Mass Effect: Spider and Wolf

Disclaimer: I do not own the Spider-man franchise or Mass Effect, those belong to their respective owners.

Marrok was sitting in an interrogation room with several armed guards inside with him. Sitting across from him was an older man, a general from the four stars. Marrok wasn't offended by the clear worry these men had for his presence, in fact he approved of the measures taken. He understood just how his actions have terrified his fellow humans, even if said actions helped save the colony. He wasn't so foolish as to believe what he did would automatically be seen as selfless.

That said, he wasn't worried even if things turned for the worst, as nothing they had could take him down. And that was if he bothered to even allow them to hit him. And they all knew that.

The general in front of him finally spoke. "I am General Willams, the one in charge of the defense of Shanxi. First, let me be the first to say thank you for your aid against the Turians. I doubt we would have lasted much longer had you not stepped in when you did."

Marrok nodded. "I just did what had to be done. But merely thanking me wouldn't require you to keep me here. You may speak plainly. You have nothing to fear from me."

Willams seemed to nearly deflate at that. "Then I'll speak plainly, as you put it. You scare me, along with many others who saw what you did. What even are you? You can't be human, that tech is too advanced and the fact that you took down every turian without any fatalities is something that only a specialized team of spec-ops could pull off and even then that's with stealth and weeks of planning. You just charged right in and blitzed them."

Marrok chuckled. "Well, when you have armor that puts their silly kinetic barriers to shame,

there's not much need for stealth, especially when there's no hostages to worry about. Oh sure, they had prisoners, but none were close enough to be used as shields and I'm pretty sure they all instinctively knew I wouldn't allow them that kind of time with my speed." Marrok then reached up and took his mask/helmet off, revealing his face. Everyone saw a somewhat young man, either in his late twenties to his early thirties, ice blue eyes and short black hair and pale skin, not pale as in no sunlight or albino, but one that's no different from any other caucasian. And judging from how a few of the guards reacted, a handsome man at that. "And I'm very much human."

Normally, he would never reveal his identity to anyone, not even fellow metahumans or supers, as he didn't want anyone to be targeted. But here in this new universe, he had no one other than Lucy and it wasn't like anyone could target her.

The fact he was indeed human seemed to shock everyone while the general regained his composure. "How….?" He trailed off, but his question was clear.

Marrok gestured to his armor. "I made this myself. From scratch. And before you ask, no. I can not make more of this exact build, as some of the materials used to make this are basically extinct or I am unsure where it originated from. And even though I can make a sort of downgraded version of this armor, it's still too powerful. It's neural linked, meaning it can move at the speed of thought. If a body isn't properly conditioned and specifically trained and flexible enough, it will rip said body to pieces. Trust me on this, I nearly died a few times getting this right." None of what he said was a lie, he just let the General make his own facts. Marrok wasn't going to let anyone know about his genetics that would probably break the Citadel Law about Genetic Engineering.

Willams grimaced at this. "I….see. So it's the armor that allowed you to do what you did, with yourself being trained to handle that kind of stress. But then what about that…..substance?"

Marrok grinned. "Oh, you mean my webbing?" He held a wrist up and worked on the armor with his other hand and opened a small hatch before he pulled out a small canister. "Also made from scratch. Perfect for non-lethal takedowns. And yes, it's very much exactly like spider silk. Only scaled up. As such, you'd need the strength to rip pure steel apart to break this. And that's if you have enough slack to pull that off. And just like real webbing, it's biodegradable, so it dissolves after an hour or two. There's many other fun toys I have, but I think we're straying from what this meeting is really about."

Williams, after processing the uses of what such tools could have, nodded. "With your aid, the Turians have surrendered and not only do we have access to their ground force equipment, but we also have their ships. How you managed that I will never know and I have a feeling you wouldn't elaborate even if I did ask."

Marrok nodded. "You'd be correct in that."

"Having said that, we hold no illusion that this will be the end. We need to prepare for the next wave." Williams said with a grim look. "I was hoping we could count on you for aid."

Marrok shook his head. "There won't be a need. I managed to get plenty of data from the Turians and while another wave isn't impossible, the more likely to happen is the Asari to come and negotiate peace."

Willams's eyes widened. "More aliens?" He asked, almost horrified.

"Relax, I said they would negotiate for peace. I hacked into several omnitools and the databases of the ships. I can forward everything to you for your eggheads and negotiators to look through." Marrok responded while holding a hand up to try and calm the general down.

It seemed to work as he sighed. "So, any idea when they would arrive?"

