Mass Effect: Spider and Wolf

I'm not gonna do the whole disclaimer thing every chapter. Honestly, if I DID own anything about these two franchises, I'd be making my stories actual canon and in comic form. So until the day that I DO own either of those comes to pass, you don't need me to say the disclaimer every single time.

Marrok stood on the bridge of the Cruiser All or Nothing as it traveled through space for the Citadel. Like with the initial talks, he was asked to join Anita Goyle in her talks with the Citadel Council. He would have joined anyway, seeing as he would need to get started on his company as soon as possible.

Thinking of that took him back down memory lane. He remembered how in his universe how after finally having enough and stopped holding back, he started his own company to not only help people, but also to come up with new tech for his crime fighting. He remembered how he started with literally pocket change and then within months became one of the most financially and politically powerful people on the planet. The medicine alone was able to cure many things, even late stage cancer, but that one was only fifty/fifty, it was one of the many things he was set on correcting when he got back to his universe, but then…..

Shaking his head, Marrok knew he would be able to start again, but even better. While in his universe, few people wanted to deal with tech that was far outside the norm, aside from the military that is, here he knew he had PLENTY of potential for both clients and employees. The codex he had gotten from the Turians wasn't enough for him, for all he knew it might be biased and edited as such. No, he would need either multiple versions for Lucy to sort, mix, and match, or one that holds no edits or redacted files. The former was more likely in his opinion.

Still, he did look over the list of different species. Most he knew weren't edited, but a few were based on the text for them. Namely, the Krogan, Quarians, and Batarians. While he COULD just take the information at face value, he had seen how someone being falsely accused of being a slaver had ruined their life, leading them to commit suicide from the building stress and hate thrown at them. He would rather find out the truth before making judgements.

So far though, from what little he felt wasn't edited, he felt the Krogan and him would get along great. He was never one to say no to a scrap and fighting seemed to be the Krogan culture, or at least part of it. Then the Quarians, he knew he'd be having to hold himself back from scaring them off, not because I already disliked them, but from how he would instantly explode from excitement from finally being able to talk shop with someone who isn't a narcissist like a CERTAIN iron inventor, or so steeped in logic and science that he sounded more robot than man like a particular stretchy man. He didn't care if them being thieves was true, everyone has problems, but he had plans for the Quarian race.

Then there were the Batarians. He had mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, they are labeled as slavers and terrorists, seeing everyone with less than four eyes as lesser. On the other hand, he didn't want to put too much stock in the codex he got from the Turians and would rather see for himself the truth. On the OTHER other hand, IF they were a race of slavers, he knew for a fact that many Batarians had to be enslaved as well, and there had to be a faction to be against slavery. It was only logical, all societies based on slavery would suffer rebellion or change from the outside at some point. It didn't matter if the empire had been in power for thousands of years, it only takes just one spark to light the flame that would in turn start a bonfire.

But that was IF the Batarians were INDEED a slaver race. He wanted to give them the benefit of doubt.

He came out of his thoughts as he heard steps approaching him from behind. He glanced to his left to see Anita step up and stop beside him. "I heard we'll be seeing the Citadel soon."

Marrok nodded, his mask in place and hiding his face. "About five hours. From what the codex said, it's the largest space station ever built by the Protheans, with the Mass Relays coming in second."

Anita glanced at him. "Why do I get the feeling that you either don't believe that, or part of it, or find it dull?"

Marrok had to give it to her, the woman was smarter than she looked and she already looked smart. "Call it a hunch, but from what Prothean tech the Alliance has been able to gather from Mars and comparing it to the Relays, I see no similarities. And while I have yet to see the Citadel, if it's being paired with the Relays, then I highly doubt the Protheans built it either. But until I can get a sample of the metal or get into the systems on either the Citadel or a Relay, I can't say how old they REALLY are." Oh yeah, the Turians weren't the only ones he had Lucy hack. He read up on just about everything important of the Systems Alliance, with the less important left to be read later. One of the files was about the Mars Archives, complete with pictures. At some point, he would have to see if he could get to Mars and have at those archives, see if Lucy can't figure out a way to get more information from it and if there was any knowledge about the Reapers. Also, he had a thought that both the Citadel and the Relays might be Reaper constructions, but until he had some evidence of that, he could only assume. For all he knew, they might have been built by the Protheans, or by some other race from countless cycles ago, either way, he needed to get at one or get some hard data to find out the truth.

