Jorge, Talid, Visia, Miranda, and about 400 Geth units.

"Legion are we getting close?"

"Yes Shepard-Commander, our signals are getting stronger, unfortunately, our map of the Citadel doesn't add up with this location." Which was annoying, we'd walked into three dead ends already, this place was a Fun House of Madness. I really should have been paying better attention when Nick was explaining this place.

"Heads up," Miranda called out nodding to another glowing doorway.

Once more into the breach.

Walking into the portal, I appeared in some kind of lab... at the beach, if the sand between my toes meant anything.

"Mmm, Seashell has jade added to it. Natural? No, had to be worked around. Colorful, might have been used to attract a mate, hermit crab maybe?"

"Mordin?"

"Ahh, Shepard! See you've finally arrived, been keeping myself busy, waiting for rescue."

"You knew you were in a dream?"

"Yes, Neria helped me reach this realm before, took lots of power, theorized whatever spell Krios used must have brought us here."

"Why didn't you escape?" I asked.

"I have no magic, nor can I project any weapons, knew you would come, were far too close to Krios not to. So, used this time to relax, see what my imagination can create." A cup of glowing liquid appeared in his hand, he didn't second guess it and took a sip. "Mmm, Stars taste of... orange juice. Fascinating."

"Are you ready to leave?"

"Yes, and you were right, it's barely been an hour and I'm already beginning to lose my mind, I'll make sure to retire with hundreds of scientific journals to read."

The world faded away and we were back in the Fade. Regrouping with the rest of the team we continued through the citadel before Legion began to pick up the pace. We were nearly swept away by a glowing earth wave, Sereda and her group were riding.

"Shepard!" Sereda cheered, "I told you the Stone wouldn't lead me wrong."

"We never said it wouldn't, just that it doesn't seem logical," another large Geth cube called out floating next to her, with him was Cat, Jun, Ghost, Samara, and, judging from their clothes, 15 civilians looking very confused and terrified.

"It's the fade nothing works right here, you can't try and logic your way out of here, you got to feel it."

"... that is illogical," Legion pointed out, combining with the rest of the Geth.

"So is the consciousness of a machine launched into the fade, but here you are," Sereda smirked. "Shepard, are you going to sit there all day? hop on already!" she patted her glowing dirt hill.

I took a deep breath, "Yeah okay," I sighed. I might as well just go along with it. "Any idea where we're going?"

"Lesson one of paladin training~, it's okay to ask for help." she patted the make shifted hill underneath her.

It took me a moment but willed my holy pistol to my hand. I needed to get to the others, the glare from an overhead sign lit up catching my attention, but instead of the gibberish, it showed an arrow pointing to the left.

"whoa~."

Sereda nodded. "I've been around you long enough to know you're everyone's rock, the one that keeps everything from going to shit, and while the Maker might not have all the answers, he is always there for you, he'll be your rock."

I just looked down at my glowing pistol, before nodding.

"Lesson two, sometimes you punch first. Yeah, I know it doesn't sound very heroic, but sometimes someone needs a knuckle sandwich."

"How many lessons are there?" I asked.

"About a hundred. Don't worry, most of them are suggestions. Like lesson 46, don't use holy magic during sex. Turns out some positions are eviler than others."

"... I'll keep that in mind," I drawled.

"Lesson three-"

"Sereda, how many lessons am I going to have to learn today?" I interrupted.

"You've been focused on magic lessons so much that you've been putting Paladin training on the back burner, and look at you now~. Your powers should be at their peak right now, can't you feel your Divine spark bursting into a roaring flame?"

"It's not like I was planning to come here~."

"Lesson three, expect the unexpected."

"Oh, come on~!"

"Lesson four, Trust in yourself and your magic. Did you allow your magic to get a reading on the situation?"

I... didn't. "no."

"It needs to be instinctual, every time you enter a strange location, every time you get a bad feeling, every time you go to bed. I'll give you a pass because you barely got your powers 2 months ago, but that needs to stop. Kasumi's already creating a low-grade Danger Sense."

"It feels strange, like I'm spilling out of my own skin, touching everything at the same time."

"You're telling me, I'm a dwarf, dwarves don't have magic, we don't even dream~," she waved her hands around, "This is all crazy to me, but I just remember lesson four."

"Mmm~." I allowed my magic to spread out to my surroundings, but unlike before when it would take a bit of time for me to understand what was happening in the area around me, I immediately understood everything, I had a sense of everyone riding with us, the spirits moving out of the way, a vague feeling on where the others were, I even felt the walls. "Whoa~."

"Lesson five, a person is smart, people are dumb." she points to Talid, who was trying to gain control over the situation.

"Don't worry ladies and gentlemen, I have everything under control, Clearly these humans are the cause of all this, but I was able to convince them to work for me to fix their mista-" he was cut off as Visia shoved him off the dirt pile. "SPIRITS!? NO! DON'T LEAVE ME!" he cried running after us.

"I hate that bare-faced asshole. listen up you slack jawed yokels, I'm Spectre Visia, I am here with Spectre Shepard, and Spectre Itol, and we are going to get you out of here, so do what we tell you and you will get out of here alive, don't... and well" she nodded to Talid who was ugly crying running after the dirt pile, "We don't have time for stupid. Do I make myself clear?" everyone nodded, "Good," she crawled up to us, "Please tell me we have a plan."

"We're regrouping, we have a solid lead on the others and should be meeting up soon."

"Good to hear," she looked back to a crying Talid, "Can you make him run for the next 4 blocks?"

"Please~." the dirt pile began to slow just enough to give Talid hope but would speed up before he got on.

"Lesson six, you can be vindictive, but not evil."

I should write these down.

-/-

Ava POV

"Don't wander off," I ordered to the group of civilians, "Legion keep an eye on them."

I gave a quick head count, there was Carter, Rosie, Itol, a group of 15 civilians, and Legion who was now split into multiple Cubes keeping people from wandering off. Up ahead a Halla with glowing horns led us to another glowing door.

"Hold here," I ordered. "Hunter's Haven," I chanted unleashing a magic arrow into the floor creating a shimmering dome.

"This would be a lot easier if we had weapons," Carter pointed out.

"Your fade is too far away from your material realm, it doesn't have the concept of weapons, it barely has the concept of the Citadel, even if you had a gun, it wouldn't shoot bullets, there is a better chance of it shooting jam than anything else."

"Jam?" Rosie asked.

I shrugged, "It's red, thick, and sticky. Just stay within the dome you should be fine, Legion do you have an ETA on your other Geth units?"

"A large group of us have joined together and are heading this way."

Allowing my magic to touch the fade I was able to sense Sereda, Shepard... and Ayla. Thank Andruil~. Ayla's better at this whole Fade nonsense. "Good, stay here, they'll probably be here soon."

With that, I walked into the portal.

The Citadel faded away making way for... more steel walls. I fear the future is going to become steel boxes with glowing lights, I'm not saying I love the woods, but a little variety wouldn't go amiss. Looking around I found Quarians standing around talking and laughing, but they were all wearing their full armor and masks, and I... wasn't, my armor seemed to fade into my normal loungewear.

"Mom, please don't embarrass me, father's already angry at the people I'm dating." that sounded a lot like Tali.

Walking around the corner I found her talking with another Quarian woman, they were sitting in an outdoor restaurant... in a spaceship... with the sun shining overhead... the Fade is weird.

"You know your father, traditional to the end," the woman across from her laughed.

