Darkstar moved up the stairs of his office looking over the books, trying to see if there was any corruption merging them. It wasn't the best job or the most glamorous. But it was one important job. The corruption, or darkness, or whatever people called it, was like a really annoying fungus. If left alone, it could spread far and wide. Destroying whatever it infected if left too long. It was part of the watcher's job to ensure little pests like that.

He sighed as he scanned more, the fact that the Star Child was corrupted in John's universe was an indication that it got infected somehow. It wasn't hard to think how or why. The corruption seeped into John's universe and offered itself to the Star Child to keep the cycle going. But there was one nagging question in his mind. The other how. While the corruption seeping in was the main explanation, there was a point that he couldn't figure out. Normally, the corruption needed a source inside the universe in order to affect it fully.

This source could be anything from a person accepting a deal to someone inside. The corruption couldn't just enter without something similar to it inside or being invited in. So, the question was who invited it in or what gave it an anchor and was it in other universes? It was something he needed to find out after 'cleaning' the books in his library. Other than the corruption, there always nasties trying to cause chaos. As he took a book out and began to clean it, the sound of a new arrival met his ears.

"Darkstar!" a deep female voice yelled. "Get your ass down here, you have some explaining to do,"

"Give us one tick," he said as he cleaned the book, before walking down a set of stairs. "Ah Jari, I suppose that you want to talk about my little stunt?" he asked as he reach ground level.

His fellow watcher, Jari, wasn't human. She was a Kalmann, a somewhat humanoid creature with dark skin, four eyes, claws and a tail. In a way, she could be mistaken for human, but it wasn't easy.

"Yes," she said, her voice adding a low growl. "What were you thinking? Trying to fix a universe like that? Are you mad? Do you know what could happen?"

"I'm aware and I didn't have a choice," Darkstar replied. "The universe was going to collapse in on itself with 5 others. If it let it take those universes, I'm not sure what else it would take,"

"You know the drill, you leave it and let it happen," she said. "It's standard procedure with universes beyond saving," as she spoke, she shook her head. "I mean why did you break procedure?"

Darkstar just looked at her before jerking his head for her to follow him. He led her over to the side. A door waited for them and she frowned at the number of locks and wards on the door. Jari was about to say something, but Darkstar just moved to unlock the looking hole.

"Have a look," he said.

Jari did so and froze, what she saw couldn't be what she was seeing. It shouldn't be possible. Inside was a large black and purple ball hovering in the middle of the room. Black and purple tendrils anchored themselves to the walls of the room while several books swirled inside the orb itself and outside. Blue light leaking from them and being absorbed by the orb. It seemed to grow with each node of blue light.

"What in the heaven's names?" she muttered.

Darkstar closed the window and looked at her. "This is why I did what I did. It's growing,"

She nodded at that. "I need to report this to the council,"

"Please do, I need to stay here, and keep and eye on it," he replied.

The two nodded at each other before Jari vanished before him leaving him alone. He looked to the door before moving off to continue his cleaning. Right now, there was little he could do.

OOOOO

"Hey John can you help me out here?" Shion asked as she turned to him.

"Sure," he said. "What do you need?"

In response, she held up the sonic speakers to him. "Can you fit these on to the bases?" she indicated to two ports on her shoulders. "It's a bit tricky,"

"Sure," he nodded as he took the speakers and looked to the ports bon both the speakers and shoulders. "Ok, how do they…" he muttered to himself trying to figure out how to install the sonic weapons.

As he looked, the others were preparing themselves. Yasuke was sharpening his sword, Ajax was checking his sniper rifle while Jane was eating a biotic bar with another ready. Ajax just looked at her as she scoffed down the bar before opening the next. His brow raised at her as she looked to him with a frown of her own.

"What?" she asked.

Ajax jerked his head to the bar. "Got more?"

Jane rolled her eyes and pulled out a bar before passing it to him. "Thanks," he said as he tore open the packaging with his teeth and tucked into it.

"I'm not offering anymore," the biotic declared.

"Wasn't asking. Ok, I think…." John muttered as he fitted the sonic speakers onto Shion's shoulders. "There we go," he said as he locked the speakers on.

"Heads up," she said before she spoke into the microphone in front of her mouth. Making beeps and bops with her mouth, adjusting the sound making the four wince. "Sorry," she shyly said before making a couple more adjustments. "Ok, should be good," she muttered as she pulled out sonic ear defenders and handed them to Yasuke and Ajax.

The two didn't say anything as they fitted them in. "Get ready," Ajax muttered.

"What's the plan?" Jane asked.