Anita shook her head. "Well, until then, I would advise to not say such things around the others of the galactic community. They might not take it so well."

Marrok rolled his eyes. "I'm not some idiot that would just shout out what could be seen as conspiracy theories without cold hard evidence." Unknown to Marrok, in another timeline, a certain human Spectre sneezed into their coffee.

Anita held back a snort. "No, you strike me more as a 'beat someone's head in with said evidence' type of man."

That got a laugh out of Marrok. "HAH! And here I didn't think you made jokes."

Anita shrugged. "We all need a laugh to take the edge off now and then. Cigarettes and alcohol can only do so much before they kill you."

"Well there's always sex." Marrok said without a hint of shame.

Anita blushed as she stuttered and stumbled her words, causing Marrok to laugh again, which led to Anita glaring at him, which got him to laugh more.

Hours later, their ship entered the Serpent Nebula through the Relay and went through the nebula clouds until it came into view. The Citadel. A colossal space station of nearly 50 km, with five arms, each with cities of their own. As he looked at the station, Marrok only had one thought about it.

"Huh, thought it'd be bigger." He wasn't entirely dismissing the achievement of such a construction, it's just that in his universe, he had been to space several times with other heroes and had seen space stations even bigger. The Skrulls, the Kree, so many others that had either star ships or space stations that could eclipse the Citadel. Hell, he had once designed a type of ship that was 10 km long, something he wanted to use as a sort of Ark ship in case Earth ever had to be evacuated. He never got it built and in the end it was pointless, but he might be able to see it made in this universe. Even converting it to a military ship wouldn't be too difficult, he would just need to worry about the power source. Well, he already had a plan for that, but that was for another day.

"Amazing, so this is the Citadel." One of the crewmen said, being one of the many staring in awe.

Marrok cleared his throat. "Yes, now might we focus so we don't crash into anything or get shot down for not responding to any hail?" This seemed to snap them out of it as they went right back to work.

He shook his head before leaving the bridge to head to the hangar bay. As he did, he thought over what happened so far. Over the past several days, Turian ships had come to Shanxi to trade prisoners. All the humans that had been captured were returned to the Alliance while every turian captured before and after Marrok stepped in were handed over. The number of turian prisoners far outnumbered the human prisoners, which was expected thanks to Marrok. This, along with the turian prisoners being in good condition had earned respect among the Turians that came for the trade. He had a feeling that would come in handy down the line.

Soon enough, Marrok arrived at the hangar and stopped at the shuttle that would take him and Anita to the Citadel. As he waited, he decided to try out his new omnitool and see what he could do to improve it. It really was an amazing little device, a chip that could either be installed into armor, implanted just under the skin, or you could have a wrist band, and you could create a hard light hologram to use as an easily portable laptop with the power of a high rig personal computer. He knew Tony Stark would kill to have even one of these and then would improve it to be controllable with only the electrical signals of the brain. Hmm, there's a thought.

Returning to reality, Marrok found he could change the color and smiled as he changed it to dark blue. He already had good vision thanks to his powers and even had limited night vision, so there was no need to have an omnitool glowing 'kill me now' orange. If need be, he'll change it to black if he can, but he likes the dark blue, it brings him joy.

In the time between when he arrived to when Anita finally did, he had gone through just about all the functions of the omnitool and was pleasantly surprised by how little he needed to improve. But that doesn't mean he won't do it anyway, even if something doesn't need improving, he'll do it anyway just to see how much better it can be.

He looked up as Anita reached him. "Are you ready?" She asked.

Marrok nodded. "Since we first got on this ship." He then noticed there it was just them and the pilot who was already in the shuttle. "No one else is coming with?"

"With you on board, having others will only slow you down if something happens. This way, you only have to worry about me."

He nodded again. "Smart. In that case, let's hop in." He said before he and Anita got on board. The shuttle soon took off and they were heading for the Citadel.

After some time, they landed at the landing pad they were directed to and the two stepped out of the shuttle. Marrok saw the many people in uniforms surrounding them. Given the blue, he assumed them to be the police of the station.