"I'm not going to marry Reeger, that would be so weird. He was under my command, the power balance would be way off."

"Your father was under my command~."

"Yeah, and look at what happened." she gestured to herself, "I'm the textbook definition of what not to do. Don't go with crazy humans to save the galaxy, don't tell powerful political figures to suck on your exhaust pipe, don't fight an army of Geth by yourself~."

"Then why does it sound like you're bragging?"

"Nick has been corrupting me with selfishness." she showed off her new shiny hood, "See the clan markings? Silver, every single line, silver, you can't paint over it, so no one else can use it, it's mine forever."

"Or until you have a child of your own~, I'm not getting younger you know."

"Mom~. Keelah." She tried hiding her face even though she was wearing a mask.

"Fine, fine... 6 should be plenty."

"MA!"

"What~, the way you kids go at it, 6 should be the minimum~."

"Ugh!"

"Tali?" I called out, getting her attention.

"Ava!" she cried out calling me over, "thank the ancestors, you've come to save me! Can you please tell my mother that we are far too young for kids!" she hissed at her mother, causing the woman to laugh.

"Tali." I tried getting her attention.

"I mean Jak Jr. was barely born and you remember Jak's cries of pain. How does something that big come out of us!" she freaked out patting her stomach. Which was understandable, I remember my first time helping the older women in the Alienage deliver children when I was younger, I apologized to my mother for nearly a month. It scared me away from sex for a good long while, which was probably her plan all along.

Tali's mother just rolled her eyes... I think, the mask made it hard to tell. "Your overreacting, it wasn't that painful for me."

"That's because I was cute and tiny, have you seen Nick!? He's huge! That baby would destroy me!"

"Isn't Zura'Nul pregnant?"

"I pray for her," Tali whimpered. "I see her tummy getting bigger and bigger every morning."

"Then why do you sound jealous?" her mother teased.

"Shut up~," Tali huffed.

"Tali, please focus~," I gently moved her face so she could see me and only me.

"Ava? What's wrong?" She gave me a worried look.

"Tali, you need to wake up."

"Wake up? I am-"

"Tali~," I removed her mask so I could see her face. She was crying. "Oh, my sweet Tali." I gently connected our foreheads.

"I know... she died 7 years ago... I just-"

"I know, I know," I comforted.

"She'll never see my children, she'll never meet you or the others, she'll never know how much I loved her, to see me become the woman she would be proud of! It's not fair!"

"I know." I kissed her tears away.

"I miss her."

"I know." I held her close as the world faded away returning us to the fake Citadel.

"Can we just get back to the Citadel?" she muttered into my shoulder.

"Of course, we just need to get out of here."

Tali gave the empty room a look over as she brushed away her tears, "So, this is the Fade?"

"Yeah, it's kinda shit."

She started giggling, "I don't think I've ever heard you curse."

I smiled down at her, happy to see her laughing, "Well, get used to it, I'm not going anywhere," I teased leading her out of the room, only to stop as she pulled me back, "Tali?"

Quick as a whip she gave me a shy kiss on the lips, "Thank you... b-but don't let it go to your head." she stuttered running away, leaving me in the room. Huh, Julee was right, she did taste of raspberries, when did she eat raspberries?

Walking after her, I was greeted with a large glowing dirt pile, "Ava! Up here!" Sereda greeted me from the top of the pile. Not giving it a second thought, I allowed the dirt to carry me to her before we moved toward Ayla's position.

"Happy to see you my hero~." she gave me a rather saucy kiss, Dwarves don't do half measures, "Mmm~, you taste like Raspberries." she smacked her lips, before looking over to Tali, "And here I thought Ayla was going to crack second."

"It was a thank-you kiss," I corrected.

"uh-huh~. Like that thank you kiss you gave me for passing you the potatoes?"

"... I was really hungry."

"Really? From what I remember you were rather thirsty."

"You were wearing a leotard," I accused.

"Because I was training, I needed the movement only a leotard could provide."

"Movement my ass~, you were tempting me."

"Gasp! Are you accusing me, a princess, of flaunting my body to get you to do unspeakable things to me?" looking extra appalled, before smirking like the two-faced aristocrat she was, and cupping my cheeks. "Because I was~. My poor Ava, a week of lonely nights, you were ready to explode, I almost felt bad about causing the fire~."

"... What?"

"Yeah~, a little dust here and there, moving the cooking oil too close to the stove, but it was partially your fault, you can't walk around naked in the morning without getting others' attention. You just kept teasing me~."

"Nat was right, we should have bought that guillotine," I huffed at her.

"Mmm, you should have, but you didn't, you thought you could handle 'one silly little princess~.'"

That made me gulp. "Y-you heard that?"

"Mmm, how did you put it? 'she's only one pampered little princess, we can take her~, make her beg for mercy~.'" She patted my cheeks, "You were so beautiful that night, your hair a wild mess, unable to catch your breath, begging," she gave me another kiss that sent shivers up my spine. "and if you wanna blame anyone, blame Julee, she made 90% of the plan~."

"90%?"

"Part of her plan was for her to join, but I wanted you all to myself, so I may have sent Sky her way."

"You're Mad."

"What did Nick call nobles? Crazies who enjoyed numbers go up and down. Nick wasn't wrong, I counted every mole on your body, every orgasm, every time you gasped~." She tapped my lips sending little zaps of pleasure. Before backing away, taking her warmth with her, and freezing me in place. "While best we find Ayla~." she hummed nonchalantly, like she didn't leave me hot and bothered.

"I'll get you back for this."

She smiled at my threat, "You'll try~."

"Are you finished making out up here?" Miranda asked, crawling up to the driver's hill.

"For now," Sereda answered.

"Shepard is asking for an ETA on the next group."

"Mmm, about... now."

And true to her word we nearly ran over Ayla, who was cursing at us, but it only came out as cute, censored curses. 'You Orlesian cat lover! You milk drinker! You Skywatcher!' Sweet mercy, I just wanted to hold her forever, giving her a little kiss every time she would harrumph in anger, she was just like one of Dogmeat's pups~.

"Okay, now that everyone's together, what do we do?" Kasumi asked.

Ayla shook her head, "We're still missing someone."

It took a second, "Where's Thane and Kolyat?" Shepard asked.

-/-

Thane POV

"Dad, you're embarrassing me." Kolyat waved my hands away, "Why do I even have to wear this thing? Carkin already agreed to hire me?" he huffed trying to fix his tie.

"First impressions are important son, even if Fitz is a family friend, you should show some respect."

"Fitz has never worn a tie in his life," Kolyat huffed. "And why am I wearing a human suit from 200 years ago?"

"Nick thought it would be classy. And I hate to say it, but he was right." Kolyat's suit was a dark navy blue with matching slacks and tie, black shoes, and a white dress shirt. He was growing up too fast.

"Are my men ready~," Irikah called from downstairs.

"Almost~!" I called back, giving my son another look over, "Kolyat, I... love you so much, you've grown into the man I always hoped you could be. I've... done some terrible things-"

"Dad, you don't-"

"Let me finish son," I interrupted. I took another deep breath, "Kolyat, you and your mother are the only things I did right, you've made me a better man, a good man." I embraced him in a hug, which he returned. "Okay, okay~, come on, your mother's probably going take a million pictures for your first day of work," I teased, wiping away my tears.

"How late do you think I'm going to be?" he joked.