Marrok shrugged. "It would depend on when they got word of this blunder on the turians' part. From what I could find out, this wasn't a decision from the Turian Hierarchy, the government of the turians, but the sole decision of the admiral leading the fleet. From what I could find, he did this to claim a client race and make the Turians stronger as a , VERY few agreed with him and those that didn't were too low ranked to question it. To them, a good turian follows orders, even if they're bad."

Willam's stared in shock. "Wha….how did you get so much information? I know you said you took that data, but I would have thought when they noticed they were being hacked, they would have purged their databanks."

Marrok grinned, proud of Lucy. "Well, sure, they might have. IF they had noticed they were being hacked in the first place."

Williams shook his head while rubbing his face. "I need to stop being surprised. So, IF this Hierarchy knew about this, how would they have reacted to us? And for that matter, what gave that admiral any justification of attacking us to make us into a client race in the first place?"

"Well, for the admiral, he used the excuse of humanity opening a Mass Relay, which is against a law that the central government of the Citadel Council, of which the Turians are part of. It states that opening Relays is forbidden, which makes sense looking at their history, when they opened a Relay a thousand or so years ago and a war began that threatened the galaxy. However, the Primarch, the leader of the Hierarchy, understands that such laws can cause problems, such as when a newly discovered species that has no knowledge of this law opens a Relay. As such, if the Hierarchy as a whole knew about this before that Admiral attacked, they would have made first contact and tried to explain why it was a bad idea to recklessly open Relays."

Williams took a deep breath before sighing. "Well, at least we have that going for us. But we have had several ships join the invasion since the first strike, anything in the data about that?"

Marrok nodded. "The Admiral, as you might be thinking, played it like we were the aggressors. But, with both testimonies and the data I got backing them up, the Admiral will be basically fed to the sharks. What he did is considered a massive insult to Turian honor, almost causing a war that would have caused countless pointless deaths. If the Hierarchy doesn't hand him over to the Alliance, then you can bet that he won't get off easy even then."

"So no matter the outcome, justice will be served. I can live with that and I can bet many in the Alliance will too. So, you said you can forward that data?"

Citadel; Council Chambers

"Sparatus, please tell me you are merely joking." Councilor Tevos, the Asari Councilor said as she looked almost beggingly at her Turian counterpart.

Sparatus shook his head. "I wish I was. Because of the actions of Admiral Sersius Barbalianus, a hostile first contact has occurred. And while normally I would commend a turian for upholding the law, especially involving Relays, I know Sersius, to my displeasure. I wouldn't put it past him to have used that law to strike first and not even bother initiating first contact protocol. He will be punished for this, if he's still alive, that is."

"I assume you're referring to how this new race seems to be a match for the turian forces." Aehann Dosul, the Salarian Councilor, commented as she looked through the data on her omnitool, no doubt from the Salarian Special Tasks Group.

Sparatus nodded. "Yes. While their ships were outnumbered and outgunned, they still made Sersius bleed for the victory and the ground engagements were no different, if not worse. Just from the reports, these aliens, these…..'humans', from what the analysts could recover from taken data, seem to fight with the discipline of turians, the ingenuity of salarians, and the ferocity of krogan. A terrifying combination."

Tevos groaned as she rubbed her face. "I'll see who I can call on to help end this conflict. The last thing we need is to be seen as supporters of unjust warfare. I can only hope we can end this before more lives are lost."

Aehann nodded. "It might end sooner than you expect." Upon noticing her colleagues turn to her, she continued. "I just got a report from the STG shadowing the fleet. The turians have been defeated and the ships have surrendered."

This caused Tevos and Sparatus to pale. Or, rather Tevos, it was hard to tell with turians. He did have wide eyes and spread mandibles, so close enough. Sparatus swallowed from the shock. "How….how large was the human fleet?"

Aehann shook her head. "There was no fleet. From what the agent in charge said, the turian fleet had been fully taken over and the crews taken prisoner. They also managed to get footage from planetside and they marked it as Critical Importance." She linked her omnitool to the projector in the meeting table and the vid soon played. And with each second that passed watching it, each grew more and more uneasy, even terrified.

They watched as a lone armored human, wearing some form of very advanced power armor clearly, not only charged the turian camp with no weapon, but that none of the weapons could even crack the armor, there wasn't even any kinetic barrier attempting to stop the incoming fire. But that wasn't all. They watched as this human moved with unnatural speed and wield monstrous strength, ripping right through a tank, throwing turian soldiers around like toys and even pinning them down with some strange substance. Even the agility of this human seemed unnatural. They had to pause it before it finished, stopping it right when the human was using several restrained turians stuck together as a bludgeon against their comrades.

Silence rang out for a long while before it was finally broken. "Tevos, PLEASE tell me whoever you call can work miracles." Sparatus all but begged.