He was proven right when a turian stepped forward. "Greeting ambassador, I'm officer Castis Vakarian. I'm here to escort you to the meeting with the Council. Where are the rest of your guards?"

Anita nodded to Castis. "A pleasure to meet you, and there are no other guards. He's here as both a fellow ambassador and guard."

Castis looked at Marrok a bit skeptical before his eyes widened as he finally seemed to understand just who it was. While the information wasn't released to the public, as the one to handle escort duty, he was given clearance to see the recording of what Marrok did to the turians on Shanxi. He then nodded. "Very well. In that case, I'm not going to even bother asking to hand over any weapons before we arrive at the meeting. I doubt he'd need them. Now, please follow me." He said before turning and heading off, Marrok and Anita followed him with the other officers, asari, salarians, more turians, Marrok even spotted a batarian or two.

Marrok was actually happy to see the batarians, as it proved that there were decent ones even if the race as a whole was seen as scum. He refocused on the trip as they were taken through the Presidium. The fact they weren't heading for anything direct like an elevator showed this was both a stalling tactic and a way to 'wow' newcomers. Thankfully, Marrok noticed that Anita seemed to understand this as well.

Finally, they arrived and boarded an elevator to head up to the Council meeting. Castis seemed to want the tour over with just as much as Marrok did if the sigh of relief was any hint. It took nearly another twenty minutes to arrive, but Marrok saw just how fast they were going given the distance. If elevators were this fast back in his universe, it'd only take a second at worst to get to the top of the Empire State building from the bottom floor.

The doors opened and the group stepped out as they made their way up the series of stairs. Marrok would freely admit that it looked rather beautiful, blending technology with nature, but it still didn't seem to hit that 'perfection' the designers were no doubt going for, at least to him.

He shook his head, he really needed to work on his focus. His mind may work faster than normal humans, but it was still a problem for situations like this. He was glad he still had his helmet on so his gaze wouldn't be seen drifting about.

At last, they arrived at the top, where he saw an elevated platform with the Councilors, one for the Asari, Salarian, and Turian respectfully. As they soon stopped, Castis announced their arrival. "The delegates for the humans of the System Alliance have arrived, Councilors."

The asari nodded to Castis. "Thank you officer Vakarian, you may take your place with the other C-SEC officers." He nodded and did so, nodding to Marrok and Anita as he passed them. The asari continued. "Welcome to the Citadel, representatives of humanity. I am Councilor Tevos, representing the Asari Republics. To my left is Councillor Aehann, representing the Salarian Union. And to my right is Councilor Sparatus, representing the Turian Hierarchy."

Anita bowed her head before responding. "Thank you for the welcome. I am Ambassador Anita Goyle. With me is my fellow Ambassador and guard, Marrok Hunt."

Sparatus spoke up. "Am I right to assume this is the one that ended the conflict on Shanxi?"

Marrok nodded as he spoke before Anita could confirm. "Indeed I am, Councilor."

This seemed to make the Councilors, as well as the many spectators, uneasy, though Marrok had an idea why that might be. From what he learned from the Codex, he believed the Turian fleet that attacked Shanxi might have been shadowed by a Salarian STG team, who would then send their findings to the Council. And he'd bet his tech that one of their findings was either images or recordings of him tearing apart the Turian offensive.

Aehann cleared her throat. "Would you mind if you would remove your helmet? I believe it would make things going forward much easier if we knew you were indeed a human and not a very advanced mech."

Well, Marrok couldn't really blame them for that. He knew the dangers and fears A.I. could pose, and an A.I. with control of a mech that could demolish a Turian base and every soldier in it with no effort would terrify anyone. And so, he shrugged before reaching up and took his helmet off, showing his face. "Not at all, Councilor. I understand not seeing the face of someone would make it difficult and unsettling to converse. Now then, shall we get this meeting underway?"

Tevos nodded. "Indeed. We shall begin with the hopeful cessation of hostilities between the Systems Alliance and the Turian Hierarchy."

Sparatus took over. "On behalf of the Hierarchy, we do not condone the actions carried out by former Admiral Sersius Barbalianus. Firing the first shot without any attempts at communication, destroying unarmed ships, then chasing the survivors through the Relay to continue the attack, these alone are crimes enough to strip him of his position, but attacking a colony after destroying the fleet defending it, unleashing orbital bombardments upon a Garden World, doing all of this to turn you into a Client race, these have sealed his fate to forever be nothing more than a grunt and will never rise in rank."