"An hour, maybe two, don't be surprised if she shows up at the clinic."

"Ugh, I'm going to move out soon."

"Thank Arashu, your mother is hoping for a girl this time around~," I teased.

"Gross! Aren't you too old for kids?"

"Don't be silly son, your mother is... very energetic."

"Please stop talking."

"She nearly killed me when she wanted you."

"Kalahira take me now. Why are you doing this, why are you torturing me?"

"Nick told me this was an important part of fatherhood."

"Please don't take parenting advice from a crazy space wizard," he groaned.

"I don't know, this is kinda fun, I also have to take you to the local market and loudly point out potential mates."

"Dad, this is how villains are made," he drawled.

"Just wait, when you are a father, you'll understand. speaking of fathers, when are you planning to be one?"

"DAD!?"

"I'm not getting younger."

"You're 40."

"And grand childless. Chop-chop son, we don't have forever. Now come on, your mother is going to kill us for taking so long." we walked downstairs where Irikah was ready with her camera.

"Oh no, my baby boy is growing up too quickly!" she peppered Kolyat with kisses.

"MOM!" he pulled away wiping his face.

"Sorry-sorry, just... you're becoming a man, it was only yesterday when I was cleaning your diaper." she wiped away her tears. You look just like your father on our first date, well, minus the suit, he was wearing a suit that showed off way too much chest."

"Mom."

"I mean, sure he was good-looking and very muscular~."

"Ma."

"And showed off his bulging biceps."

"Please stop."

"And it was very easy to take off," she gave me a look that made it clear that I was going to be late for work.

"TAKE YOUR PICTURES SO I CAN LEAVE!" Kolyat yelled.

"So dramatic~," she laughed, "You and your father can't take a little teasing~. Group up, the camera ready~."

It was a simple photo, we've taken hundreds, just like this one, with me on the left, Kolyat in the middle, and Irikah on the left.

I looked at it from my omni-tool, It... came out perfect.

There was a feeling in the pit of my stomach, it was cold and heavy, I was forgetting something, something important.

"Okay, just 50 more."

"Mom, we can do those after work, please," Kolyat begged.

Irikah gave him a sad smile, and the pit got deeper. "of course honey."

"Thank you, I'll see you later tonight, I love... you." He was cut off by the front door opening, showing Shepard holding his holy weapon.

"Shepard?" I called out

"Thane, Kolyat... it's time to go," Shepard somberly ordered.

"Go? Go where?" Kolyat asked.

I slowly looked over to Irikah who was just smiling at me. She reached out and wiped the tears off my face, "I love you so much, my siha."

"Irikah?" no, no, NO! I held on to her, I can't. Not again!

"You must be strong for him," she whispered. NO NO NO NONONO! KALAHIRA! ARASHU! ANYONE PLEASE! I CAN'T!

"Mom?"

I looked up to find Kolyat scared and confused. My boy. My son. Alone. Lost.

"Kolyat," she reached out and cupped his face, "You've grown into a fine young man."

"Mom?" Kolyat reached for her, tears running down his face.

"Can you look after your father for me, he can be a bit closed off, always thinking he knows best, just give him time, and if that doesn't work, kick him in the nuts." she was beginning to glow.

"MOM, please, please don't go."

"I love you both, so much, but you know I can't stay, protect each other, keep each other safe, we will meet again, so don't cry, or you'll make me cry." she gave us a watery smile, tears threatening to spill. "You'll both be great, and I better not see you any time soon... goodbye."

She turned to glowing dust, slipping through my fingers. Leaving me and Kolyat holding on to each other.

I felt a warm hand land on my shoulder, looking up I found Shepard giving me a sad smile.

"It's time to wake up my friend, we need you." the world around us began to glow bright, the ideal home that I dreamed of for years began disappearing. "Your son needs you, and you can't do it from here."

I just nodded as the light embraced us.

-/-

I gasped awake. The world was a bit fuzzy, like I was waking up after a blow to the head. Blinking quickly, I was able to focus on the world around me. The first thing I was able to pick up was Zaeed's gruff voice.

"Don't touch anyone! you dumb sacks of shit, are you just hard of hearing or just stupid?"

"Sir these people need to be brought to a hospital!"

"You dumbasses don't understand the first thing going on here, you start poking at things and you'll end up the same!" Zaeed roared.

"Enough!" another voice ordered.

"Councilor Anderson!?" someone squeaked.

"... Massani, right?" Anderson asked.

"Uh, yeah," Zaeed muttered.

"What happened here?"

"Wild Magic, I'm not sure of the specifics, Hope over there said something about dreaming."

"Councilor, they're waking up!" someone screamed. "IT'S A GETH!?" the same man squeaked again.

"Legion, what the hell's going on?" Zaeed ordered. By now I was able to sit up, unlike Legion who just had to power up.

"We were struck with an unknown spell sending our consciousness to the realm of magic, where beings of pure emotions tried recreating our perfect worlds. We were able to escape this trap due to being 1,183 different Geth units, but we needed to find the being that was holding our consciousness trapped."

"... okay, that doesn't explain much," Anderson huffed.

"They're fine," Lyna spoke up. "Just give them a minute, were you able to cordon off the area, we won't be held responsible if someone is turned into a cheesecake."

Looking around I spotted Kolyat coming too.

"WHOA!" cried out Julia jumping to her feet, "What a rush!"

"I'm gonna barf," Natia groaned getting to her feet. I'm guessing Chi makes it easier for people to recover from being thrown through another realm of reality.

"I AM KROGAN!" Grunt roared, getting to his feet.

"And I am woman~, so shut up." Kasumi groaned, shakily getting to her feet. "Did someone get the number of the truck that hit me?"

"No, but I'm impressed it hit all of us at the same time," Garrus groaned from the floor.

I quickly got to my feet and stumbled over to Kolyat, who was still groaning on the floor. "It's time to go son."

"N-no, Mom." he weakly protested.

"I know, I failed you before my son, but not today." I helped him to his feet.

"ugh~, my head is killing me~," he groaned.

"That's because you're going through a mana crash~," Ayla explained, getting to her feet. "For the Maker watches over his flock~." an orb of holy light appeared overhead and washed away any fatigue my body had. Kolyat was able to get his feet under him, as well as the others who were having a hard time getting up.

"I WANT THEM ALL ARRESTED!"

Oh, right, Talid.

"Spectre Shepard," Shepard spoke up showing his credentials to the nearest C-sec officer, I have proof that this man is responsible for multiple illegal activities in the Citadel, arrest him. Don't be gentle."

"Wha? NO! GET OFF ME! THEIR FREAKS, YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME! HUMANS ARE MONSTERS! WE HAVE TO KILL THEM ALL!" Talid cried, being dragged off by a couple of C-sec officers.

"Man, they were quick on the draw, they didn't even hesitate," Tali muttered.

"Kelham, has been complaining about Talid moving in on his territory since you left," Baley answered, "a lot of incriminating stuff." Baley looked over to Kolyat. "A lot of incriminating stuff."

I moved a bit forward blocking Kolyat from the captain's sight. "I was just taking a walk with my son before we were caught up on all this."

"Mr. Krios, it's honorable that you want to protect your boy, but there were a lot of witnesses to his assassination attempt."

"At ease Captain," Shepard interrupted, "Kolyat here was, uh, part of a secret spectre task force, uh, operation... flaming... cobra... claw." wow, that was bad.

