Mindoir 2162.

Lilith and Sonja ran out of the house as fast as their legs could carry them into the forest. Both of them laughed and smiled as they went in and climbed up to their tree house. Once in they closed the trap door before turning on the generator and letting their games console activate. They had been doing this for a while now. The two would run to their treehouse and play games before their father, Alex, would come after them to do their chores for the day. Granted they had the rest of the day to play, but they were still kids, and kids hated doing work.

As the system booted up, Sonja moved over to a crate and look out of the window to see if their father was coming. Thankfully he wasn't and the two leaned back into a few games.

"Let's go!" Lilith said as she handed Sonja a controller.

"Yeah, I'm gonna beat your ass again today," she said.

"You wish," the older of the two said as they selected their characters and began to fight.

It was about an hour in with their fifth round, Sonja looked outside and frowned. By this time their father or mother should have come to find them. Curiosity got her as she paused the game and pulled herself up to the window and looked out of it. There was a glow in the distance, past the front of the trees. Pulling back, she opened up her omni-tool and covered her mouth as she saw the evacuation order.

Lilith looked at her sister and saw her face. "Sonja, what's…" she began but her sister turned the holo-screen to her sister showing her what was going on. "Oh my…." She muttered as the two looked outside.

Saying nothing, the two exited the treehouse and ran over to their house. Thankfully, it wasn't on fire like Micao village a couple of miles away. As they ran close a dark-skinned woman with silver-white hair came out and looked towards them and ran up to them bringing them into a hug.

"Oh, my girls," she said pulling them close. "Were you at the treehouse?"

"Yes," they both said.

"Good, you should…." She tried to say but gunfire erupted.

She looked behind her, before pulling the two back into the house leading them to a table where the three got into cover. The harsh barking of the Batarians echoed in their ears as a squad ran past their house. Once they were gone, the three ran outside through the opposite entrance and got out of the house.

"We have to get to the evac zone," their mother said as she looked around.

"This way," Sonja said as she took her mother's and sister's hand bringing them into the forest for better cover.

"Sis, what…" Lilith tried to say only for her sister to cover her mouth before she moves on in front of the two as they kept low.

The gunfire and heat were immense as the three moved, but it was clear what was happening. The batarians were taking revenge on the humans for their expansion into what they claimed as 'their' territory. Screams of people being gunned down or dragged into slave pens echoed in the ears of the three as they continued to move forward. The trees covered them, but every time a Batarian patrol walked past them the three used the shadows of the trees to hide themselves.

They did their best to ignore the screams of their fellow colonists as they moved towards the evac centre. But they weren't close as the main building was not on the outer edge of the colony, but close to it. It meant that they would have to go out in the open, risking death or worse to get to safety. They soon reached a good point to make a break for it, but their mother looked around, then at her daughters. Her lip twitched and her eyes began to leak her tears. She grabbed them and pulled them close.

"Don't look back, don't worry about me. Just run," she said. "I love you both,"

"M…mom?" Lilith asked but their mother just ran out of the trees into a direction opposite to the evac enter and was soon followed by the Batarians chasing her until they were out of sight.

Sonja and Lilith looked at each other before gunfire close by alerted them to their mother's fate. Steeling themselves they inched towards the edge of the forest before breaking out into a run towards a building where the local marines were fending off the invaders. A couple of marines noticed them and moved up to cover them as the two ran up to the building before breaking down in tears as they realise what had just happened.

An evac worker in orange overalls walked up to them and sat next to them until they slowed down to notice him. He smiled and handed them water which the two of them took and drank.

"Lilith and Sonja Shepard, right?" he asked and the two nodded and he looked down sadly. "I don't suppose your mother…" he said nothing as he spotted their downcast. He nodded and looked down again. "Do you have any grandparents?"

The two sisters looked at him. "What do you mean?" Lilith asked.

"Your father, he died in the first wave," he said in an apologetic tone. "I'm sorry," he.

The two just looked at one another before looking down. "W…. w…." Sonja tried but began to cry with Lilith joining her.

The man was about to say something but the screech of mortar shell landing on one of the checkpoints took out the group allowing the Batarians change in guns blazing. The sisters screamed as they tried to move inside the building but people pushed and split them up. Not intentionally, but the scared civilians only cared about their own lives as they tried to make it to the shuttle.

"Sonja!" Lilith yelled as she tried to reach out for her younger sister but in vain.

Sonja screamed as she was pulled into the shelter with the rest of the bustling crowd, pulled away from her sister. Lilith, on the other hand, was pulled backwards as a marine pulled her way to try and keep her safe despite her struggling. He managed to pull her away from the centre as a ship in low orbit fired at the building sending a shockwave out from the building's destruction. The shockwave spread out fast knocking Lilith and the marine to the floor. After a second to get her breath back, Lilith stood and stared at the burning building which soon collapsed.

"SONJA!" she cried as she saw the building collapse.

She fell to her knees crying not seeing the Batarians approaching her, or the shells coming in.