Anita, having read what Marrok managed to get from the turians captured, still knew to ask. "You won't execute him for his crimes?"

Sparatus shook his head. "No, as death would have been a mercy for him. For a turian, being part of the military is a sign of honor, to rise in the ranks is proof you have proven yourself to those around you and your superiors of her skill and shown you can do more. After five years of service, you are allowed to leave to pursue whatever occupation you wish. However, take away the chance to rise in rank, the ability to prove yourself, and the freedom to leave after your years of service, and you become a grunt for life, till the day you die, either in battle or from old age. In other words, he will serve as a disgrace and a living example to those who share his views."

Marrok nodded to this. "A good punishment. I believe I speak for the Alliance when I say that will more than satisfy the majority of humanity."

Sparatus nodded. "I'm glad we agree on that. The Hierarchy is also willing to pay reparations for this travesty. While it won't bring the lives lost on both sides back, I hope it can do something to at least bridge the gap that was formed with Sersius' actions."

Anita nodded with a smile. "It would be a good start."

The turian nodded with his mandibles lifted in a turian smile. "I would be happy to discuss this further at a later time, but we should continue with the meeting."

Tevos nodded. "Indeed, we should discuss the Alliance's inclusion to the galaxy at large."

Ok, shorter than the last two, but that was more because this was just to get the filler crap out of the way. And making filler just takes it out of me. I never once complained when manga or anime made filler chapters/episodes, but I never knew how draining they could be to make.

Now, while I might not get any questions, I still feel I need to answer them as they might still pop into someone's head, so here's a few answers.

Q: Why only Marrok and Anita? Where are the military representatives?

A: Given that Marrok single handedly, with help from Lucy, ended the First Contact War in the span of an hour, he would be the Military Representative. Even if he's not part of the military, he still ended the fight and would have the best standing to speak for the Alliance, at least that's how I see it. I realize that's not how it would be done in real life, but when you have the literal power to rip tanks in half with your bare hands, I don't think real life matters all that much.

Q: Why is Sparatus being so nice? He hates humanity doesn't he? Or at least really feels they aren't ready.

A: I always felt that Sparatus was more pragmatic than distrustful or hateful. Granted, I might be seeing things that aren't really there, but think about it for a moment. Despite how hard he is to get along with or understand in the games, if you save the Council in the first game, WHO is the first one to ask Shepard for help in Mass Effect 3? WHO is the first to offer support to the Alliance, even if it required a bit of leg work? And WHO is the one to thank Shepard FIRST after stopping Undina? That's right, Sparatus. The way I see it, he truly didn't feel the Alliance was ready to accept the burden that the Turians have taken since the Krogan Rebellions. Humanity was new, and spreading much faster than any other race, almost as fast as the Krogan without booting other races off their planets, he's going to be worried. Then add in humanity's habit of wanting more than we have and trying to get a seat on the council as fast as possible while others haven't been granted a seat despite being around for much longer and that doesn't paint us in a good light to Sparatus. Add to that we don't know who the Turian that started the First Contact War was and that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. It could easily have been a turian that Sparatus didn't like for one reason or another just as it could have been one that he trusted with his life. As it was someone he knew and didn't like, he could see past turian pride to see the crime for what it was. He would also see that before Marrok stepped in, Humanity was doing a damn good job holding the Turian assault back, losing yes, but still holding them back. Then add in Marrok and how Sparatus doesn't know if there are others with that kind of tech, which he still believes is power armor and not spider powers, and he doesn't want a full on war to happen, and that's not counting all the other reasons a war with the humans would be bad.

Q: Is Marrok going to [insert action here]?

A: Well, you're just gonna have to wait to find out.

Now, I'm not opening a pole, but I would like to hear what you all think I should do? Should I pick up where I left off in the Council meeting, leading to another half chapter or even full chapter of filler, or should I just jump cut to say a few months to half a year later to hurry up and get this story really started? Cause I'm going to be honest, aside from the few minor changes to the canon path, it's going to be pretty much the same.