Baley slowly blinked at him. "Operation: flaming cobra claw," he drawled, he sounded like he was done with to day.

Shepard doubled down, nodding like what he said made any sense. "Yep, Flaming cobra claw. You know us spectres." Shepard gave us a look, before giving me a smirk that sent a shiver up my spine. "In fact, that is why young Kolyat was here, he wanted to join C-sec, but was worried he wasn't up to the challenge. Isn't that right Kolyat?" He then gave Kolyat a look that said to agree or he'd live the rest of his life behind bars.

"Y-Yep, always wanted to be a C-sec officer." Kolyat nodded.

"So how about we go do some paperwork and get Kolyat here into cadet training, mmm?" Shepard smiled at the captain.

"I don't know~."

"I can have Tali autograph something for your kids."

"Done. Come on son... let's get you into training," Baley shrugged.

"I don't want to be part of C-sec," he muttered to me.

"It's either this or prison," I pointed out.

"I don't have a place to live."

"I'll buy you a nice apartment near the presidium. I'll even get you that nice suit your mother picked out."

"... was any of that real? Was that really Mom?"

I brought him into a hug, "I don't know, but I do know she loved you, and that I meant every word I said. I failed you as a father, if you would allow me, I would try to make it right." he slowly wrapped his arms around me.

It was going to take some time, but we could be that family I dreamed of. Now all I had to do was stop an ancient evil that wanted to destroy the Galaxy.

Being a father is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

"Hey... where's the stupid Fenris bot?" Tali asked, looking around the area.

Fenris bot?

-/-

Nick POV

"So... care to explain." Anora glared down at us, her husband included, because he agreed to my crazy plan. We were all in the doghouse now.

"Dragons are awesome~," I answered. That was clearly not the correct answer.

"Yes, I have no doubt the Tevinter Imperium agrees with you," she hissed. "You do understand that the rest of Thedas thinks we are becoming the next Tevinter, correct? Having an entire nest of High dragons isn't making it better."

"First of all, we're Ferelden, when did we start giving a rat's ass about what others think? Second, the dragon problem isn't going away. You've heard the reports, more and more dragons are beginning to wake up, there are even rumors of Dragons in the Deep roads. We need someone to handle this, why not have Dragons help us?"

"And what is stopping them from just attacking us when they gain enough numbers?"

"The same thing that put them down in the first place. You're underestimating the power of humanity, besides it takes over 70 years for a dragonling to become a high dragon, over 400 to become a Great dragon, and over 2 thousand to become an elder, and that's all if they're female, which is very unlikely the ratio being one in every thousand. Add all that and having to survive to adulthood, Dragons, much to their annoyance, aren't born apex beings, why do you think that had humans watch their eggs and young."

"A single High Dragon can kill hundreds of people," she pointed out.

"I know, that's why I wanted Ella and her Thunder to make their nest in Ferelden. A high dragon on their own wouldn't listen to anyone, Storm Rider, Sky's Knight, attacked her. Sky was an apex dragon, to attack her would be suicide and she still did it. If we don't get a handle on this things are only going to get worse," I argued.

"Couldn't you just do what you did with Sky and Astral?"

"I can't be everywhere at once, and even if I could, they might not follow me. We need a dedicated team for this. A council of Great Dragons that can enforce order would be invaluable. They need a home, we need control. I thought it was a good deal," I shrugged.

She gave us a long sigh, "I'm guessing that's why you had Telsa buy more land in the FrostBacks?"

I smirked a little, Anora was no one's fool. "Yeah, I thought building them a home away from most people and next to Orlais might ease some people's worries."

"Not the Orlesians~."

"No, not them," I smiled. "If nothing else, they would be amazing bankers."

"mmm, and they agreed to that?"

"Maigi the Wise, did. The idea of gaining wealth without doing anything made her very happy."

"mmm, I'm guessing you're making Sky Valley the test subject to Ferelden's first national bank."

"The Sky City Branch," I nodded. "Maigi and Telsa are already in talks if you want to join them~."

She gave me a long look. "This discussion isn't over; we will have to place some of them into the Vanguard."

"Cailan and I are already talking with Ella to have some of her followers join the Vanguard, some of them are itching to spread their wings."

She gave one final sigh before nodding. "Don't make me regret this Walters, we'll discuss our relationship with Antiva and King Maric later in the landsmeet, make sure Telsa is attending."

"Yes ma'am," I saluted as she walked out of the king's war room. We stood in silence until we couldn't hear her footsteps.

"YES!" I fist-pumped.

"Thank the Maker~," Cailan sighed. "Thought I was going to be sleeping on the couch for the next month."

"Both of you are idiots," Morrigan huffed, holding Joyce's hand, as the little girl gave us the same unimpressed look her mother had, it was adorable.

Oghren was laughing with his boy.

"Not gonna lie, it got a little dicey there at the end," Theron muttered, wiping away sweat from his forehead.

"It was the idea of a functional national bank," Jak pointed out. "Anora has been trying to get one to work, but didn't trust anyone not to try and rob them."

"And only an idiot robs from a dragon," Dagna added.

"Alright, now all I have to do is hollow out a mountain." it shouldn't take too long, my Earthbending and Construction skills were already at Master Rank. So, all I had to do was earthbend the earth off the mountain and into my inventory and then use the stone and recycled cement I still had from Tuchanka and create a castle on top of a mountain... okay, this might be a little harder than I thought. Looking over the Globe Map, I mentally thanked the Vanguard that worked here because they kept it up to date, Sky Valley had a few new mountains to its territory. I picked the one furthest from any large populations, it wasn't the tallest mountain, but it was the widest, if I was able to cut off the top, I could build a temple and create decent farmland around the mountain for animals to be raised in and crops to be cultivated, if Ella wanted servants, they needed to eat, and a carnivore diet isn't exactly healthy for most people. Eat your leafy greens kids.

"I'll leave you to it," Aeden patted me on the back.

"You do understand that means you're losing your babysitter, right?" I teased.

He shrugged, "I was already missing my baby girl~." He picked up Joyce, rubbing his head all over her hair, much to her annoyance, her mother just made her hair, and her annoying Father was ruining it. She didn't say anything but had an adorable grumpy look, Morrigan just rolled her eyes but still had a tiny smirk, a perfect family photo.

"That means I'll be gone for the rest of the landsmeet, I should be able to make it back for Satinalia." All I had to do was make the temple and a decent basement for the dragons to make their caves, if the dragons wanted their own caves, they would have to make them themselves, I was only contracted for a single temple.

We talked for another hour, making sure Maric and Maigi were well-adjusted. Maigi was staying in order to get Telsa and Anora's national banking idea to work. The Vanguard also got 4 more Dragon recruits, I doubted they cared about being part of the Vanguard, but the chance to unlock their Chi and getting to live in Mother Base was a good trade for them working for Ferelden, it probably helped that they were barely 70 years old, still acting like the young adults they were. It helped that Astral was a Great at such a young age, the idea of becoming a Great Dragon was rather tantalizing.

With Denerim squared away Sky, Jak, Dagna, Dogmeat, and I took my personal Train to Ella's new mountain temple, Astral stayed behind keeping an eye on Maigi. Turns out Ella didn't even want a mountain temple, she wanted a landing zone, a cave large enough to fit her Thunder, and enough land to house her servants, which was great because the mountain I chose was smaller than the ones around it, making the soil there better than most allowing me to make large Step Farms like the ones I had in Sky City.