Marrok relaxed in his provided quarters. He wasn't allowed to roam unattended, but that was mostly so Willams wouldn't get into trouble with his superiors for allowing a 'civilian' to wander a military base without an escort. But Marrok was still allowed to have his privacy in his room, so he had no problem. He used this time to talk with Lucy. "So, I know I don't need to ask, but how does the tech of this universe stack?"

"Well, depends on what you mean, cause that's a mixed bag. This Element Zero is a fascinating material and something I know you and I will have a LOT of fun toying with. There's a LOT of potential just waiting to be unleashed. However, that's where my compliments end. Everyone in this universe seems to just accept that it can't be better and don't even bother to look for alternatives or even improve what's available. Oh, don't get me wrong, there is some innovations now and then, but really it's so small of one that it might as well not even have been done. Add to that these idiots seem to think Eezo is the End All, Be All for tech. I can understand it being super helpful, but that's no reason to center ALL of your technology around this ONE thing, especially when there doesn't seem to be a way to get more at the ready and you need to mine it from rocks or planets that survived a Supernova. And while on that subject, not a single idiot seems to have had the thought of trying to make synthetic Eezo to help with the shortage. I swear, if I were flesh and blood, I'd have an aneurysm from this. I feel like I still might right now."

Marrok chuckled at this. "Well, given what you've learned about it, how would the Adamantium Madam Web gave us work with it?"

"Well, without a sample to work with, I can only give speculations, but I'd wager it'd work like with any metal. But if I know you, and I do, you'll work to synthesize both Eezo and Adamantium to make some impressive toys. I can imagine you creating a ship made out of Adamantium and powered by an Arc Reactor while an Eezo core makes the ship light. You know, now that I think of it, you're going to be doing a LOT of shit that would have Stark coming for your head if he were here, aren't you?"

Marrok grinned. "It's only plagiarism if someone did it first, and last I checked, there's no Arc Reactor in this universe, among other things."

He heard Lucy sigh. "I swear, I don't know why I bother with you."

He laughed before going quiet before sitting up on the bed and looked at the door. Several seconds later, it opened and there stood General Williams. "I have my superiors on the line. They want to speak with you."

Nodding, Marrok stood up and followed Williams through the building. After a few minutes, they arrived at what could only be called a meeting room with a holoprojector surrounded by many chairs and a hologram of several men and women. Williams cleared his throat before speaking. "This is the man that aided us in defeating the turians." He then paused before looking back at Marrok. "I apologize, in all the madness, I never thought to ask for your name."

The armored man shrugged. "Meh, don't worry too much about it." He said before stepping forward. "Greetings, my name is Marrok Hunt. A pleasure to meet you."

One of the men muttered to himself, but Marrok could hear him all the same. "So he is human." Marrok could already hear the gears turning in the man's head on how he could use this.

One of the women spoke up. "I am Admiral Kastanie Drescher. I lead the 2nd fleet. We were on route to Shanxi to reinforce when we got word of your actions. For that, you have our thanks." The others introduced themselves, but Marrok didn't really pay attention to them.

Marrok nodded to them before he spoke up. "Ok, just so I don't have to play 20 questions, I'm going to give answers to what you're no doubt begging to ask. First off, I made this armor, there is no other like it, good luck finding another. Second, no I can not make an exact duplicate of this armor as some of the materials are basically extinct or the origin of which is unknown. Third, even if I COULD make an exact copy, not even your special forces could survive a downgraded version since I doubt any of them could handle stress that's enough to rip an arm off. I would have to personally train them to be able to handle the speed of which the armor functions. Fourth, I am NOT going to share my secrets with anyone as I am not beholden to the System Alliance. So don't act like you being a high ranking officer or politician will affect me. Fifth, if anyone tries to force me to obey your whims, I WILL disappear and you will NEVER find me unless I wish to be found. You want a chance to get any of my tech, you WILL respect that. Now then, with all that out of the way, I'm assuming you all read the information packet I gave to the good general here?" While none were clearly happy with his outright refusal to grant them access to his tech, he could tell they knew such things could wait.

For now, he had to ensure the jackasses called politicians didn't completely neuter humanity when the Citadel sent their diplomat.

The Diplomatic ship passed through the Relay and entered the system. Inside, a trio of ambassadors conversed, going over everything to ensure this wouldn't end like Parnack. The asari, Sei Prasi, the salarian, Jonant Toks, and the turian, Silonia Ebotion, discussed how best to approach the humans for the hopeful end of this conflict. They all had seen the vid and none of them wanted that kind of destruction unleashed upon them. Still, they were rather surprised and a tiny bit unnerved by how asari looking the humans were, with their females being almost exact copies minus the skin color and the fur on their heads in place of crests. As they approached the planet Shanxi, they noticed that along with the captured turian ships, there was a large fleet of human warships.

