AN: I hear you people. I will try to make my pacing and romances a little more realistic in this little story about space wizards and their alien friends trying to convince the galaxy to help them murder giant billion year-old squid machines. (I'm sorry, I really do value your feedback I just giggled when my brain assembled that sentence) For real though, it took a while to write chapter 13, for some reason I just couldn't get it together. I'm going to partially walk back a claim I made either in comments or a previous AN: I'm going to be adhering a bit to ME1's story because it sets up so much for the rest of the series. Don't fret, I'll only throw in a few direct quotes here and there, and I'll be changing a few significant plot elements. Finally thanks to whomever it was that bought me a coffee, I totally forgot to set that up. For some reason I can't figure out who it was, so if you want a shout-out just lemme know.

Chapter 13

Shepard's squad met up with Ashley's a kilometer away from Zhu's hope in the Mako. The other three got inside and strapped in, Kaidan taking the wheel from Shepard so she could get a sit rep.

"We've discovered there's a being called the Thorian under Zhu's hope that ExoGeni was studying. They knew the colonists were being controlled the whole time." Ashley said.

"That's disturbing... How did you get them to admit it?" Shepard asked.

"That girl you sent back, her mother was with the ExoGeni group. They were so happy they told us everything. Lisbeth apparently had a lot of information on the project." Ash explained.

"That lying little bitch..." Tali said.

"We'll kill her later. Right now we need to go help the colonists. What else do we know?" Shepard said.

"They think it's sort of a sentient plant or fungus, when exposed to its spores for long enough it slowly assumes control of you. They think the Thorian has some form of telepathy, or perhaps it commands its thralls using some sort of chemical signal. It uses the beings it controls to maintain the land until they either starve or die of exhaustion, at which point it consumes their biomass." Harry explained.

"And right now it's attempting to gain control of the colonists." Shepard said.

"And us!" Harry included, tapping his temple.

"I can feel them trying to get in. Thank Merlin for occlumency." Harry said.

"That's... alarming. We should move then." Shepard said. When they arrived at Zhu's hope, it was swarming with Thorian creepers. The colonists were milling about amongst them, wandering around aimlessly.

"That's not good... We need to incapacitate the colonists carefully." Ashley observed.

"Harry and I will go out first and incapacitate the colonists with stunners. Liara's with Harry, Kaidan's with me, keep barriers up. Once the colonists are down, Tali and Garrus come out and help wipe out the creepers." Shepard said.

"Yes Commander." They all said, eerily in sync. Shepard opened the hatch and stormed out, Harry not far behind her. Liara and Kaidan afterwards following Harry and Shepard respectively. Liara's barrier snapped into place around her and Harry before her feet even hit the ground, and they moved slowly from colonist to colonist knocking them out. The creepers were the whole time, banging against Liara's biotic barrier fruitlessly.

"You're good at that." Harry said. Liara blushed.

"Thank you. Mother insisted I train with the commandos before leaving on my first expedition." Liara explained, as Harry downed his last colonist.

"Colonists are down, Tali and Garrus you're up!" Shepard shouted. The Quarian and Turian leapt out of the Mako and began systematically disassembling the creepers. Garrus stood at his full height, picking off distant creepers while following Tali's lead. Tali was crouched close to the ground annihilating any that came in close. Harry, Liara, Shepard and Kaidan helped mop up with their assault rifles, and soon the area was clear.

"No fatalities." Kaidan said, looking at his omnitool.

"Excellent work everyone. Let's press forward." Shepard said. She walked over and activated a control panel near one of the prefabricated dwellings and it slid back revealing a stairwell leading down into the ground.

"How did the colonists not know about that?" Ashley asked.

"The command to reveal the entrance required ExoGeni administrative access.. Not even our friend Lisbeth could have opened. Thankfully, our treaties mandate Human companies allow unfettered access to all off-world sites to spectres." Shepard said.

They made their way down the stairs and down a veritable maze of corridors, mowing down Thorian creepers the whole way until they reached an enormous open chamber surrounded by walkways. Suspended in the center by several undulating tendrils was a massive creature that vaguely resembled a cuttlefish.

"Keelah." Tali said, raising her arm and activating her omnitool.

"Ow.." Shepard said, holding her head. Harry growled and raised his wand firing a cutting hex at the creature's flank. The room shook as it screeched in pain, and Shepard staggered back, shaking her head.

"What the fuck was that?" Shepard asked.

"That was a very foolish creature attempting to brute force his way through your occlumency shields.

"It has magic?" Shepard asked.

"No, this is something different." Harry said, glaring at the thing. It began convulsing and moments later what looked like green-skinned asari was, for lack of a better term, vomited onto the ground in front of them.

"Shiala?" Liara asked, incredulously.

"You know her?" Harry asked. She nodded

"Shiala is one of mother's acolytes!" Liara said.

"Invaders.. your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig and decompose. I speak for The Old Growth..." Shiala said.

"That's not an Asari. It's made of the same stuff as the creepers." Tali observed.

"Why are you using Shiala's appearance?" Liara demanded.

"This Asari was traded to us for knowledge..." Shiala said.

"Shepard.." Garrus said, but was unheeded.

"That is a copy. Where is the original?" Shepard demanded.

"Seriously Shepard..." Garrus said.

"The original is safe, and like you she will serve the old growth until she expires." Shiala said.

"Let her go!" Shepard demanded, raising her rifle.

"Shepard!" Garrus yelled.