I was a little confused about why Edgehall would give away this land, until I realized it was impossible to get to by normal means, creating a village wouldn't be beyond the reach of man but it would be impossible to get to 6 months out of the year. Also transporting goods through the mountains would be dangerous and that was just the environmental danger, there were also Bandits and Avvar raiding bands, it just wasn't worth it. But to Dragons, this place was perfect, remote, with few dangers, and decent temperature, all they needed was a place to live, which was my job.

Creating the landing zone was simple, it was just a large flat area where dragons could land and take off, boom, less than an hour. The next part took a little longer, and by that I meant about 2 days, making today Friday, I had to make a cave entrance large enough for Ella to walk in and out of with plenty of space. So, I started by enhancing the integrity and strength of the stone around The Cave entrance, using my earth bending to compact the earth so tight that it fused together, followed by adding cemented Runic support pillars, constantly looking over the cave's durability using my Construction skill.

And that was pretty much it, moving at a gentle slope I continued working into the mountain, making room after room. My inventory was stuffed with millions of tons of dirt, stone, and gravel, which I then used to create a little village for Ella's 'employees' and the steps needed to farm. I also cried a little as I had to return all of Ella's wealth, it's not like I needed it, and I'm sure that amount of gold would destroy Thedas's economy, but still~, it was a lot of gold.

Deal completed!

Deal: help Ella, Queen of Dragons, wake her sisters and relocate her Thunder to Ferelden

Reward: Neutral with the Dragons of Thedas

Quest completed: When I was a boy, there were Dragons.

Ella Queen of Dragons has made a deal with you to save her Thunder from the long sleep.

Reward: 40,000 XP, 100 gold, 1 gold loot box, Friendly with Ella and her Thunder

As a token of friendship, I left a hundred 2-foot Earth golems to keep the place clean, I gave them each a little broom with cleaning runes that would sweep the keep 24/7, as well as some cows, sheep, and chickens I bought from the Gamer's store, all and all causing me about 497 gold, which confused me at first, I knew cows could provide a lot, but damn~, it wasn't until the first cow appear that I understood.

These cows... were absolute units.

Holy shit man, one cow stood at 8 feet and weighed 4000 lbs. What the hell were these things, I don't even know where they came from, were they from some kind of super dimension!? One of them just turned to me and moo-ed, it was completely docile, uncaring about how it got here or why, it just wanted grass and hay, which I also bought. I had to leave a few Robo-golems to look after them as I planted grass throughout what Ella was calling Dragon's Egg, for the cows to graze on.

Some of the Dragons looked ready to munch on their new livestock but Ella calmed them down, even she understood these cows were different, why kill them when you can make more. It was left for Nemen to take care of the cows, much to her joy, she was treating them like tiny hamsters by the time I left.

It was Sunday afternoon by the time I made it back to Denerim allowing me to catch Cailan detailing of the Maric situation. To say the Fereldan nobles were in an uproar was an understatement, many wanted to go to war, which was understandable, but we weren't in any shape to declare war on anyone, the population in Ferelden was still heavily lopsided thanks to the rebellion and the 5th blight having 1 man to every 3 women. The only thing we could do was declare sanctions on Antiva, limiting trade, in most other scenarios this just really wouldn't mean much, but cutting access to the train system trading would have them returning to ships and caravans for transporting goods, which wasn't the best, having to travel long distances and risking pirates and bandits. This also limits the things they could sell, food was out of the question, unless it was some kind of jerky or alcohol, which again, was something bandits and pirates liked.

The ball was on Antiva's court now.

Other than Antiva, the rest of the Landsmeet when rather smoothly, there were our mutual relationships with the Free Marches and Rivain, our, dare I say, Friendly relationships with Nevarra and The Anderfels, and our cold war with Orlais, Tevinter, and Par Vollen.

With the Landsmeet coming to an end, Satinalia was in full swing. Festive lights were everywhere, and booths lined Main Street and the large market squares. Telsa took it upon herself to fund a lot of the booths, using them as advertisements. I spent the rest of the day making prizes and making sure each booth had enough food to last them the day. I also helped Oghren create his own booth to sell his leftover alcohol the Landsmeet didn't drink, and trust me they tried. Oghren was down to only a dozen beer kegs for his original 50, he also had 3 bottles of his Nug Runner whisky, and trust me there wasn't one noble who didn't steal an extra from the gift table at the end of the Landsmeet.

I also had to create a 'Dragon embassy' for Ella's thunder. It wasn't an embassy, you can't have an embassy of your own country in your country... I think. In the same way Theron can't be an ambassador to Ferelden in Ferelden... I'm pretty sure that just makes you a messenger. Either way, Maigi was a Great Dragon, and even in her elf form, she demanded her own place that was, in her own words, 'Opulent, vast, covetousness arousing, and welcoming towards the household staff'. It was crazy how fast she already had a staff of 20 people, but I kinda got it, there were still plenty of refugees in the outer districts without jobs, and Maigi was rather generous with her pay.

She also took it upon herself to adopt most of the orphans in the city, she didn't shy away from the reason, 'Bestow upon those individuals who possess an intimate understanding of destitution with even the slightest offering, and in return, they shall graciously bestow upon you the entirety of their being.' I kinda understood why she was worshipped now.

Her 'embassy' was a beautiful home I had to build on the side of Mount Drakon overlooking Denerim and stood over the school in Outer District 2. Of course, I had to build over a dozen elevators for her workers to safely go up and down the mountain, I also had to make a road that led up the mountain for safety reasons, I doubted my elevators were going to break down anytime soon, but there is a reason why large buildings had stairs.

After finishing her new house and filling it with furniture and food for her and her servants. I'll have Telsa bill them later.

My day didn't end when I got home as Telsa was ready for me at the kitchen table with a large amount of paperwork that Jak and Dagna were tackling for me, Sky was snoring away next to them.

"Honey~, I'm home~," I whispered kissing them on the cheeks.

"Thank the great evils~," Jak sighed, slumping onto the table. "How do you do this!? Wait let me guess~, Skill~?"

Administration – everybody sing the Bureaucrat song!

the process or activity of running a business, organization, etc.

Rank – expert

-Important information is highlighted in any document you read; on occasion, you can see loopholes in others' documents.

-You can spot most loopholes in your own documents

-Writing speed increased by 75%

-Reading speed increased by 75%

-language comprehension increased by 25%

Cost: nothing, you are already wasting your life behind a desk

"It's one of my most underrated skills~," I teased.

"It is," Telsa agreed flying through her paperwork. "Ugh, gone for 3 weeks and these idiots nearly destroy my hard work. Nick, why did you have me hire those idiots you call the Board of Managers?"

"Because you can't be everywhere at once." The Board of Managers were Telsa's direct subordinates, Accounting, Marketing, Legal, Administration, Technology, and Operations, they helped Telsa run Magic Incorporated, a name given by a raffle winner, in Denerim. Other cities have their own General Managers who had their own team, but they all answered to Telsa.

"Dogmeat would do a better job than the lot of them," Telsa grumped. I looked over to Dogmeat who had a stamp in his mouth as he brought it down on a piece of paper.

"Meat," he chuffed.

"Alright-alright ya babies, off to bed with you, I'll handle the rest." I gave them more kisses and a head pat for Dogmeat. "Take this with you~," I passed Sky to Jak. "I'll see you ladies in the morning~." I watched them grumble up the stairs. "Telsa~, that means you." I gave her another kiss. "You're technically still on vacation~."

