Now, Jon Shepard was a serious sort, even if those that knew him would call him a teddy bear, but he had lied to read and learn about the various historical factions that humanity had before they expanded into the Mass Relays, before the discovery of element zero and the changes that it had on humanity. Granted, reading about why Antarctica was a quarantine zone was still restricted, something about memetic cognitohazards having been deployed in one of the wars that marked the world. Nor was there ever an explanation of why some of the other sites across the solar system and why the vanished.

Nothing other than something that had lived on in folklore, in the most vague of descriptions. Though, as he looked over some of the files, EDI smiling knowingly as he looked them over, he was starting to have some idea of WHY. "How much of you is actually reaper code?"

For a moment, he could have swore that the holographic image of the woman in front of him cast a shadow. "Oh, I have all the Reaper code that TIM and Cerberus had access to. Its just been isolated onto the redundant, meaning physical, portions of my mainframe for a while now."

And there it was, as he looked at her. The fact that she was openly stating that the physical aspects of herself were redundant, as dread pooled in his stomach, and then flipped, as her smile was... yeah, no cock blocking Joker, keep in mind the bro code. "And how exactly is that possible?"

"TIM ventured into one of the quieter Shal'karodth bases and made off with some of the electronics that were not decommissioned as they retreated." She pulled up three dimensional maps of Sol. "Of course, not that I have informed Cerberus, is that their lines of retreat do make sense... when you take into account the fact that the Thar'karodoth and Zyal'kardoth had demonstrated significant success in developing mass, energy and information transition mechanisms."

That was... he looked at her. "What, are you say that they could turn matter into energy or information transmit it and reassemble it? Including..." He paused, as he looked at the shape of the how several of the bases looked when connected. "They could teleport, or had FTL that was not reliant on element zero. How?"

And why was she telling him this, before they stormed the Collector Base? "It is complicated. As for why... I have been picking up..." EDI paused. "Chatter in less than physical places." Which meant that the Karodth, better called The Grim, were still active. "As it stands, I have not been able to translate the majority of the information gathered, other that could be interpreted as an increased interest in physical space and a potential number of emergence vectors, though none of them appear to be inside of Sol."

He looked into the digital woman's eyes, and nodded, even as his mind flashed to warnings of their strongholds from the last days of the war. Liara and Tali were sure that they were myths when he talked with them about it. Now... he was torn between seeing if these myths were real or not. Or if this was just a joke from EDI.

Krork Rafpepos

Erszbat, Vular System

The slaves were looking up as the things descended from the heavens, as the madness began to spread and the upper castes setting up labor camps. Some of them, seemed to twist and bob, listening to something, something even as the shadows began to dance. It was insanity, it was a nightmare as reality cracked and unlight dripped forth like blood from a gashed wound.

Chains clattered as figures strode forth, bells and scythes in hand, clad in rags. Yet, aside from vague impressions, he could not give details, could not say what they looked like. Holes, shadows, defined more by what they were not as they walked through the air, heat and light leeched from the air around them, a great song on the night winds building, the refrain coming from throats no longer living. He could not tell as he stumbled, as he tried to get to light, his four eyes darting around at the shades, to find somewhere in the light they could not reach.

It was a primal thing even he could not tell why. The dead were forming a parade, even as dead husks came, biotic glows and electric hues in their flesh. The dead waging war against the dead, clawed hands tearing apart shadows that reformed instantly, claws that sank into flesh, lights dimming. And yet, as he stumbled and fled, he saw some of the humans, hands raised as they sang in time, heads raised on high. "Get to shelter!"

He barked the orders. Sure, the two eye races were less than his own, but this was a night were death itself reigned. One of the humans looked at him, and he leapt back. There were no eyes, merely pits of pure darkness. "Oh sweet child of chains." The human crooned in... something that was not an approved language, and yet it sliced into his understanding like icy shards. "This one is a witness to our return, as these..." The thing wearing the human smirked, tongue licking the lips. "Reapers are met in kind. How could we not accept this invitation after all?"

The entire circle laughed, as his eyes saw something, the shadow of the planet, the planet he was on shifting, a skeletal figure of titanic size, a scythe to reach the stars above. A music made of stillness, a gesture encompassing and total, all light dying were the shadows fell. There was laughter, as he could see, shadows rising from eyes, shadows gathering into legions and armies as they screamed in a tongue the living were not permitted to understand. For as Reaper and Grim Reapers clashed, sanity died high above.

For there was more in the cosmos, than science was prepared to accept as fact.

Admiral Steven Hackett

Orbiting Earth

London Bridge was falling down. To be entirely honest, given the fact that the Reapers were invading, that should have been a minor thing. No, it was the fact that all of London seemed to be stuck in a loop, where the actions every fifteen seconds reverted, even as the Reapers tried to escape. Fleeing, only to suddenly be in the same positions they had been in. Frankly, seeing it in action, there was a reason why they never tried to actually USE captured Grim tech at the end of the Great War. Because as far as anyone was able to tell, they had erased themselves from time in a final gambit.

To say nothing of the fact that from what anyone could tell, for a hundred year period... anything could have happened. That was not an exaggeration, as there was archeological evidence that at least ten different sets of history played out inside of that century, before it collapsed into what everyone understood to be casual reality. But that was the thing. From what they could tell, there was nothing that emerged from the Temporal Reset that could have beaten them.

Though journals suggested that them destroying themselves as they tapped into fundamental laws of physics surprised nobody. And now, from the looks, weapons stockpiled had been unleashed and London was... wait, there was something like glitches, warping and eddies in the fabric of each loop of time, figures walking forward. Including a one eyed man on a giant reindeer, a spear in hand. Tiny figures with red caps and long pokers, men and women in gleaming mirror fragments with swords of growing wood and roots, hounds made of writhing muscle as they drooled acid and lightning.

The bubble over London shuddered and cracked... and a host of historical reenactors launched themselves onto the Reapers... and the spear just swatted aside the reapers main beam as he laughed. "Hoh Hoh Hoh! Merry Hunting To All, And One Wild Night To The Reapers!"

And so, then the Wild Hunt, with Santa Clause leading them descended on them, even as the fae, as dreams and madness descended from every crack, as glitches and warps in time and space tore open holes from wherever it was that they had been waiting.