John smiled. "Well, I was thinking if it was a bunch of asari, we throw you into them. Then as they ravish your body, we fix the atmo generator," Jane shot him an evil look.

Ajax just smiled while Shion whistled and Yasuke looked away. Jane opened her mouth to respond but the lift stopped and the door opened. Moving quickly with weapons up, the five of them moved into the room. Eyes open for any threats. It was pretty clear that this place created the atmosphere in the entire sector. The place large and round with a central pilar in the middle. The walls around the room were flat hand had air fans every 5 meters from each other. Normally, they would be spinning to send fresh air into the habitat sectors. But turned off, those people would choke. The five looked around, eyes tarting for targets but nothing showed up.

"Anyone recognise the tech?" John asked.

Shion nodded. "Yeah mine," she replied looking around. "But to be fair, only Ajax's tech looks different,"

"Good point," the infiltrator muttered. "But that pillar looks odd,"

"Very good observation," a voice called out followed by a slow clap.

The five moved their weapons over to the newcomer with Ajax growling in annoyance. "Jaroth," he muttered as they cyborg salarian walked in.

"Ajax, so good of you to come to me directly," as he spoke, he looked to the other four. "Alone with your siblings. But I must say, your mother must had been quite the whore given their looks,"

Ajax said nothing as he grit his teeth and resisted the urge to tighten his finger on the trigger.

"But you'll be joining her soon," he said as he pressed something on a gauntlet.

Something on the central pillar began to move getting the 5 Shepard's attention. They looked to it as something uncurled itself from the pillar and begin to take flight. Yasuke looked on in fear and backed up a step while Ajax, Shion and Jane just stared wide eyed at the machine. John, however, was salivating of the machine that began to float and move around to face them.

"I want, so bad," he drooled looking at the mecha dragon that floated around the central pillar.

"Oh great," Jane groaned with a roll of the eyes. "He's in gearhead mode,"

"The fuck is that thing?" Ajax asked.

"It's a guard dragon," Yasuke said. "There should only be 12 in existence in my world. They protect the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. They protect the Emperor,"

"Well shit," John muttered as he looked at the machine.

It was shaped like the snake like Asian dragons from myths. The segmented sections moved and rippled as it moved along while flying. The underside was a polished silver and rippled with some kind of anti-grav tech while the top was a clean red and yellow that ran across the 30-meter metal monster. A pair of realistic antlers sat on his head while it's fox-like face snarled at them. Its teeth, on the other hand, were little more than razor sharp buzzsaws and drills. As it roared, it spit out a large gobbet of flame.

"And it breaths fire?" Shion asked, eyes wide. "We're dead,"

Jaroth yelled out laughing. "There's no way you are making it out this time Ajax!" he declared. "You're dead! You're all fucking dea…." He didn't manage to finish that off as the metal dragon shredded him to pieces. Sending bits of Salarian everywhere.

Once that was done, it looked up at them and roared. "Move!" all five yelled as the mech charged at them.

OOOOO

Miranda and Jacob made it into the clinic with Ashley on their shoulders. Their entrance caused quite the stir, mostly due to the sight of the demon in their hands. The expressions on peoples faces where a mix of surprise, shock and fear. Tension filled the air as three looked around. But it didn't last long as a couple of the Normandy mercs ran up to help Miranda and Jacob to help them guide Ahsley to an empty gurney. They helped her onto it before several medics came up to heal her.

"Well, this is a surprise," Clover said as she walked up to the three. "I wasn't expecting to see Ashely here,"

"Yeah," Jacob said with a nod before explaining what happened.

It didn't take long and Clover just blinked at them. "Really demons and magic?" she shook her head. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Infinite possibilities out there," looking up she then offered her hand. "I'm Miranda by the way, but to save on confusion… call me Clover,"

The two shook her hand. "Clover?" Miranda asked. "I suppose that makes sense," she shrugged. "Call me Sakura then, since we're going for a flower theme,"

"What about the other Jacobs?" Jacob asked.

Clover shrugged. "They seemed to be going for a Pirate theme as my Jacob is calling himself. Barbarossa,"

"Ok, call me Kenki then, he was a pirate," Kenki said.

Clover nodded as she brought her omnitool and typed something in. "Ok, updated. Welcome to the madhouse," she smiled with a shrug. The clinic shook as something hit it.

A soldier, came in. "We're under attack!" he yelled.

Clover, said nothing as she ran out with a Garrus and a Jacob followed with a Miranda and Kadian joining soon after. After the last attack, the NSS mercs moved to reinforce the barricades with some scrap from the previous battle. As the seven crewmembers exited the clinic, Kadain took immediate command.