"Just this last document. Why in the void would you want to buy that many chickens," she tsked at one of the papers in her hand. "Oh, right, the Chicken farm in Northern Denerim." She stamped the paper and signed it. She reached out to grab another document, but I intercepted her hand.

"Telsa~, it's bedtime."

She gave a groan, "just one more."

"No~." I wrapped my arms around her and lifted her gently into a princess carry. "The paperwork is going to be there tomorrow, and we can beat it to submission then."

She gave an annoyed groan and a half-assed effort to escape my grip only to lump into my arms.

"Then why does it feel like it's only going to get bigger by the time we get downstairs tomorrow?" she huffed.

"Because you think you have to do all the work by yourself, you have subordinates for that," I teased.

"But this is mine. I built this company from the ground up," she sighed resting her head on my chest.

"I know, but you're not the only one who wants to see it succeed, you have to trust the people you put in power. Meaning you have to give them some of your responsibilities, the Denerim division hasn't burned down while you were gone, so that's a plus to them."

"I just don't want to fail."

"Understandable, but we don't want you to burn yourself out. So, starting Tuesday, you're tripling your staff-"

"Nick!?"

"No," I paused in front of her room. "We both know the world is going to be plunged into chaos. Mages are going to rebel no matter what I do, the templars will lose their minds and purpose, the dread wolf will start his plan, and a crazy Tevinter Darkspawn psychopath is going to tear open the Sky. You built something that gives people stability, out of all of us in our little group of misfits, you are the one shaping the world, and to do that, you must be at your best, even if that means giving up some power." I smiled down at her, "Now get some sleep," I ordered, walking her into her room and laying her on her bed.

But before I could back away, she reached out and grabbed my shirt. "My contract is still valid." I quirked my eyebrow at her. "Off with the shirt and pants. I expect 2 hours of rigorous lovemaking spread out through the night, three if I don't break you first."

"... What about the paperwork?"

"... it will be there tomorrow, where I will work you to the bone. But tonight, you are my Satinalia gift to myself."

"... yes Ma'am."

-/-

Shepard POV

"SATINALIA!" Julee cheered running into the Common room/cafeteria. I was eating breakfast with Joker.

"It's like watching a kid on Christmas morning~," Joker teased, as he watched her run around. "I'm a bit mature for Christmas slash whatever this is~."

"I HAVE GIFTS!"

"Satinalia!" Joker cheered.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Julee cheered, "Joker, you got two gifts!" She handed him two boxes. Both of them were small but with magic, they might as well have a death star inside of them. "Shepard~," she passed me two boxes as well.

"Thanks."

"What did Magic Santa get me this year~," Jeff joked, shaking one of his boxes.

"Isn't Santa already magic?" I asked.

"Shush~, now let's see what I got~," he tore open one of his boxes, finding- "A key? What, did he buy me a house? Oh god, he bought me a house!"

"Calm down~, there's a note. 'Joker, I don't need the Puma X-7, so you can have it, love Nick. PS, I know the Puma doesn't use a key, but I thought it would be symbolic. PSS. I added a runic lock to the X-7 so the key would be used, so don't lose the key. PSSS. I know you're going to lose it, so I gave EDI a backup.'" Joker just gawked at the key in his hand. "Open the other one." Joker shakily opened the other boxes, which contained another note and a credit chit. "'I hoped you opened the other boxes first; this Credit chit contains 100,000 credits for fuel, love Nick. PS. I expanded the Gas tank to the X-7 for longer flights.'"

Joker still looked shocked at the key and credit chit in his hand.

"What did I get?" I opened my box revealing... a metal rectangle with runes all over it. There was a note, 'Don't cut off your hand or point it at someone you like, love Nick.' It was at a closer look that I realized what I was holding. Holding it away from me with the open end sticking up, I pressed the glowing rune on the back of the gift a black blade with a white border snapped to life. "A Light Saber, the dark saber" I whispered in awe. It even made that cool swishing noise. A bright light at my hip caught my attention as I saw my holy pistol morph into a DL-44 blaster pistol, Han Solo's trusty partner.

"What the hell is that?"

I quickly retracted the blade, "Tali! I know I taught you not to sneak up on someone when they're holding a dangerous weapon!"

"No~, you taught me how to sneak up and kill someone holding a dangerous weapon~."

"Don't sass me. Aren't you supposed to be looking for my Bot?"

"I still need to eat and no one's willing to sell me food, with this thing strapped to my wrist!" she hissed.

Yeah~. Turns out when Thane knocked us out, some freak hoverboard came out of nowhere and ferried the Fenris bot away. We have no idea where it went. Of course that meant the handcuffs stayed on until they found it. Meaning for the last week she had to, sleep, eat, shower, and poop, all with a Geth not 10 feet away, she is not happy with me.

"TALI~, LEGION!" Julee waved at them.

"Julee," Tali huffed dodging Julee's kiss.

"Tali~," Julee whined.

"Not until you get this thing off," she waved her cuff at her.

Julee shrugged, "No can do~, only Ayla can take those off. I should know, I made them."

"Then you get nothing from me," Tali hissed.

"So, you don't want your presents~," Julee teased, pulling out boxes from her Bag of Holding.

"I didn't say that~," she reached for a box only for Julee to slap her hands away. "HEY!?"

"Not so fast little lady, Nick had a couple of rules for you, but not for you Legion," she passed the Geth two boxes. Legion gave the box a long-confused stare before carefully opening the box and pulling out a... stove-pipe hat and monocle.

"That was more a gift for Nick than you~," Julee joked.

Legion still put on the hat and monocle; it was glorious. Never in my life have I needed something so much and never knew until I received it. He opened the other box revealing a lifetime subscription to Galaxy of Fantasy, isn't that some extranet game? Legion quickly scanned the Subscription.

"He also got you some stocks in the company," Julee added, but Legion wasn't paying attention anymore, just staring out into nothing.

"Ignore it," Tali interrupted. "Now tell me what I got."

"Right~, Nick left some rules with your gifts."

"that's ridiculous, who put the rules on gives?" Tali huffed.

"While he thought you were going all crazy and destroy Legion."

"Good call," I muttered.

"Shut up," Tali hissed.

Julee pulled out a note card and passed her a small box, "You get this one if you destroyed Legion."

She opened the box, "A lump of... coal?"

"Naughty children don't get gifts," Julee huffed. She passed another box, "You get this one if Legion was destroyed but you didn't do it."

Tali pulled out... a string? "What is this?"

"Micro bikini," Julee smiled.

Tali slammed it back into the box, "WHAT KIND OF GIFT IS THAT!?"

"... it was meant more for me~," she muttered to herself, before passing her another box, "You get this one if Legion is still alive."

"If this one is another bikini, I'm going to kill him," she threatened opening the box revealing cloth. "What's this?" she pulled it out, "Keelah~." it was a Quarian hood and cloak. It almost looked like a warm poncho colored purple with her clan symbols. "What is this?" she asked looking over her clan symbols.

"Silver, the stitching is gold," Julee answered.

Holy crap, that thing must be worth a fortune!

"But-"

"-You can't give it away to another Quarian," Julee interrupted. "We know. That was the goal. That is your gift, for you, and you alone. Now for your next gift," but instead of giving it to her, she passed it to me.

"Nick wanted you to decide if she earned it."

I opened a box finding a scroll, "What is this?"