"What?!" She screamed at him.

"There are hundreds of those things heading this way." Garrus said, showing her his omnitool which showed hundreds of faint dots approaching the center of a circular grid.

"Goodbye, meat." Shiala said, raising her hands and charging her biotics.

"Harry?" Shepard said as the first creepers made it into the chamber.

"On it. Avada Kedavra!" Harry shouted. A burst of green light erupted from the death stick and slammed into the Thorian, causing it to shudder violently before falling limp, hanging uselessly from its dead tendrils. The creepers around them all exploded into piles of dead organic matter.

"What the fuck?" Garrus asked.

"I'll explain later. See if you can find the real Shiala." Shepard said. They split up and searched before Shepard called them over after finding what looked like a giant cyst in the wall. She pulled out her combat knife and sliced it open, jumping back as gallons of viscous liquid spilled out, followed by the unconscious form of an Asari commando.

"Is she ok?" Shepard asked. Liara walked over and placed her fingers on the pulse point on her neck.

"She's; alive and breathing." Liara said. The sound of it apparently waking Shiala up. She slowly rose to her feet and shook her head.

"Goddess... Liara?" Shiala asked. Liara smiled and nodded.

"Shiala, what happened here?" Liara asked.

"Benezia is with Saren. We were sent to try to dissuade him from the path he was on..." Shiala said.

"Mother is with him?!" Liara asked. Shiala nodded.

"How did you get stuck here?" Shepard asked. Shiala's shoulders slumped.

"I was... traded. For information. Saren absorbed information from a beacon on Eden Prime, but his mind couldn't comprehend it. The Thorian was a creature so old it lived to see the rise and fall of the Prothean Empire! Through me, he received a cypher that allowed him to make sense of the vision." Shiala explained.

"Do you still have that information? I saw the same vision, and I can't make heads or tails of it." Shepard said.

"Of course, I can give that to you immediately it's the least I can do." Shiala said.

"Ok, let's to this." Shepard said. Shiala approached Shepard with her hands raised, but was interrupted by Harry as he placed himself between Shepard and Shiala.

"Wait!" Harry said.

"What?" Shepard asked.

"Remember what happened the last time you absorbed Prothean information?" Harry asked. Shepard looked sheepish.

"Right... would you be willing to accompany us to The Normandy?" Shepard asked.

"Of course." Shiala said. They left the chamber and backtracked through the corridors, finally finding the entrance. When they made it to the top of the stairs they were accosted by dozens of colonists.

"We're so sorry!" Fai Dan said.

"We couldn't tell you anything! It was horrible!" Arcelia Martinez said.

"You had no control over yourselves. The Thorian is dead now, you should be safe." Shepard said. Harry activated his omnitool and punched in a few commands.

"An Alliance medical ship is on its way. Mind control is no joke, there are medical and magical doctors aboard. I'd avoid answering if ExoGeni calls, God knows what they think they'll find from examining you all." Harry said.

"Trust me, we'll never have anything to do with them again! We just wanted to settle this planet." Fai Dan said. They spoke for a while, and Dr. Chakwas was brought down from the Normandy to check out a few injured colonists. Afterwards they returned to the Normandy and set a course for the nearest mass relay. Dr. Chakwas insisted on checking over everyone, and was pleased to see no major injuries. Harry had managed to patch himself up so well she didn't need to do anything more than berate him for being careless. After being given clean bills of health, everyone except Shepard, Harry, Liara and Shiala left the room. Dr. Chakwas hooked Shepard up to some monitors and sat in a stool across from she and Shiala.

"Harry will monitor you magically and I'll watch your vitals. Any signs of distress and Harry will stun the commander, it's the safest way of breaking the meld." Chakwas explaiend.

"I'm ready when you are." Shepard said to Shiala.

"Then... Embrace Eternity!" Shiala said. Her eyes went black and she dove into Shepard's mind, to Harry and Karin it looked like a very strange staring contest. Shepard was blinking but Shiala was not.

"Thessia hasn't figured out why their eyes go black definitively but I think it's kind of like the nictitating membrane on some Earth animals. Protects the eyes from damage while she's immobile and not blinking." Harry observed.

"Goddess, that makes so much sense!" Liara said

"Surely someone's explored that possibility?" Chakwas said. Harry frowned.

"For all their wisdom and patience, they're very narrow minded, no offense, Liara." Harry said

"None taken. Why do you think I'm the preeminent Asari authority on the Protheans? My people focus too much on the now sometimes." Liara said Harry nodded.

"Eyes turning black during melds is normal, and not a sign of disease or injury so their medical scientists don't explore it. Funny that we have so much less time to waste, and yet we're so much more curious." Harry said.

"Fuuuuuck." Shepard said, rubbing her eyes after breaking out of the meld.

"Are you ok?" Chakwas asked, looking at the monitors.

"Yeah, I feel fine. Are you ok, Shiala?" Shepard asked. Shiala nodded.

"Did you get what you needed?" Shiala asked.

"Yeah, at least I think so. That vision makes a lot more sense.. Saren is looking for a planet called Ilos." Shepard said

"Ilos?!" Liara, Shiala and Harry all asked in unison. Shepard stared at them wide-eyed.

"Yes..." Shepard said, looking at them warily.

"That's not good... That means he's looking for the Mu Relay." Liara said after she recovered from the shock.

"The last thing I heard before they left was that they're heading to Noveria, perhaps there is a lead there?" Shiala observed.