"What's the situation?" he yelled before diving into cover, avoiding gunfire from a Korgan merc.

"Blood Pack and Eclipse attack!" one of the mercs yelled as more shots hit around them forcing them into cover. "Joint attack by Blood Pack Vorcha and Eclipse troopers,"

"First wave attack," Clover yelled as she popped up out of cover and fired her pistol with incineration ammo selected.

The rounds hit several Vorcha turning them into little more than burning piles. Sakura and Miranda followed suit with suing the same ammo while Cyrus used his sniper skills to take out the ones near the back. Taking the time to target the flame troopers, causing their tanks to explode and kill others around them. The two Jacobs moved to support a group of NSS soldiers operating one of the turrets. Kadian looked over trying to plan tactics of defence while taking pot shots at the mercs.

But the group didn't have it their own way. Three NSS troopers were killed before the group arrived, and another one fell due to the onslaught of fire. That only left 4 of the original 8 that were there trying to hold back the merc forces. A round also bounces off one of the metal walls hitting Jacob in the arm. He grunted but applied omni-gel before throwing a singularity, scattering some of the assault.

Some of the attackers recovered quickly and began a fighting retreat while the others were picked off. As the others moved out of range, the NSS began to take stock of their supplies and wounded. The dead didn't matter at this point, other than retrieving their tags. Kadian jumped over the barricade and looked at the soldiers who were scattered, checking them for supplies. Most were dead while a few where on the way which Kadian helped along. But there was one thing he noticed. The uniforms, while having a similar colour, where different. There was the 'standard' uniform which matched Jane's and John's armour, there was also the cyborg armour wearing troopers and samurai like troopers.

It was pretty clear that this was some kind of mixed attack. He needed to plan and figure out what to do. Looking back, he yelled out his orders.

OOOOO

"Sshi Bal!" Shion yelled as she and John jumped one way out of the way, while the other three jumped the other. Once clear, she looked to John. "Still want this thing?" she asked.

He looked at her as if she was crazy. "Yes," he said as the dragon crashed behind them. "Whoa," he yelled out as the two of them ran.

"I'm looking at the thing on my HUD," Ajax called out on the radio, his 'shades' deployed. "I'm not seeing anything. It must have some kind of scanner suppression systems,"

"More likely multiple," Yasuke added over the radio. "They were meant as the ultimate defence against any attack on Kyoto,"

John thought about that for a moment. "It probably has some kind of active dampening systems as well," he muttered. "Likely multiple as a redundancy measure,"

"Explains why I cannot scan the damn… Jane what are you?" Ajax yelled as the biotic ran as fast as she could on one of the walls.

When she got close, she jumped onto the dragon's back and held onto one of the panels as it pulled itself out of its crash and moved around the room again. She charged up her biotics and pushed her hand into a hole before sending out a singularity in the hope it would do something. It did as it then began to move violently shaking her off. Using a warp ball, Jane landed somewhat safely, but not without a few bruises.

"That do anything?" she called out.

The dragon moved to look at her, it's blazing read eyes regarding her with hate. It roared and charged at her which she moved out of the way. It was slow, which was something. But the thick armour and suppression systems inside it were a big problem. It slammed into a fan before pulling itself away.

"Got nothing," Ajax called out. "But that section seems to have done something at least,"

John and Shion then moved up with the latter stopping and screamed into her microphone. The sonic waves it the machine making it stop and shake its head in a very animalistic way. She blinked at that but continued the scream for as long as her lungs allowed. It was enough to let John get in and get its attention it looked to him and roared. Doing so allowed the engineer to throw a grenade into its mouth before running. The explosive landed on one of the saws and detonated.

The explosion did little structural damage, but took out it's flamethrower and buzzsaw teeth. John smiled, but that smile quickly vanished as the machine looked at him. The smoke coming from its mouth not doing his nerves any favours.

"Oh shit," he muttered as he turned and ran.

Seeing his chance, Yasuke ran and jumped onto the machine's side and climbed up the scales. He reached the top before the dragon began to chase John. As Yasuke moved along the spine of the dragon, he recalled a possible weakness of the machine.

"I'm going to try something," he yelled into the radio. "Keep it occupied,"

He didn't a reply as the dragon turned violently to face Ajax who shot at it. It charged at him, but stopped as he vanished into thin air. Looking over to the others, he got a thumbs up giving the samurai the all clear. He nodded and moved up to a segment not to far from the head. Drawing his sword, and holding on tightly, he readied himself for the strike. If the rumour was true, there was a power cable to the main gravity lifters just behind the dead. If he cut that, he could stop the thing from moving and they'll be able to take it out.