"That is a scroll containing his knowledge on the skill 'mend'. This spell repairs a single break or tear in an object you touch, such as a broken chain link, two halves of a broken key, a torn cloak, or... a hull breach~. As long as the break or tear is no larger than 1 foot in any dimension, you can mend it, leaving no trace of the former damage. The better you get at it the larger the dimension and the number of breaks can be fixed at once," Julee explained.

Tali reached for it, but I quickly pulled it away, "Whoa there big girl. Keep those grabbers away."

"John! Give me the scroll!" She reached for the box, but I was taller, and she was on the other side of the table. "JOHN!"

"I don't know, you've been rather snippy lately," I teased.

"Legion?" The Geth finally snapped from his internal thoughts and turned to Julee.

"Yes, Julia-Sorcerer?"

Julee passed him another box, "Nick wanted you to gift this present to Tali if you believe she deserves it" Legion opened the box to reveal another scroll."

"COME ON!?" Tali yelled.

"This is a skill scroll for the spell 'Fabricate' a transmutation spell that transformed raw materials into finished items or forms. It's a weaker form of Nick's construction skill, think of this as the basic form, where Nick can create a starship, you can make... a star moped." she shrugged, "We all have to start somewhere. Well, have fun with that, I need to finish giving out gifts~, Shepard meet me outside, we have to deliver gifts to Anderson!" she skipped away.

The way Tali eyed that scroll made me worried for Legion's safety. Legion must have agreed because he opened a hatch in his chest and stuffed the scroll inside before Tali could do anything.

"... you... Bosh'tet." she glared over at me, "You're all Bosh'tets."

"See, that kind of attitude doesn't get you gifts." She looked ready to kick me in the chest, so it was time for a hasty retreat, "Well, I got to go surprise my old captain, Joker make sure not to stay there all day, Legion don't stay up all day playing games, Tali... learn to be nice." I dodged a spoon she threw at me.

-/-

Walking through C-sec, I spotted Ayla giving each officer a necklace.

"What's with the Necklaces?"

She shrugged, "Their Necklaces of Minor Healing, Nick makes the Rune students at Hogwarts make them in bundles for the Sky City Guard, for pay and extra credit. Each guard is given one when they graduate from the academy, they're nothing special but can be the difference between life and death sometimes. Nick had a few thousand we didn't need and asked Ayla if she could give them away to C-Sec. Don't worry, Nick has some for Anderson."

"I'm sure he'll be over the moon~." maybe not him, but the Alliance brass will be, sure, it's only a few thousand but it's better than nothing. We stepped into the elevator and headed toward the presidium, we came to a stop halfway there as my Fenris bot came into the elevator still sitting on a hoverboard.

"Bork." We just looked at it as we reached the presidium before the hoverboard began drifting out to the presidium at a relaxed pace. "Bork." We continued to watch it float away.

"... Come on Anderson should be in his office, let's check in with Chris."

"Shepard, here to see the Councilor Anderson?" Chris asked.

"Yeah, is he in?"

"He is, but he's in a meeting at the moment."

"Mmm, should we come back later?" I asked.

"Chris, send him in," Anderson's voice came over the desk intercoms.

"Does that answer your question? Head on in."

"Thanks." walking into his office, I found Anderson sharing a drink with another man, he had a fair complexion, peppered hair, and age lines, I put him in his mid-50s, but modern medicine can make a man look younger for longer. He was also wearing an N7 jacket and what I can only describe as 'Dad jeans'.

"Shepard, good to see you, allow me to introduce you to my old captain, Alec Ryder, Ryder, Shepard."

Ryder? Why did that name sound familiar?

"HEY!" Julee pointed at him, "You're that guy Nicky was looking for."

"I know, that's why I'm here, Walters has been looking for me rather loudly, so I came to see what was going on," Ryder nodded.

RIGHT~, he needed Ryder's permission to release Anderson's animated story. "Pleasure to meet you, sir."

"Likewise, my son and daughter love your show."

"Good to hear, 90% of it is accurate." I shook his hand.

"Up-up-up!" Julee interrupted, "Before we get to Work, we need to Play first! Anderson! Happy Satinalia!"

"Likewise... should I know what that is?"

"All you need to know is that it comes with presents!"

"Then happy Satinalia," he smirked raising his glass.

Julee proceeded to pull out a 7-foot box from her bag getting us to back off. "Since we knew you're covering our asses from your council and you being a good sport about the whole superhuman thing, we decided to make you, THIS!" She pulled a string revealing a Robo-golem, but unlike Nick's normal behemoths, this one's armor looked extra thick with a shoulder cannon that meant business, on its back a Gauss rifle and a pistol on its hip, and an N7 printed on its chest.

"Whoa~."

The Golem came to life, "I am designated P-1," Its soft female voice nearly threw me for a loop. "I am David Anderson's personal protector." It scanned Anderson causing his Omni-tool to come to life scanning it back. "Connection, I am at your disposal."

"Uh?" Anderson asked the question we were all thinking of.

"You like her!?" Julee cheered, hugging the golem. "We had to gut that Thor bot Nick brought home, but I'll be damned if we didn't get her working. High-powered Gatling magic laser, Magical Gauss Rifle refitted with mass effect tech, anti-material pistol with sniper rounds, armor thick with a Badassium nano weave, and 2, count them, 2 shields, the average Mass Effect kinetic barrier and a magic underlayer, all powered by 4 Magical mini-arc engines, all covered with Runes to cast basic cantrips!"

Holy... shit.

"She's... big," Anderson nodded. The golem took a few steps out of the box, where I thought its steps would shake the ground, I was met with only soft steps. It was crazy.

"Don't worry, P-1?" Julee clapped. The golem lowered to its knees where tank tracks appeared, allowing her to move. "She can move a steady 40 MPH!"

Tank, they made a tank, a walking magic tank.

Anderson just nodded like he wasn't losing his mind and shrugged, "She's beautiful, thank you."

"All her skills should have transferred into your omni-tool," Julee pointed out.

Anderson gave his omni-tool a quick glance, before the Golem vanished, causing me to jump, before it reappeared. "It has a cloaking device," Anderson hummed. How is this man so calm!? He now owns a walking magical silent invisible Tank! "I feel a little bad not getting you anything." What can match this thing?

Julee waved away his apology. "It's okay, you've done enough, but if you can~." she placed more gifts on his table, "These two are for Hackett and these two are for Captain Shepard." The boxes weren't huge, but they were a decent size, something you would get excited about if you saw it under a Christmas tree knowing it wasn't clothes or school supplies. "Can you make sure Captain Shepard gets this one first." she tapped the smaller box.

"Why?" Ryder asked.

"It's a Diamond, the size of my hand." that's a big diamond. "Nick thought a lump of Coal was too small to convey how much she annoyed him, so he got her a diamond. In the shape of a hand flipping the bird."

"Really Nick~," I sighed, rubbing my face.

"Don't worry, the rest of us are smart enough not to start a war with the Shepard clan, so the other gift is some Magical armor." She gave me a thumbs up. I'm not sure it would stop Ma from going to war, but it would slow her down.

"And these two?" Anderson asked.