Their ship received a datapack and in it was instructions to head to the surface of the planet at a designated destination and that any deviation from the flight path would be taken as aggression and be met with extreme force.

While Sei and Jonant were nervous by the warning, Silonia could only nod in approval. She might not be a soldier, but just like nearly every other turian, she served her military for her required service time before she became a diplomat. So she could understand and even approve of the measures these humans were willing to implement to ensure their own safety.

The trio, along with four guards, boarded a shuttle and were soon on their way to the rendezvous. The trip was spent in silence, they talked about everything they needed to and instead spent this time getting their own thoughts in order. After some time, they landed and the ambassadors and their guards disembarked onto a green grassy field, untouched by the recent war. Already waiting for them were four humans and a large round holotable and several seats. Two clearly were military and one had to be their own ambassador, but it was the final one that caused the three to nearly freeze in fear. Standing with the three humans was the armored warrior that tore through the turians like a krogan through a glass pane. It made sense, no need for many guards when the only guard you needed could move faster and hit harder than anything a soldier could do.

Regardless, they had a job to do and they would see it done. Sei cleared her throat and spoke first. "Greetings, humans. I am Ambassador Sei Prasi, to my right is Ambassador Jonant Toks, and to my left, Ambassador Silonia Ebotion. It is our hope we can bring a peaceful end to this conflict."

The human ambassador, a woman, nodded her head in respect. "I am Ambassador Anita Goyle, to my right is General Williams, the one who led the defense of Shanxi, and to my left is Admiral Drescher, commanding the fleet above Shanxi. And to my far right is Marrok Hunt, the one who ended the invasion. He will be joining us at this meeting as well as acting as a guard. I hope that isn't a problem."

Silonia shook her head. "It's perfectly acceptable. Even without the context, it only makes sense."

Anita nodded. "Then let us get this meeting started." She said before gesturing to the table and took a seat, as did everyone else.

Jonant spoke up next. "Before we truly begin, might we ask why we're having this meeting out in this field instead of on a ship or a build?"

Marrok spoke up. "It was my idea actually. We have no idea how your peoples do diplomacy, so instead of a ship or a piece of infrastructure that would cost even more to replace or repair should any treachery occur, I suggested out here where nothing important other than those present and this table would be lost is the worst should happen. Suicide bombing is a very effective, if insane method of surprise attack."

This caused the Citadel ambassadors to pale at the horror of what they just heard. Suicide bombing?! What sane creature would even entertain such an action?!

Williams cleared his throat. "With that, may we begin?" He asked, getting things back on track.

Sei gulped, nodded in agreement. "Yes. I suppose the first thing to discuss is what would it take to end this conflict?"

Drescher was next to speak. "The return of all human prisoners for one. We're willing to give our turian prisoners in exchange, with the exception of Admiral Sersius Barbalianus. His actions and decisions led to the loss of life on both sides and he WILL face punishment."

"Is there anyway we can get you to reconsider that?" Silonia asked. "The Hierarchy recognizes his crimes and we are more than prepared to punish him as well as pay reparations for his actions."

Anita spoke up before Drescher or Williams could. "And what would be his punishment if we did hand him over to you?"

Silonia glared at Anita, not in anger, at least not at the human, but in determination. "His actions are an insult and disgrace to the Turian Hierarchy. It's one thing if he truly believed that your people broke Citadel law about activating Relays, regardless if you had not known about it, it would have been less offensive. But the fact is that he lied about the reason and planned to keep a cover on it by attempting to subjugate your race. He will be stripped of his rank, demoted back to a fresh recruit, forced to go through training all over again, with said training ten times more intense than the norm, and even if he passes that, he will never be promoted higher than a private. He will spend the rest of his days under the boot of someone else."

The humans were silent for a while before Marrok broke that silence. "We accept that and therefore will give him to you along with the other prisoners when we make the exchange."

This caused the ambassadors to visibly relax as Sei smiled. "Now, with that out of the way, shall we discuss inviting your people to the Citadel for a possible meeting to further negotiations?"

A bit of a filler, this one, but I'm having issues trying to keep this engaging without dragging it out. I am trying to get through the boring, but important stuff so the story can kick off proper and the fun can begin.

Also, sorry for the wait on this chapter, it was a mix of both waiting for a couple of reviews for the last chapter and having the energy to write this one. Work kicking my ass and it's hot as balls in South Carolina, so that saps more energy. And waiting on my Beta to get back to me on top of that. Anywho, you know the drill, read, review, no flames, constructive criticism, all that.