Aiming he thrust his sword into the gap and moved it left and right cutting as many cables as he could. The machine roared and flipped back breaking the samurai's sword and sending him backwards and onto the floor below. Landing with a thud and a groan, he looked up to see that the gravity didn't cut out as he hoped, but instead it was colliding with the roof and walls. As if it was trying to dislodge something or was getting pissed off by a fly.

"Its sensors are down!" John yelled. "It can't see!"

It landed and began to thrash around like a wounded animal. "I see it's power pack!" Ajax then yelled. "It's in the middle,"

There was no other word as the five of them grabbed their grenades and threw it at the machine before it could move again. They threw all of them with Jane holding them in place with a warp ball. All of them detonated cracking the dragon's plating and opening part of it up showing its core.

"Oh shit," John yelled as he ran to it and pulled off some more pieces as just the head thrashed about. "It's a small starship core!" he yelled as he looked for some kind of controls.

"Oh," Jane's eyes widened. "A good deathtrap," she muttered as she and the others ran over to help.

"What do you need?" Ajax asked as John looked around the orb.

"One sec," the engineer said as he opened up his omni-tool and scanned the machine. "Ok, Jane get those two cables, Ajax those," he pointed to a set of two cables on each side of the core. The two grabbed them without much prompting while John grabbed onto two other cables. "On three pull, three!" he yelled.

At once, all three of them pulled, disconnecting the power from the dragon shutting it down. it stopped moving almost immediately making the five of them sigh in relief before John started to laugh followed by the others.

"Fucking hell, that was intense!" Shion yelled as she fell on her ass. "I need a drink,"

"You and me both kid," Ajax smiled earning an odd look from the idol before looking at the pillar. "Oh shit, John the atmo,"

"Oh shit," the engineer yelled as he ran up to the central pillar and began to type and sighed. "Sytem's not too damaged," he said. "But I have to run a few bypasses. Shouldn't take too long,"

The four Shepards nodded as they took stock about taking down a mecha dragon.

OOOOO

"INCOMING!" Cyrus yelled as a rocket whizzed passed the defences heads and slammed into the clinic walls.

"Take that fucker down!" Kadian yelled as he fired his assault rifle, targeting the soldiers advancing on them.

Most of them being Vorcha, Asari and humans while the Korgan and Salarians hug back, advancing from debris to debris, doing their best to stay in cover and out of range of the NSS guns. In response to this, they began to deploy the heavy troopers such as Korgan and mechs. But they were being funnelled into a kill zone, without being able to move. An asari merc, feeling brave or stupid, moved out of over and charged at the barrier in an attempt to take it down.

She only got halfway before Miranda used pull to bring the asari over and have Sakura chop her head off in a clean cut. The ninja then threw the head like a projectile at a random trooper who screamed at the sight. The scream didn't last long as the trooper's head exploded from a shot from one of the Jacobs. It didn't stop the assault though as most of them still moved while a few hesitated.

"What are you doing you wimps?!" one of the Korgan said. "Kill them," he yelled pulling a trooper out of cover and pushing them down the street.

"It's Garm, or one of them at least," Cyrus yelled.

"Can you get a shot?" Kadian asked.

After a moment, Cyrus shook his head. "Negative. The shot will bounce off of the shields,"

"Target Garm them!" Kadian yelled. "Take his shields down!"

No one said anything but focused fire on Garm who moved into cover to avoid the onslaught. While Krogan were war hungry, they were still tactically minded. They knew when to get back into cover.

"Can anyone flush him out?" Jacob asked.

"Negative, don't have a shot," Clover yelled which was followed by similar calls.

Kadian cursed in annoyance as he tried to think of a way of taking out one of the merc commanders. But nothing came to mind. They were stuck and running low on ammunition. They needed something to break the back of the attacking mercs, but nothing came to mind. He had lost contact with the other NSS forces, most troops he had were medical cases, they couldn't move up as they would leave the clinic undefended, they couldn't sustain the defence with Krogan and mechs on the move. He needed to think of something, but what?

What could they do? Pinned from all sides, a leader on the field and seemingly no end to the merc forces. What could they do? The sound of jet turbines echoed in his ears. He cursed as he looked up trying to spot the gunships. Maybe the mercs had airborne support? If so, they were done and there was no way that they could survive.

"Aerial contact!" Clover yelled out. "Friendly!"

That was music to Kadians ears. He looked up and smiled to see a Kodiak fly in with a gunner firing at the merc forces. They finally got an upper hand.