She opened one box, which I quickly realized wasn't a box but some kind of suitcase, showing 3 cylindrical cases neatly placed for transport in fitted foam slots. "Three cases of Coaxium used for 3 hyperspace engines." She latched the case tight and ran a runic key over the box magically locking it. The last box wasn't very big, in fact, it was only about 10 inches in all dimensions. Opening the box revealed a single amber potion neatly placed in a slot. "Felix Felicis, also known as 'Liquid Luck', it gives the drinker a spell of luck during which time anything they attempt would be successful." she leaned in making sure we were paying attention, "Anything. The universe will bend around you for the impossible to happen, like for example, fighting an unbeatable foe only for a meteorite to come flying out of nowhere and striking it and revealing a huge weak spot. Sometimes you don't even see it at all but somewhere far away someone trips, dropping a bottle and through near-impossible methods, it will save your life a month later. The potion will only last 10 hours but it will probably be the luckiest 10 hours of your life."

"Why hasn't Nick given us any of those?" I asked.

Julee shook her head, "Nick already has your potion ready but is waiting for us to hit the derelict Reaper. He dozen trust us not losing them or drinking them early. You can only drink Felix Felicis once a month, the potion won't work if you drink it again too soon."

I nodded, I guess that made some sort of sense, otherwise people would be drinking them back-to-back.

"I'll make sure they get to them," Anderson promised. "P-1." the golem rolled forward, opening an expanded chest slot and putting the gifts away. "Yep, this thing is gonna pay dividends," he joked putting the key around his neck.

"I also have these." She placed a box of Necklaces, the box didn't look big, but again, magic doesn't play by normal rules. "There's about 2,000 minor healing Necklaces in here we didn't need, they won't give you krogan level regeneration, but they can save your life in a pinch," she called them necklaces, but they were more like rings on a string.

"Healing?" Ryder looked extremely interested in the idea.

"2,000?" Anderson asked.

Julee shrugged, "Just some leftovers, Nick was going to sell them for cheap, but decided that giving them to C-sec and the Alliance would be better, it's never a good idea to flood the market."

"That's it... no strings attached?" Anderson asked.

"Nick thought the headache of whoever had to pick troopers to gain a necklace was payment enough, 2,000 isn't a lot when you have an army of millions."

Mmm, good point, no doubt the upper brass is getting some, but how does someone pick who gets a magic life-saving object without getting hated and burned at the stake.

"Then why is Nick giving them to C-sec?" I asked.

"To fuck with the council."

The answer made Ryder laugh. "What?" he choked.

"I have no doubt the council will try confiscating them, but we both know that's not going to end well. C-sec is a dangerous job, and if they start taking away objects that keep the Guards alive-" she shrugged, "-That's how you get officers going on strike. It will be like if they suddenly banned Medi-gel."

"It would be political suicide," Anderson nodded.

"You said these are Minor Healing, is there Major healing?" Ryder asked.

Julee nodded, "Oh yeah, most novices can create a Minor healing rune, which gives the wearer a minor form of regeneration, healing most cuts and if necessary internal bleeding, but really slowly. Normal healing gives you the regeneration speed of your average krogan, we use this rune as a test for students to gain their Journeyman license, so fair we only have 30 people gain their licenses. And finally, we have Major healing runes-" She pulled out a necklace from under her shirt and tossed it to Anderson. "Check the runes."

Anderson narrowed his eyes and looked at the glowing ring, "I can't see anything." she tossed him a jeweler's eyepiece. I almost stupidly asked why she had that before I looked at the box filled with rings, it would be crazy if she didn't have one. "What is that?" Anderson asked, bringing the ring as close to his eye as possible.

"They're runes," She answered.

Anderson passed it to Ryder who also looked at the ring, "How can you tell, they almost look stacked up on each other, I can't tell where one of them begins and another ends."

"That's because it's a master-level rune, at that level a rune master can stack runes on other runes creating feedback loops that enhance the original rune's purpose."

Ryder picked up a minor healing Necklace and checked its pattern, switching back and forward, "I think I see the original design, but I can't tell." He passed it back to her.

"Nothing short of a complete decapitation or major bodily damage is going to put you down," she explained putting the Necklace back on.

"Can they... heal someone back to normal?" Ryder asked.

"mmm, kinda. Healing runes can fight sickness and diseases but have a hard time fixing things that have already healed over, say you've lost a hand, no matter the healing rune, that arm isn't coming back, but if you had a major healing rune when you got the injury you could probably just slap it back on, you might even grow a new one, but it would take a long time and the runes entire focus. Mordin said the rune helped extreme Stem cell growth and enhanced the other cells in the body, he may not understand where the energy is coming from or what it is, but he understands what it does."

"So... it can't heal long-term existing ailments?"

"Not that I know of, if you're looking for a cure to a sickness you would need to visit a Healer or buy a cure-all potion, but disclaimer alert, it doesn't... Cure all ailment, at least not right away, sometimes it takes multiple potions." Julee shrugged. "Unless you're dealing with a curse, you might want to hire a cleric or paladin at that point. Are you looking for a healer? If you can wait Nick should be here tomorrow and help, but if it's an emergency Ayla might be able to help right now."

"Can Walters, cure a neuro-degenerative disorder?" the look of hope in Ryder's eyes made me stand at attention, I know that look, I've had that look before, the look of a man who would do anything to get what he wants.

"Alec?" The way Anderson looked at Ryder told me something was going on.

"Mmm, Nick has cured different forms of brain damage before, but he would have to be there to see the damage, and if nothing else Ayla is directly connected to a God, so nothing is impossible."

"What does Walters want from me exactly?" Ryder asked.

It looks like the bargaining has begun.

"For starters, he wants your permission to publish Anderson's story, apparently David won't let Nick do his story without your blessing." Ryder looked over to Anderson, who just shrugged.

"I see, if he heals someone for me, I'll give him my per-" he didn't even get to finish before a contract was shoved in his face.

"Print, signature, initials, and date... right there at the bottom," Julee smiled. "In triplicate please."

I should say something, Nick is the type of man who wouldn't use a contract to heal someone, but Ryder doesn't need to know that. Clearly, there's more going on here than meets the eye and it's best for me to just wait until I had more information.

As Ryder read through the contract, the office door slid open revealing a pair of what looked like twins no older than 25.

"Dad! Scott's gone cra-" she froze looking right at me, clearly knowing who I was.

"DAD! Check out this awesome Fenris bot!" the young man, Scott, walked in with my Fenris bot on a leash, still riding the hoverboard. "Oh, sorry, are you still in your meeting, Chris told us it came to an end." he looked over to me, "Sorry to interrupt, Ryder, Scott Ryder." he offered his hand out for a shake.

I took it, "Shepard, John Shepard." He blinked at me for a second before his mind added up all the pieces. "You know... I lost my Fenris bot just last week, it looks a lot like that one... allow me to reward you for finding it."

"Bork."

-/-

A/N: AHHHHHHHHHGHHHHJHUJHHUJHGVPIJHVBKJGV!

Finally.

Sorry for not updating last month, The holidays, work, and school, never an easy time, December. I hope you all had a good time.

I wanted this chapter to show that while Nick may be my main character, he's not the only character, the world works around him, and I want to show that. Was it a good idea? I don't know, but I had fun watching my other characters working without him. I don't want Nick being the be all and end all, I want others to shine, and that means he can't always be there.

Do review and tell me if I should do more of that, or don't, I'm not your nanny.

Of course, sorry for any grammar problems, I'm my own editor and it's hard to see your own mistakes. if you need to know, I use Grammarly, and then run my story through a text-to-speech app, it's a good way for me to hear any mistakes.

I have a DeviantArt page where I make art about my story, link in bio.