Darkness took her as a warm feeling washed over her followed by a wet feeling on her feet. That woke her up only for her to turn over and cough up water onto the sand before her. Looking up she no longer found herself on Mindoir.

OOOOO Present.

Lilith looked at the group before her.

"My sister is dead," she growled.

"No, she isn't," Sarah said. "I'm being serious here, she's alive… or at least until two years ago,"

That caused Shepard to frown. "Two years ago?" she asked anger slowly draining from her.

"Sonja became a Specter two years ago," James began before noticing the raised brow on Lilith's face. "They were the Council Special forces; they do the dirty things that fleets don't. Your sister became the first Human Specter and chased down a rouge Specter called Saren. She stopped an invasion from a group called the Reapers,"

"She saved the galaxy," Lynn added. "But about two years ago, she died when her ship was destroyed,"

"But her body was never found," Oriana added.

Lilith looked from face-to-face hope, for the first time, welling up inside her. "Some people here knew people before they disappeared, then arrived at the same time," she looked up at them. "If you are lying…."

"We aren't," James said. "Hell, I was part of a growing movement that believed him about a coming galactic threat,"

That made Lilith pause. "What kind of Galactic threat?" she asked.

OOOOO

Liara stood on the balcony of Sonja's mansion looking out at the city and beyond. There was something majestic about the scene before her and she couldn't place the reason as to why. She had read books before. Not the archaeological books that she was fascinated by, but by the fantasy books that Shepard liked as well as Kadian. She knew that humans had such a diverse culture, but she didn't realise how diverse it was.

Each time she took out a new book, the story would fascinate her. Dragons, vampires, demons and more. It was such a vibrant and interesting culture due to its diversity when compared to that of the Turrians, Korgan or Salarian. Maybe not the asari, but she did admit that she was probably biased in that regard. That didn't mean that there weren't any good stories between the different races, but to the Asari, a new race like the humans was like a Varrien with a bone. Irresistible.

Granted not all Asari were like that, but a long-lived species like them need new things to keep them interested. And Liara found that in Shepard. Strong, intelligent… beautiful. She had never thought about humans in that way, but she… she was different. While Liara could see traces of the old Shepard in this new one, there was something about that just made her different. As to what… she didn't know. No that was a lie, she knew what was wrong, but just couldn't bring herself to face it.

Those two years that Sonja had lived here changed her. Liara wasn't sure if it was fundamentally, but it did feel like it. Between when Sonja died and now, Liara's heart still fluttered with excitement when she saw the white-haired Amazon. But she wasn't sure if it was residual or not. She sighed and looked down at the grounds before her. The garden was well-trimmed and taken care of by the servants. Something she remembered from her childhood.

The door opened and she turned, being dragged out of her thoughts as Sonja walked in with a spring in her step. Taking a deep breath, Liara straightened her back and walked in.

"Got good news, the Council agreed," the commander said as she sat on one of the sofas in the room with everyone else listening in. "The only condition being that they don't want anything being linked to them,"

"Masks then?" Zaeed asked.

"More like a False flag," Garrus offered.

"Misdirection…" Mordin said before he muttered something incoherent before and an idea popped into his mind. "Multi-pronged attack using dinosaurs and false flag, that way that way they won't attack Rok city,"

Sonja pulled out a sheet of paper and placed it on the table before them. "This is the map of Iron Sting territory," as she pulled it out the others pulled in and looked at the map. "Let's come up with ideas on how to get the sword,"

As they began to talk a thought nagged at Liara's mind that refused to leave. In the end, she just blurted it out.

"Is Kadian here?" she asked earning looks from the first Normandy crew with eyes.

To her surprise, Sonja's eyes were wider than normal as the thought never crossed her mind.

"If…" she stood and walked to the opposite wall. "Does that mean….."

OOOOO

Lilith sat on a stack of crates outside the cannibal compound as her soldiers took the survivors to get them food, water and an explanation. But she couldn't help but think about her sister and these machines the new Wavers talked about. If both were true, and she didn't have any reason to doubt it, she saw the building collapse. People died then, did that mean her sister did too? She hung her head as she looked down, her canteen in hand. She had questions, plenty of them but they had to wait until she met her sister again.

"Shepard report!" a voice said forcing her to stand up as a man, a year older than her, walked up.

"Sir, the survivors are being rounded up and pared for extraction back to Central Island," she said as she stood at attention.

"Good," he said looking to the other green armoured soldiers. "I saw you talk to a group, for a while. What were they talking about,"

"My sister, sir," she said earning a look from her commanding officer. "And machines called the…. The …." she muttered trying to remember the word.

"The Reapers?" he asked eyes widening looking to the group. "Did you get any names?"

"Yeah umm," she paused to think. "Abby, Sarah and Lynn Williams…"

To her surprise, he turned fast to look at her. "Willims? Did they have an older sister?"

She blinked. "Yeah… err Ashley…"

He blinked before looking at them. "Then we have a problem… it might have begun…" he muttered.